Zombie Lake (1980)

The most terrifying zombie massacre ever to come to the screen! In a small lakeside town in the French countryside, young women are disappearing without a trace. The superstitious locals blame "The Lake of Ghosts," but the town's mayor (Howard Vernon) seems reluctant, or powerless, to take any action. When another girl is found with her throat ripped out, a Paris reporter begins to uncover the deadly secrets of the lake and the dead, green-faced Nazis who are aroused to action!

not as bad as

This movie is not as bad as many fo the no budget made to video on video tape movies that you see in the video stores. It's supposed to be taking place in the 1950's but it's hard to tell because the clothes and cars are from 1980 the year this movie was made. It was made on a shoestring budget and it's a bad movie but if you like bad horror movies and many of them are , then this isn't the worst movie of all time. I believe it was directed by jean rollin who is a french director under a different name. This is a FRENCH HORROR MOVIE not a italian one.
He makes alot of french horror films that usually feature vampires. Jean did the best he had with no budget and it does however have the great late howard vernon in this movie. He graced many a low budget horror flick and whatever he's in he adds his classy presence at least. I personally thought the zombie father reuniting with his daughter added pathos to the movie and made it a little better flick than if that scene wasn't in the movie. I don't think that we should be overly critical of lowbudget horror movies after all we live in a time where lowlife rappers are held up as talented. If you want to see a good jean rollins movie watch the Grapes of death or Fascination. Jean rollins always likes to add nudity to his movies and that's in this movie in abundance. Because the europeons are ages ahead of us in tolerance of nudity it was no big deal to have nudity in a zombie movie in 1980. This is one of three movies in which zombie nazi's attack people and this one was influenced by the much better shockwave from 1976 and was contemporary with the lower budget Oasis of the zombies. Making this a loosely related trilogy , and that if you cut it some slack is enjoyable for what it is: a very low budget nazi zombie in the lake movie. September 2, 2008

I love this movie

Someone had really taken the time to think this through and create synergies out of pure concepts ...

For example, in the opening scene, you have:

1). a beautiful scenery in a late afternoon.
2). a beautiful lake in France, ducks swimming.
3). a beautiful natural looking girl in her early 20's with no makeup, natural long hair and long legs with a pair of short walking down the woods, she is careful in stepping around the logs so she doesn't fall down and gets hurt.
4). Mixed this up with a studio musician showing off his/her beautiful jazz keyboard phrasing in a double octave style of Antonio Carlos Jobim against a slow walking base line ...

and you have a synergy that creates value for the viewer.

Even in the very opening scene where you only see the pond and the duck, with nothing else, by mixing the beautiful jazz keyboard with an orchestra in the back (or may be some fancy synthesizer); it signals to you something beautiful is about to happen; then the movie follows with a beautiful girl coming to your company, she is careful that she doesn't get hurt dripping down the woods, she could be your daughter, your lover etc.

And if that doesn't doing it for you, she also takes off her cloth ...

This is American for you, they really know how to make a movie. Note: she doesn't just takes off your cloth, she looks around and make sure no body is around first ...

Whether you are a young lad looking for a lover or a young father with a loving daughter, you will relate to the story very well. April 21, 2008

So bad on so many levels

Saw this movie over the weekend and had to write a review before other people made the same mistake I did.

Firstly, this only gets 2 stars from me because of the nudity; other than that the movie is simply laughable.

The special effects are horrible. The acting is something you'd expect from foreign films made in the 80's. The make-up is a bloody joke! The "zombies" are nothing more than guys in Incredible Hulk-colored make-up wearing something that's supposed to be a Nazi uniform. (in one scene, an underwater zombie has an eyeball painted over his closed eyelid; guess the actor couldn't open his eyes in a tank-as opposed to a lake, where the scene was supposed to have been) The zombies attacking people are pathetic too as the zombie is clearly "spitting" on their victim; emptying his mouth of blood-stuff on the victim's neck and smearing it around with his lips (some good editing might have fixed this problem).

The storyline is a little flacid too, especially when you consider the movie being made in the 80's and the Nazi's being around in the 40's. How long ago what the film supposed to have taken place? Says "present day" in the film, so I assume it was the 80's; all the other information proves that. I must have missed something.

I fast-forwarded a lot of the movie. And I only got it because I thought it was a movie I saw as a kid that freaked me out. It certainly was not.

[...] For what we've got in movies today, this is NOT worthy of a buy. December 16, 2007

Some movies should not have made it past VHS.

I rented this flick cause at the time it had 2 and a half stars. Wow was I horribly mislead. Some have said this is so bad it's funny. However unless your high...very high, I don't think you'll find the humor in it. Sure it has lots of attractive naked women, but the quality is so poor I can't even recommend it for that. Your better off surfing the net for porn. The sound effects were so bad, were talking sounds of someone splashing around in the bathtub for the lake scenes. There is no gore, infact the closest they come to it is a splash of `blood' on a victims neck. It's boring, drawn out, and really the only positive thing I can take from this film, is the hope that I will spare some of you the wasted time and money. April 22, 2007

bizzare, nazi zombie love story

if you havent seen zombie lake, but have heard of it, then your probably aware of its reputation as the worst zombie movie ever made. i will admit that this is probably one of the worst movies i have ever seen, but i think people are way to harsh on this film. the movie is about nazi zombies attacking skinny dippers in a lake somewhere in france. theres some weird side story involving one of the zombies and his daughter, but i am not going to get into all that. the zombies themselves look really cool in my opinion. their bright neon grren skin is pretty cool looking in my opinion. they look very menacing rising out of the lake. speaking of the lake, the underwater scenes were were obviously shot in someones pool. you can even see under water lights. although the zombie makeup is good, thats the only good thing about the special effects, wich are limited to zombies spitting very fake looking blood on their victims neck. horrific acting, cheesy war flashbacks and bad special effects dont stop this from being a very entertaining zombie romp. theres one thing i forgot and thats the T and the A wich there is plenty of, wether its very revealing under water crotch shots or jiggling breasts, zombie lake is packed with gratuitouse female nudity. please give this film a chance! it has become one of my favorites and you may enjoy it just as much as i do. October 9, 2006

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