Wicked Lake

source: Wicked Lake

If not the best, certainly in the top 10,000 horror movies of 2008. Made on a budget of maybe 12 dollars, I'd be shocked if this movie didn't double or even triple it's budget in revenue. Solid acting, scares, and quality nudity are not present here which leaves the audience to immerse themselves in the story. There isn't much of a story as the writers instead chose to keep it simple and kind of just say "whatever". Call it minimalism. The highlight is one particular actor (you'll know him when you see him). Likely mentally ill in real life, he comes off so bizarre that I actually questioned my own sanity as I watched the film transpired. I'd recommend this movie to people who are sick of good acting, good storylines, and enjoyable experiences.

I've seen a lot of bad movies over six decades, but this is the first that I find truly detestable. Yes, it's incompetently made—terrible acting, muddy photography, plus non-existent script. But what really disgusts me is the celebration of sadism in so many bloody forms. In fact, that's what the execrable 90-minutes really glories in. Then too, mix all the pain and blood with * scenes that never get past the teasing stage, and you've got the truly dreadful. Heck, even the bare breasts lost any allure. There is, however, a subtext that in the hands of a competent filmmaker might have been worth salvaging. Something about abused girls finding the strength to finally fight off their red-neck abusers. But that would have meant putting this crew back in the playroom, and hiring the merely adult. All in all, I'm ashamed to admit I watched this aborted mess. But if I can warn just one person away, it may be worth it.

I came across this flick at the local shop and picked it up due the reason that Jourgensen of Ministry was involved in this flick for making the score. But don't think to get some industrial sound. On the other hand on the end credits it was stated as dedicated to Paul Raven. Raven I have met in the 90's backstage with his band Killing Joke. Sadly the bass player died a heart attack in 2007. But back to the flick. Wicked Lake is a weird flick to review because it has something to do with horror and on the other hand it has a bit of comedy and a lot of nudity. People who are raised in the nineties surely will remember The Craft (1996). With the new era of horror due Scream (1996) producers were searching were they could pick up some money, the answer was simple, teenagers. So with The Craft the decided to give the boys some sexy girls going into a coven. The Craft worked out fine but it was low on gore and didn't had any nudity in it so Little Witches came out the same year. That flick had a bit of nudity but was also low on gore. Wicked Lake, I see that as a follow-up to previous flicks. The flick starts of immediately with some jugg shots so you know what you could expect. The story itself isn't original but overall the flick takes too long before things go wrong. There's a lot of gratuitous nudity to keep you attracted but also you have to wait until the last part to see some gory shots. The acting of some was a bit mediocre and the way the reflect the rednecks was exaggerated. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke but for me it didn't work. The guy hanging on the door do say some funny things but I couldn't laugh with it. The story itself is a bit of a revenge movie. The 4 girls going to a cabin were they are confronted with some guys who want to have sexual pleasures with the girls. But the girls are waiting until midnight because they have supernatural powers. On the aspect of the red stuff, it flows but as I said you really have to wait until the last part. Some slaying are indeed a bit gory but I guess most people (read guys) will watch it to see some scantily clad girls. I noticed Carlee Baker (Mary) who went further to feature in The Women (2011). And then you see how small the world is, Angela Bettis was in The Women too. Mike McKee (Cyrus) did appear in May (2002) together with Bettis. So I guess it's a bit of all friends coming together. To cut the crap, it's a slow and sometimes boring flick with some exaggerated scene's and at the end the gory shots but overall, it's also one for the guys to see some girls naked in lesbian affairs and some slow motion shots, Tossers will be joining this! Gore 2/5 Nudity 3/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0,5/5

Exploitation movies are a special genre. They don't need great acting - and this movie has terrible acting, which is par for the course. It also has lousy writing, stupid plot twists and cheap cinematography. All these things are only to be expected in this genre. What you really need in an exploitation movie is, well, some exploitation. Buckets of blood, lashings of sleazy sex, and overall a movie that will horrify good, decent citizens everywhere. And that's where this movie falls down, sadly. It has lesbians - coy lesbians, who kiss each other quite nicely, but don't show TOO much skin, and never seem to get past kissing. It has distinctly un-scary vampires, a bunch of hillbillies who are just gross and sweaty rather than scary, and the gore is laughably fake, and again, not too excessive. The thing is, excess is what exploitation movies are all about. There's a lot of potential in this movie's Suspiria-meets-Deliverance plot, but for some reason the film-makers didn't have the courage of their convictions. Maybe there's someone out there who can take the same premise, and do it sexier, nastier - and better.

Four lesbian girlfriends go on vacation to a lakeside cabin getaway only to be accosted by Caleb, an extremely shy classmate of one of the girls, and his incredibly horny dysfunctional family. The chicks aren't damsels-in-distress for long as when they decide to get revenge, all hell breaks lose. Some editing and pacing issues hamper the movie from being as good as it seems to have wanted to have been, as does a lack of sympathy for any of the characters, and a tired lame sub-plot involving two cops who are merely obvious cannon fodder. The highlight of the film for me was less what was going on in the movie and more the great soundtrack score via Ministry's Al Jourgensen, which I just hoped would be in a better movie. Eye Candy: Carlee Baker, Eryn Joslyn, Eve Mauro, and Robin Sydney all provide T&A (Robin I saw topless before in "Big Bad Wolf", the other three are baring for the first time) There's also nudity in some of the extras (noted with an asterisk) My Grade: D+ DVD Extras: Optional Intro by Al Jourgensen; commentary with Director Zach Passero, Actresses Robin Sydney, Carlee Baker, & actor Justin Stone; 19 & a half minutes of bloopers & deleted scenes*; photo gallery; Advanced trailer* & theatrical trailer* for this film; and Trailers for "The Oracle", "Love me deadly"*, "Blood Sisters", & "Witchery"*

