Welcome to Section 3, rest home for the near
nasties and non prosecutable film fodder to
keep those industrious boys in blue busy of
an evening.
This episode we step back into nazisploitation
territory with another nazi zombie epic from
the boys and girls at EuroCine.
So let's dive head first into the cinematic
excellence that is bound to be presented to
us as we take an ill advised skinny dip into
the zombie lake....
In a small French town people are turning
up dead, bitten on the jugular.
The locals begin to suspect the deaths are
caused by a relic of their war time past when
a German division was killed by them and dumped
into the nearby lake.
The lake, it appears, was used at some point
as part of some old magical ceremonies, and
its not quite finished with working its mojo.
As the dead resurrect, taking victims along
the way, one of the zombies takes an interest
in his remaining family member... can he be
the key to destroying the seemingly unstoppable
undead ghouls?
He we go with yet another high quality EuroCine
cinematic experience.
Zombie Lake is pure exploitation horror in
all its low budget glory and is very recognisably
a EuroCine product.
The story concerns the a small French Town
that's suffering the loss of several nubile
young girls who inadvisedly go skinny dipping
in the lake, though not before some playboy
model posing before they take that dip in
the murky waters.
The Mayor suspects that a combination of ancient
magical rites associated with the lakes and
the dumping of several German soldiers bodies
in the lake near the end of the war have resulted
in the soldiers coming back and committing
murder on those unwary nude models.
The story is tenuous to say the least and
has obviously been bolstered with a secondary
plot where one of the soldiers returns to
find his daughter.
Between this and the zombies on a food raid
it just feels like the two plots don't feel
quite like the gel together particularly well,
the extended flashback sequence that tells
us the back story is probably the most interesting
part, not least because it rather unusually
portrays the german soldiers mostly in a neutral
and in the case of one of the soldiers in
quite 
a positive light.
Zombie Lake is a confusing film in this regard,
why make the zombies Nazi's when you aren't
prepared to make use of the fact that they
are histories boogeyman.
As a consequence it's confusing as hell as
to what we are expected to think of these
characters.
On the positive side though it does rather
make for an interesting approach if nothing
else.
These issues aside what do we find with this
low budget undead nazi flick.....well in typical
eurocine fashion it's a decidedly insipid
affair for the most part.
Right from the opening we're treated to some
hamfistedly inserted gratuitous nudity, the
likes of which we can obviously see has been
put there for no other reason than to have
a skin on show....and fair enough, at least
it's not pretending to be anything else.
Incidentally it's worth mentioning the nudity
free version of the film.....all the girls
none of the boobs and bums, that makes this
film suitable for granny to watch.
Eurocine films all seem to have the slightly
over saturated colour, the terrible dubbing
and the tenuous story and Zombie lake is no
exception.
It's a bizarrely off kilter atmosphere as
people talk almost entirely out of time with
their lips and sometimes without moving their
lips at all, undead zombies attack the nubile
living giving the hicky from hell.
As zombie bites go these nazi zombies seem
to only be interested in a relatively minor
nibble to the neck and sometimes a gentle
dribble of blood will sate their evil appetites.
The 
effects are of course rather risible throughout
the movie, not only are the zombie for the
most part simply daubed unevenly with green
grease paint there is also the rather odd
underwater scenes.
Now although this is rather a cool idea, stolen
from Fulci of course but still not a bad idea...if
only they hadn't managed to entirely mismatch
the shots to a degree that makes them laughable.
The shots are taken in a swimming pool...you
can even see the walls of the pool on occasions
but worse than this is the fact that the outdoor
shots are taken on a gloriously sunny day
but look like a night time shot in the underwater
shot.
This is not to mention the murky water of
the real pond compared to the crystal clear
waters of the underwater shots.
Zombie Lake is an almost entirely insipid
film, it bimbles along in its own time going
through the motions and barely maintaining
any momentum.
Apart from anything the whole premise reeks
of who gives a crap.
There are strictly speaking no bad guys here
for some reason, the zombie Nazi’s have
a hero, if you can call him that, and the
rest of zombies really aren't that evil, they
just give out rather aggressive hickeys to
folks we neither know nor care about, they
are zombies after all and they were never
portrayed as evil when they were alive, quite
the opposite in fact, and the mayor and his
town folks just did what had to be done, though
dumping the bodies of nazi's in lake ancient
revival curse was probably a rather crappy
judgement call.
As the story goes it just feels like 3 separate
elements have been thrown in together haphazardly,
including what seems to be a naturist film
from the 50's. [clip]
The 
biggest flaw is that nothing seems to matter
and no one seems to care.
The mayor is discussing the impending zombie
invasion as if it's a concern with a troublesome
football match rather than the revival of
dead people with a hunger for human meat,
the towns people treat it little more seriously
than a burst water main, the reporter seems
to think flesh eating ghouls are worth dying
for in ridiculous fashion to get a picture
of and then there's the little girl, the little
girl is remarkably nonplussed by the presence
of dead people, I blame horror films for desensitising
her.
It all feel so low key, IT'S A ZOMBIE INVASION
FOR GOD SAKE, and worse than that it's a Nazi
zombie invasion, it's double the bastard quota!!!
SHOW SOME EXCITEMENT!
It's all round very muted in performances,
even the nude scene of frolicking nymphets
is as stilted and staged as the worst am dram
at the local theatre, The soundtrack is all
over the place ranging from a droning dirge
to an inappropriately jaunty number at will
the photography though, as is not uncommon
with EuroCine, is clear, crisp and colourful,
almost to a fault.
It almost feels like all the budget was blown
on cameras and the rest kinda was scrabbled
together.
Unfortunately this is one of those cases where
maybe the film could have gotten away with
a lot more, certainly in regards to the make
up, special effects and underwater scenes,
had it had a lower quality film stock and
equipment but lets not rag on the one thing
that displays any sign of quality in this
film shall we.
Once again it seems Eurocine have basically
taken several ideas and bundled them together
with an added, though rather camp, bonus of
exploitative nudity.
Where there are some bare bones of good ideas,
they're all too underdeveloped and randomly
cobbled together with lame dialogue and curiously
unerrotic nude scenes that are so obviously
stitched into sex up the proceedings but which
simply manage to come over as the kind of
films that Britain gave up on the late 50's.
I mean come on...volleyball and splashing
in the pond.
Team this up with the curious fact that there
is a nice nazi that actually makes silent
Bob seem like carrot top on speed knocking
about as a central character in this film
and it's all rather a mess at the end of the
day.
It doesn't work on any level really, it's
a wobbly story with tacked in unnecessary
elements that engages neither a story nor
the exploitation expectations of someone who
is likely to watch a film called Zombie Lake.
To call this a complete failure though would
be going too far, it does have a strange watchability
about it.
With the nude scenes ignored the film has
a curious atmosphere to it and it really doesn't
descend into utter boredom, it just never
rises to any level of excitement and it's
one of those films where you expect more to
happen then actually does.
Zombie Lake is overall a disappointing movie
with very little pay off even in terms of
the so bad it's good category of film viewing.
It's simply a cheap, not very well thought
out or made film with very little direction
or talent to make it remarkable.
It's one attempt at a decent idea, that of
underwater zombies (done by Fucli of course
but not to this extent) may have made this
more remarkable had it not been so laughably
realised... but one things for sure, I'll
just never be able to look at a public swimming
bath again in the same light.
