Ghost Lake (2004)
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Ah yes, it’s been a while since I've seen such a solid comedy such as Ghost Lake. Oh wait, it's not a comedy; it's a horror flick, but of course you'd never know it by the hilarious bad performances and silly special effects. The movie is based around a small house next to a lake that has a town actually beneath it. This is true, as Rushford Lake is an actual lake in western New York, which really has a couple towns within it.
The movie brushes over the history of the lake and add a supernatural twist to it by using the restless souls of those who died by the flood and create some kind of spiritual zombie flick. Originally I thought I was going to be viewing an actual zombie movie, but instead I got some blue-lookin dead people spewing water from their mouths. Don't let the cover and the very misleading quote on it fool you. Speaking of the quote, here's what it says: "One of the best horror movies I've seen this year." Now I can think of a number of reasons why this person would say such a thing.
1 - This was the first horror movie he saw after the new years
2 - The company that supplied the video paid him a nice fee
3 - He was drunk and-or high on something at the time of viewing
Either way, the point is painfully clear, and that is this flick far from being the "best" of anything, unless you're talking about bad acting or effects, then maybe it'd get within the top 5. Let me quickly brush over what I gathered from the plot: basically a young woman drives to an old family getaway after her parents die, and discover that the lake nearby has a horrible past involving a town being submerged, killing many innocent victims. Apparently after a certain number of years the spirits return in hopes of getting new bodies or something. Blah, blah, well that's enough of that. I have a number of problems with this flick.
Of course I've already mentioned the horrible acting and special effects, but another big problem is the fact that it's just too long. There are too many scenes of the lead talking up a storm to her co-star that just drags on and on. The movie is obviously trying too hard to be story-driven, leaving only a handful of scenes involving "scares". It's just too bad the only people that would care about the story are those that know of the actual legend and/or live around the lake.
Only thing this movie has going for it is the attractive lead chick and some decent "zombie" make-up. Sadly that's not enough to recommend this. I'd sooner recommend starring at the ceiling fan for two hours than wasting time on this.