the entire movie seems like it was an attempt to get a few girls naked. the plot is horrible. the acting is worse. looks like it was filmed on the cheapest camera available. the soundtrack was the best part of the flick, and even it wasn't that great. i'd rather have my eyes gouged out than be exposed to the shittiness of this movie again. i regret paying the price of the rental. it was like paying to be insulted. over and over again. if i had wanted * i'd have stuck to the internet. to be honest, i could probably find a better quality movie on youtube. i sincerely hope that no one ever pays to see this movie again. i hope even more that no one ever gives the hacks that made this piece of crap enough money to make another movie ever again. i've seen better from first year film students.

You gotta love a movie that has nudity in its very first scene- 20 seconds into the movie. A * model in an art class befriends some shy loser (who overacts terribly by the way). We get to meet his family as he arrives home after dropping off the girl at her place. He's abused by his controlling brother. Another brother has some mental and muscular issue and constantly twitches. Their dad in wheelchair is a sick dirty old man, a gun-wielding war veteran. These guys are rather dumb and are meant to be inject some humor. We also get to meet the model and her friends: three smoking-hot babes who are also lovers. The girls decide to go on a trip to a cabin by a lake in a gorgeous classical car. On the way they stop at a gas station and tease and annoy the hillbilly attendants. While they drive or when they stop for a while they take time to frolic with each other. Eventually they arrive at the cabin and spend some time bathing in the lake. While the girls are enjoying themselves at night, someone knocks on the door. It's the family of idiots, who disappointed that the girls aren't into, them start getting violent. The model ends up being killed. So the other girls plan and eventually succeed in avenging her death. Things get quite gory here and it turns out the girls have some supernatural powers. Out of nowhere, two cops happen to be on the trail of our girls, too. They discover blood, teeth, and some evidence of foul play. When they get to the cabin, the older cop is killed immediately and the young one is captured not before he kills two of the girls. The remaining girl wants to use him before midnight to bring back her dead friends back to life through witchcraft. Last minute he escapes but someone will show up to help the witch in the end. This movie is lower budget. Despite the budget, the movie looks very good. The main characters, the 4 girls and a couple of the other characters act very well. It's all about the girls of course and they do a great job. They are beautiful, fun, mischievous, and sexy. The love scenes among the girls are very erotic and well shot. The comedic bits aren't all the effective, but the gore is good. There are too many characters here and not enough story and character development. It would have been nice to learn something specific about each girl, or some background about the bad guys. Also missing is a sense of fear that should have been there while the girls were captured. They are terrorized but it lacks impact. There are some good gore scenes, like a head exploding in a microwave. And also some effective horror scenes involving one of the witches appearing behind the cop. Despite the shortcomings, I liked this movie a lot. You can't take you eyes away from these girls- they are not your typical Hollywood bimbos, but have natural beauty and personality. This movie represents what B-movies should be about: blood, guts, gore, and pretty girls. Not sure why there isn't full frontal nudity though. The movie is unrated/ hard-R rating yet the camera and editor are at pains to keep things above the waist. Why not take full advantage of the rating. Yet male genital props are shown for some reason. I'm looking forward to future releases from this crew and hopefully a sequel to this movie. There's a lot of potential and skill. Most importantly this is a good start in resurrecting fun horror movies- a genre has been neglected while lame teen PG-13 "horror" as been favored.

Unbelievable that a movie this amateurish even got a decent release, I purchased this clunker at Best Buy. How does this kind of thing even get released? Simple plot about vacationing girls "molested" by local redneck punks is needlessly complicated by boring supernatural twist and "cops" on their trail. Long, boring, and tedious with a coupla gore FX thrown in from Halloween Express, this thing looks like it was shot on VHS tape or a low pixelated DVD-R camcorder. The tone- unbelievable! Was it a comedy? An Ed Wood attempt? Or was all the stupidity accidental? One minute it's serious, one minute it's slapstick, the next...who knows, it's just completely confusing. The lead gals are lookers and the nudity is nice, but they aren't into their parts or the "lesbian" scenes enough to make it worth your time. I'm floored the lead singer of MINISTRY contributed some halfway decent music to this production, or the camcorder makers just stole it, synced it up, and put his name on it. Ineptitude of the highest order, I certainly hope this team of wannabes does not embark on any more ventures, pleeeeeze, I wrote all your names down so I will avoid all future projects each and every one of you "behind the sceners" are involved in. WICKED LAKE gives horror flicks...camcorder flicks...and underground movies...the cliché negative reputation it deserves because so many hacks hawk up luggies like this smegma. Stay far away from this thing, and shame on FANGORIA magazine for giving the camcordermakers so much publicity! Shame on everyone involved for making such crud! I'm telling you, you can't imagine how inane this thing is til ya try to sit through it...Ugh!

Wicked Lake is frankly just a horrible and boring movie. The cast of young women is attractive but the characters are too shallow to care about and the so-called psychopaths are just stupid. i truly hate this film and I hope that there is never a sequel to it. very boring junk with a slick poster and DVD cover to lure in audiences. such a waste of time. i can't believe how bad it turned out to be. stay far away from this movie!!!! also there is a scene where a feminine dude literally cries (while running) at the camera for five whole minutes and you my mouth was open the whole time in shock. ughhhh!!!!!! Score: 0.5/10