No one is going to mistake Zombie Lake for anything other than what it is: a Z-grade horror film.
About a decade after World War II, the inhabitants of a French village are being attacked by zombies dressed in WWII-era German military uniforms. The zombies emerge from a lake on the edge of the village. For some reason — and I’m going to chalk this up to horny filmmakers — any woman who goes anywhere near the lake is compelled to take her clothes off and jump into the muddy water. Of course, the zombies don’t seem to mind this type of behavior.
A reporter shows up to investigate the attacks. She seeks out the village’s mayor (Howard Vernon), who tells her the lake’s lurid history. Apparently, a long time ago, black masses and human sacrifices were held there. And, he also tells her the story of a group of German soldiers who were killed by French resistance fighters and thrown in the lake.
His tale of the German soldiers includes a love story. One of the Germans risks his life to shield a woman from injury during a firefight. They end up falling in love and, after an awkward sex scene where the soldier does little more than rub his face on her breasts, the woman gets pregnant and gives birth to a girl named Helena. The woman dies after giving birth but Helena eventually gets to meet her father when he returns to town with his murderous zombie buddies. And, strangely enough, he wants to be friends.
I’m not sure how long it took to film Zombie Lake but I’m going to assume it was thrown together pretty quickly. Its budgetary shortcomings become apparent the first time a zombie appears onscreen. After spending over a decade submerged in the lake, the zombified soldiers haven’t decayed at all. Instead, they have turned varying shades of green thanks to some poorly applied greasepaint. The only giveaway that they are supposed to be zombies is their shuffling gait and dime store makeup.
There are plenty of easy-to-spot gaffes littered throughout the movie. Continuity errors are visible in almost every scene. (My favorite is when a resistance fighter steals one of the soldier’s boots before throwing him in the lake. Later, all of the zombie soldiers have their boots on. The lake’s regenerative powers apparently include footwear!)
I have to give the premise of the film some credit as its fairly imaginative (even though it’s poorly executed.) Sadly, though, there are many more laughs here than scares.
No one is going to mistake Zombie Lake for anything other than what it is: a Z-grade horror film. But fans of such schlock will find it massively entertaining.
1.0 out of 5.0 stars
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