Ghost Lake (2004) (V)

User Rating:

2.3/10   

Director:

Jay Woelfel

Writer:

Jay Woelfel (writer)

Release Date:

26 April 2005 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Evil Rises.

Plot:

In a small town in upstate New York, local residents were drowned as a dam was built and the town was flooded to create the Rushford Lake. One hundred years later, the souls of the drowned are becoming restless...

Plot Keywords:

Lake | Death | Supernatural | Small Town | Accident

Cast

Tatum Adair	...	Rebecca Haster
Timothy Prindle	...	Stan James
Gregory Lee Kenyon	...	Sheriff Dobbs
Azure Sky Decker	...	Flora / Saundra Tompson
Chuck Franklin	...	Doctor Bloch
Damian Maffei	...	Young Fisherman / Son #2 on Boat
Dan Metcalf	...	Old Fisherman
Linda Brown	...	Ruth Haster
Raymond Suriani	...	Richard Haster
Rick Kesler	...	Reverend
Edward M. Valenta	...	Sexy Club Guy
Mary Ann Layman	...	Librarian
Carolyn Ricketts	...	Grandma Tompson
Richard M. Kennedy	...	Grandpa Tompson
Cindy Ohanian	...	Car Crash Wife

Also Known As:

The Empty Lake (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for horror images and some sexuality.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Norway:15 | UK:15 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Sweden:15 | Netherlands:16 (DVD rating) | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Rushford, New York, USA

Company:

Young Wolf Productions

Trivia:

Rebecca's cottage in the film was actually used as living quarters for nearly the entire first billed cast and the crew during filming. The garage to the next door cottage was initially used as the makeup and effects room, but was later moved to the basement of Rebecca's cottage.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Becky is confronting Flora/Saundra in the library, we see the dollhouse behind Becky. We already know there's no one else in the library except the librarian, yet when the camera is on Becky, you can see that someone playing with puppets in the attic window of the dollhouse.

Quotes:

Grandpa Tompson: Why is all this happening?
Rebecca Haster: Understanding it doesn't matter. Surviving it does.

Whoa!

Maybe a bit naive to think but I thought that amateur movies like this weren't made anymore in this era- and most certainly didn't received a global release.

The movie really surprised me how incredible amateur looking this movie was. Not only with its acting and visual style but also with its technical aspect, such as the editing, camera-positioning. Especially the editing is extremely lacking at times. It makes some sequences come across as disjointed and confusing. Also the weak camera-positioning most certainly doesn't help all of the sequences. At times the movie really looks and feels as if it was being made by a couple of high school students who decided to pick up a camera and start shooting an horror movie.

The movie just isn't ever tense, scary or mysterious, were also lies a big problem of the movie obviously. For a genre movie it just does basically everything wrong to reach a good enough and effective end result.

The musical score is also quite horrendous. It's a very simple typical kind of movie score, that is too prominently present at times when nothing is happening in the movie and not present at all- or not good enough at the tense or scary moments of the movie. The music has some huge misses in the movie, it could had truly enhanced some of the scare moments and tension of the movie at times.

Of course the story also doesn't help much. The movie doesn't have the most incredible pace and story-flow. The movie also tries to be more clever than it really is, by putting in many plot twists and making things seem different than they truly are. Without doubt they also did this to make the movie original. The result however isn't much good, since it makes the movie unnecessarily difficult to follow, especially toward the end, when twists and false twists follow each other rapidly. Through the many twists the movie also starts to make less and less sense. The movie is filled with some gaping holes and the more you actually start thinking about the story, the less sense it starts to make. Not only are there many improbabilities but also many things that just plain good old fashioned plot holes, mistakes and other things that don't make much sense.

Judging by looking at this movie Mr. Woelfel (is that even a real name?) watched a bit too many Japanese horror and John Carpenter movies. In its style it mostly tries to impersonate Japanses movies and in its story, storytelling and characters it mostly tries to impersonate John Carpenter horror movies. Nothing wrong with impersonate different styles and applying them to your own style film-making but the style just doesn't work out, mainly due to its poor budget, weak editing and story-flow. It's perhaps even a bit sad to see at times how hard they tried, without a good result.

I had no idea who Jay Woelfel was before this but looking at his filmography he seems like a regular B-horror movie maker, who just isn't the most talented or visionary person around, no matter how hard he ever tries. He is one of those typical persons who thinks he can write, direct, produce, edit and compose all of his own movies. And does he think he is Brian De Palma, with using all those redundant and completely pointless split-screen shots that don't add anything at all? Yep, I think I'm going to watch more Woelfel movies alright.

Yes, it's true that the movie is so bad at times that it becomes good. It's unintentionally funny at times, due to how clumsy it is made and how bad the acting and dialog are. Who ever told those persons in this movie that they could act in movies? Granted that the script with its many weak and often pointless dialog also doesn't help them much but honestly, it's obvious as well that the actors just don't have the talent for the job.

On a positive note, the make-up effects are quite good looking. Same goes for the simplistic but effective special-effects.

With the same story material but more money and real professionals involved this movie possibly could had been a perfectly good genre movie to watch. But not now.

2/10