Cabin by the Lake starts in a cabin by a lake (funnily enough) owned by horror film writer Stanley Caldwell (Judd Nelson) who is under pressure from his agent Regan Kendrick (Susan Gibney) to deliver his latest script titled The Garden of Flesh. However Stanley believes these things cannot be rushed & takes the credibility of his work very seriously so he does plenty of research to get things just right. For instance he has kidnapped a teenage girl named Kimberly (Daniella Evangelista) & has kept her imprisoned in a room chained to the floor. To continue & complete his research Stanley takes Kimberly out to middle of the lake, he ties a weight to her feet & chucks her into it. After observing Kimberly's reactions he thinks he can still learn more & kidnaps Mallory (Hedy Buress) to do the same to her, however she is rescued at the bottom of the lake by scuba diving Deputy Sheriff Boone Prescott (Michael Weatherly) while he is testing some special effect equipment out with his friends Duncan (Bernie Caulson) & Lauren (Colleen Wheeler). Since Stanley doesn't know that Mallory survived Deputy Prescott stages an elaborate trap, special make-up effect artists Duncan & Lauren construct a fake Mallory out of latex, they stick some cameras in it's eyes & chuck it into the lake. In theory the kidnapper will come back & they will have him on film, simple eh? Surely nothing can go wrong...
Directed by Po-Chih Leong I though Cabin by the Lake had potential but in the end fails to deliver. The script by David Stephens starts off very well as a decent straight horror film with Stanley killing someone early on & sets his eyes on Mallory but after she is rescued it becomes more of a dreary drama that goes nowhere. There are little bits of comedy here & there but it never goes all out for laughs & at the end of the day it comes across a bit uneven. It begins at a brisk pace but slows down, doesn't go anywhere & it goes on far what seemed like ages, the character's are somewhat annoying & no reasonable justification for what Stanley does is given & I'm not having the fact he needs to research a script as a believable reason for becoming a serial killer. Oh, & I hated the end too. On a positive note it's an OK watch, provides a certain amount of basic entertainment & there's nothing that wrong with it.
Director Leong films with a certain style & flair not usually associated with cheap made-for-TV films, there are some nice shots & angles & it's nice to look at. I loved the underwater photography & the garden he creates of floating bodies amongst aquatic plants, I'm not sure the water would be that clear though. There is very little tension or atmosphere as everything is revealed very early on & once the film settles down it's very dialogue driven. Forget about any violence or gore.
Techncially the film is pretty good & is better than you may expect from a TV film. The acting was annoying from everyone, Nelson is utterly forgettable & has no screen presence, Gibney as Stanley's agent is embarrassing to watch as she overacts & the teenage cast are unlikable.
Cabin by the Lake is an average film, it tries to mix horror, thriller & comedy but doesn't do a particularly great job. I think it's an OK time waster if your absolutely desperate but otherwise it has little by which I can recommend it.
Directed by Po-Chih Leong I though Cabin by the Lake had potential but in the end fails to deliver. The script by David Stephens starts off very well as a decent straight horror film with Stanley killing someone early on & sets his eyes on Mallory but after she is rescued it becomes more of a dreary drama that goes nowhere. There are little bits of comedy here & there but it never goes all out for laughs & at the end of the day it comes across a bit uneven. It begins at a brisk pace but slows down, doesn't go anywhere & it goes on far what seemed like ages, the character's are somewhat annoying & no reasonable justification for what Stanley does is given & I'm not having the fact he needs to research a script as a believable reason for becoming a serial killer. Oh, & I hated the end too. On a positive note it's an OK watch, provides a certain amount of basic entertainment & there's nothing that wrong with it.
Director Leong films with a certain style & flair not usually associated with cheap made-for-TV films, there are some nice shots & angles & it's nice to look at. I loved the underwater photography & the garden he creates of floating bodies amongst aquatic plants, I'm not sure the water would be that clear though. There is very little tension or atmosphere as everything is revealed very early on & once the film settles down it's very dialogue driven. Forget about any violence or gore.
Techncially the film is pretty good & is better than you may expect from a TV film. The acting was annoying from everyone, Nelson is utterly forgettable & has no screen presence, Gibney as Stanley's agent is embarrassing to watch as she overacts & the teenage cast are unlikable.
Cabin by the Lake is an average film, it tries to mix horror, thriller & comedy but doesn't do a particularly great job. I think it's an OK time waster if your absolutely desperate but otherwise it has little by which I can recommend it.