Le lac des morts vivants (1981)

User Rating:

2.5/10   

Director:

Jean Rollin

Writers:

Julián Esteban (story)
Jesus Franco (writer)

Release Date:

13 May 1981 (France)

Genre:

Horror | War

Tagline:

God help us if they rise again!

Plot:

In a small village, somewhere in France, German soldiers, killed and thrown into the lake by the Resistance during WW II, come back.

Plot Keywords:

France | Village | Lake | Soldier | Zombie

Cast

Howard Vernon	...	The Mayor
Pierre-Marie Escourrou	...	German Soldier (as Pierre Escourrou)
Anouchka	...	Helena
Antonio Mayans	...	Morane (as Robert Foster)
Nadine Pascal	...	Helena's Mother
Youri Radionow	...	Chanac (as Youri Rad)
Burt Altman
Gilda Arancio	...	Blonde Girl Swimmer
Marcia Sharif	...	Katya
Yvonne Dany
Jean Rene Bleu
Jean Rollin	...	Stiltz
Edmond Besnard	...	Promizoulin
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
René Douglas
Julián Esteban
Alain Petit
Jean Roville
Claude Sendron

Also Known As:

Zombie Lake (International: English title) (USA)
El lago de los muertos vivientes (Spain)
The Lake of the Living Dead
Zombies Lake (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

90 min | Germany:71 min | Spain:88 min | Argentina:89 min | UK:83 min

Country:

France | Spain

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:18 | USA:Not Rated | Germany:16 (heavily cut) | Germany:Not Rated | France:-12 | West Germany:16 | Argentina:18 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Ontario) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

Eurociné

Trivia:

The medallion which the French girl gives to her German soldier lover is actually a finger rosary; hence the ten small balls around the outside.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Set in the 1950s, this movie reveals modern housing, roads, signs, etc.

Quotes:

Morane: So, you think that ghosts killed them?
The Mayor: Yes, that is what I think.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Død snø (2009)

Another Z-movie Eurocine triumph

The most seen (although not exactly appreciated) film of French producers Eurocine- responsible for numerous sex, horror, spy and adventure films. In their Seventies heyday Eurocine seemed like the illegitimate child of sensational pulp paperbacks of the Fifties and Sixties. Always put together cheaply and rough looking but always with great packaging, embracing the sort of lurid subjects that always grabbed the public's attention, if not their intelligence. With Zombie's Lake, subjects didn't come more sensational than `mad murdering Zombies' ogling and picking off semi-nude women. During the end of the Second World War, the French resistance manages to dispose of the local Nazis and throw their bodies into the lake of the title. The lake was previously used for witchcraft, so many years later the (green!) undead Nazi Zombies are rising from the lake, and chewing down on the most of Eurocine's repertory players including the director (putting in a cameo as a detective). Oh and you just have to mention their attack on the local female netball team, all of whom just love to go swimming naked in the lake, even though its possibly the most dirtiest lake ever committed to celluloid. On the side of the living are local villagers lead by the Mayor (the late, great Howard Vernon) who gets the immortal line `we better face the facts that the Zombies have declared war'. Along the way we're treated to some truly appalling makeup and lots of fun in watching drunken looking Frenchmen with green muck on their faces pretend to terrorise people. The films most notorious moment rests with the nude swimming scenes viewed from the Zombie's point of view at the bottom of the lake, and accompanied to Europop at its most wincing (`la, lala, lala la la'). Just to make your life that little more miserable, many versions of the film are missing all the nude scenes, being replaced by softer out-takes of the girls in ghastly ill- fitting underwear. Otherwise the bane of this prosperous films existence is the subplot a `touching' relationship between a little girl and her Nazi /Zombie dad. Largely unnecessary to the film although when you realise that the little girl (Anouchka Lesoeur) is the daughter of the producer it becomes obvious why its there. On a technical level the film is a nightmare, Eurocine in the best `recycled vinyl blues' tradition couldn't make a new hit film without recycling several others. Hence the main theme music is taken from Eurocine's Female Vampire, and the WW2 footage from a war film (Convoy of Girls aka The Depraved Third Reich to be precise). Backstage tales of how quick and cheap the movie was put together are legion - the original director Jesus Franco disappeared before the film started, leaving his replacement Rollin with a two week shooting schedule and a script he hadn't even read. Given these conditions that any aspect of the film is memorable is remarkable. Perhaps its better to view the film's merits- compared with its forgetable `cousin' The Oasis of the Zombies- the film Jesus Franco did make when the Eurocine producers caught up with him, which resurrects the Nazi Zombie theme as well as lots of recycled WW2 footage. Both remain the two directors worst commercial work, but Oasis is a stone dead boring 90 minutes, while Zombie's Lake is full of many absurd moments that keep the film from ever being dull and the green zombies are a hoot. Although only recommended to the truly die-hard the end results are a perversely entertaining last blast from the golden era of the European horror movie.