Ghost Lake (2004)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches a zombie movie that is simultaneously an argument against the existence of zombie movies and a primer on how not to make a movie.

whoever said the quote evidently only saw one horror movie that year

Overview: Becky Haster is a young woman who's been through a lot lately. After taking care of her aging parents for several years, they die to a gas leak the one night she goes out. In her grief, she retires to her parents' lake cabin to get away from it all. Suddenly, murders, a whirlwind romance, and zombies ensue.

I don't, I don't!

What unfolds is a story that's more Agatha Christie than Stephen King as she tries to unravel the supernatural secrets behind the murders that only she can see. Helping her in her quest is a strapping neighbor by the name of Stan who is sort of the Scully to her Mulder, but the truth's a bit more complicated. More on that in the "My thoughts" section.

Notable moments/quotes: Becky's dad, to her as she's about to go out on the town: "Wow. You make me wanna stand up and kiss you."

The movie will frequently have Becky see her images of her parents, Sixth Sense style, haunting her. This lends some ambiguity to the movie, as she later sees murders from both past and future. Much more on this later.

(Context: Becky just nearly ran over Stan.) Stan: "You alright?"
Becky: "Sorry."
Stan Equipped "Opportunist" as his Current Title: "You don't have to be sorry for almost hitting me. Now, if you'd hit me, I'd hope you'd be fucking sorry. ...Can I get a ride?"

Becky: "You ever seen something that isn't there?"
Stan: "No. You?"
Becky: "...No."

Stan: "Don't be sorry anymore today. You don't have to be." They then hug, despite Stan having no idea what her deal is and having known each other for about five minutes.

Pictured: the movie's only good moment

Stan, at one point, mentions the sheriff is involved in a drug smuggling ring. This is never brought up again and has no significance to the plot whatsoever.

Dramatic or peaceful moments are frequently accompanied by weird, video gamey music. Not that I have an issue with video game music, but the music sounds like it came right out of Deadly Premonition and is just horribly ill-fitting.

"Zach, we found something with lower production values than us!"

Speaking of production values, shortly after Becky gets chased off a pier by an angry local yokel, he's murdered by the latest in $2.00 special effects.

so spoopy

Becky: "I have a confession to make. I haven't eaten."
Stan: "So you lied."
"Yeah."
"I like you better all the time."

I-cannot-air-quote-hard-enough "CRYPTIC" child: "You're a grownup. You can count to 13."

Doctor Who Isn't Even a Coroner: "The fishes had quite a taste for this one's face."

Without any prior buildup, Becky knows that a big scar over the ribs means the ribs were broken at one point and out-autopsies an actual doctor.

Old dude: "Why is all this happening?"
Becky, summarizing the writers' attitude towards the plot: "Understanding it doesn't matter, surviving it does!"

At the movie's climax, the zombies' plan is to have Becky kill herself. The movie never bothers to explain why. Becky's failure to drown herself also instantly destroys all the zombies except for one.

My thoughts: These people had no idea what they were doing.

With some movies, critical errors can cause a movie to be bad even with the best of intentions. Including a weird rabbit-thing for five-year-old level comic relief. Casting Nic Cage without the right director. Adapting your movie from a board game (although there's at least one exception). The list goes on and on. However, with this movie, the flimmakers were clearly making this shit up as they went along. I'm convinced that each scene was scripted in sequence without any thought to what came next. In example, well over half the movie features little to no horror, instead following Becky and Stan as they try to unravel the mystery of the titular lake's mysterious disappearances. Then, toward the end of the movie, they stop giving a shit about the cause (see the "Surviving it doesn't matter" quote in the previous section), characters switch allegiances at the drop of a hat, and the day is saved by a chain of logic so convoluted and a deus ex machina so contrived that even Sophocles would shake his head. There's a lot of points to pick apart, but I'm left at a loss, since the movie proudly declares it no longer gives a damn about making sense. On the one hand, I can't help but admire a movie taking such a bold stance, but on the other, if you have neither substance nor style nor basic logic, things have gone horribly awry.

here's Becky's mom dead...

...and then is she alive? undead? a ghost? fucking up the only take of the scene?

