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ZOMBIE LAKE aka ZOMBIE'S LAKE - 1981
Eurocine / Image Entertainment
Rating: USA: R |
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Don't you hate the French? Man, I sure do. They're rude, they disagree with everything
we say and, to top it all off, they rip off our underwater Nazi zombie
movies!
ZOMBIE LAKE was directed by Jean Rollin (who has lots of aliases) and written by Julian Esteban and Jesus Franco
(VAMPIRE JUNCTION, VAMPIRE BLUES, LUST FOR FRANKENSTEIN). Mr. Franco has more than twice as many aliases as Mr. Rollin, by the way.
The story opens with a beautiful young girl preparing for a skinny dip in a pretty
swampy looking pond. I wouldn't swim in it but if she wants to get naked
I'm not going to argue the point. She jumps in and is quickly pulled under
by something beneath the pond scum. The something is an undead German
soldier, better known as a UNZ (Underwater Nazi Zombie). You can't see a UNZ and not think of 1977's SHOCK WAVES, a movie about a group of tourists shipwrecked on an island
that just happens to be where an SS officer has hidden the Third Reich's
UNZ's. But maybe the similarity is just a coincidence.
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A few townspeople notice the girl is missing but don't seem especially concerned (one
guy says, "If she doesn't turn up by tomorrow I'll call the mayor.")
But then there's a zombie attack in broad daylight and another woman is
killed. This is our first good look at these UNZ's and they have dark
green faces. But to show how truly low budget this movie is: the green
make-up is only on the face, not the neck.
The citizens of this unhappy lakeside village bring the body of the second victim to
the Mayor (Howard Vernon: SHE DEMONS, LES POSSÉSEDÉES
DU DIABLE, LE MIROIR OBSCÈNE, REVENGE OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, THE
SINISTER DR. ORLOFF, FACELESS, IN THE EYE OF THE SNAKE), who apparently
needs a lot of motivation before he takes action. Later, a reporter shows
up and the mayor tells her a story about how a group of French partisans
killed the Nazi soldiers and dumped their bodies in the lake, apparently
forgetting the anti-zombie spray or something. One of the German soldiers
(Pierre-Marie Escourrou) was in love with a local girl (Anouchka:
SEXO CANÍBAL) - who, in real history, the other villagers
would have killed for collaborating with the enemy - and she died not
long after he was killed, so one of the UNZ's is still looking for his
lost love. Ain't that romantic?
This, in case I haven't made it clear, is a very bad movie. It's poorly dubbed,
has bad acting, very bad effects, and a ridiculous storyline. I did enjoy
the gratuitous nudity, especially when a van full of girl soccer players
pulls up at the lake so they can all go for a naked swim. This was well
into the movie after several people had died so you'd think someone would
put up a sign (maybe "No Swimming! Underwater Nazi Zombies!"). Speaking of nudity, ZOMBIE
LAKE has one of the strangest DVD extras I've ever seen (and I watch a lot of movies). The extra was called "clothed scenes". It was a collection of all the movie's nude scenes reshot with clothes
on, just in case you were watching some naked actress and thinking, "Yeah,
that's nice, but what would she look like with clothes on?"
Bizarre decisions like that are what makes me give ZOMBIE LAKE three negative shriek girls. It's so bad, it's good.
This review
copyright 2005 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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