However, there is one moment in its nonsense I feel the need to pick apart. In one scene, Becky's been seeing ghosts and premonitions and other such things, and mentions she's had "episodes" before as she reaches for a bottle of pills that are presumably to treat a mental disorder. Stan encourages her, saying something along the lines of "If those can make it all go away, I say go for it." Now, at this point the movie had left it ambiguous whether or not all the supernatural crap was in Becky's head or not, so I found myself leaning in, interested. Was the movie actually going to handle something of depth? However, Becky rejects the pills, and the overall tone is triumphant, like Becky just refused meth, taking suicide, or otherwise "running away" from the situation. The movie seems to view facing whatever her own fucked-up reality is as "braver" than, y'know, actually treating it. It was at this point I began screaming at the screen.

Now, believe what you will about mental illness, but I have a family member and several close friends with these issues. I can't claim to speak for them, but I could very clearly tell whenever one was off his or her medication if his or her condition was serious. When I was young, I saw one particular acquaintance slump in a chair, despondent, and stare at nothing for the better part of an hour. No matter what I or another friend said, she sat there, dead-eyed to the world, determined not to take her medicine even if she was left more or less incapable of performing even the most basic action. That affected me deeply. I've also talked at least one (different) friend out of suicide when she was off her meds and felt she couldn't go on. So when this movie held up as its belief "Eh, you don't really need those medications, just stop feeling sad and crazy you lazy fucks" I disagreed. Violently. If the DVD of this I'd been watching hadn't been on loan from a buddy, I would have snapped it in half immediately after viewing out of sheer rage. Perhaps this is what the Tumblr mouthbreathers call being "triggered."

Now, don't mistake me: I don't believe that a movie showing a character doing something questionable automatically means that the filmmakers believe that that thing is justified. Movies do and should show people of extreme mindsets doing extreme things. If this movie had gone on to throw more doubt on Becky's motivations for doing so and explored the ramifications of her decision, that could have both made for a fascinating, mind-bending film and shown me that the filmmakers had a degree of separation from the character. However, when the movie simply shows her rejecting medication which presumably an actual doctor has prescribed to treat a real problem she has and never mentions it again, I'm not so sure. To me, this scene smacked of a little self-insertion of the worst fanfictiony type; I'm convinced that the writer had the same moment as Becky and chose to reject medication out of the simple belief that he/she didn't need it, nor does anyone. As explained above, I take issue with this, because I've seen the consequences of leaving a sick brain untreated in people I care deeply about. So to have this movie dismiss people who needed actual help in such a casual way, particularly when the climax of the movie has the character who rejected medication almost commit suicide, made me lose my temper just a bit.

Have I mentioned this movie is almost two hours long? If I weren't unemployed, I'd be pissed about having this much of my time wasted.

This movie also reminded me of an axiom I once heard about movies: "If there are multiple scenes of people parking, you know you're watching a bad movie." Well, this movie not only features parking scenes, but also features a, I shit you not, almost ten minute scene of Becky driving where nothing is happening on the screen. Sure, they use this time for the opening credits, but even just having credits over a black screen or going for something as contrived as Monty Python and the Holy Grail's opening credits. It's far worse, to me at least, to have the movie actively disappointing me rather than showing me nothing. At least the second way I'd have a better idea of the names for my revenge list fine people to thank for all their hard work on this creative endeavor.

this one screen is more entertaining than the entirety of Ghost Lake

In closing, this movie is bad. And I don't like it. Some movies are bad and fail so cataclysmically that every flubbed line and crappy effect elicits laughter. This movie just left me feeling bored and a little empty at the end, not unlike eating a meal composed entirely of plain oatmeal. Ghost Lake has a few moments of fun about it, but on the whole it has no idea what it's doing and fails to amuse or entertain. I give this movie a Nic Cage Beats Up an Old Man out of five. Facebook calls.

I'd like to give a big thank you to everybody who's supported me on Patreon so far. It means a great deal to me that y'all value these silly little reviews so much. I'd like to give special thanks to fanfic author Bradel, animu blogger Alexstasza, and fanfic author Short Skirts and Explosions for their very generous contributions. Check out their stuff; they're awesome folks!