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Blood Lake (1987)

Rate: 2
Viewed: 4/25

4/25: It's pretty easy to make a slasher film.

Blood Lake shows anyone how. Shot on location in Cedar Lake of Canadian County, Oklahoma, it goes well at first with some of the dialogue being funny. By the time everybody is boating and water skiing, the momentum starts to go away. It's made worse when they gather around the table to play quarters. The film is back on track in the last twenty minutes, but the killer named Jed looking out in front of the drained lake is pointless.

The biggest issue is editing. It sucks so bad that the filmmakers should've learned how to storyboard. That starts with watching Alfred Hitchcock's most famous films, most especially the shower scene in Psycho. All of the kills in Blood Lake are badly done. I'm surprised that nobody tried to study Friday the 13th movies over and over to understand what it takes to get the money shot.

I give credit Doug Barry (Mike) for setting the tone. The rest of the cast is either okay or pitiful. But they need to know how to produce appropriate reaction for different situations. For instance, two dead bodies are pointed out to Doug Barry, and all he can feel is "That's too...bad." Being scared or shocked isn't hard, and it's called "practicing."

After what happened, no cops show up to investigate. Hm...plausible? Doug Barry, who also wrote the script, would want to redo the scenario. Good horror movies have definite villains. Think of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Candyman. But Blood Lake? Nope, Jed gets my vote for the most underwhelming killer of all time in silver screen history.

All in all, I don't mind the cheap quality of Blood Lake, but it could've been done a lot better if everything was developed to the fullest before going ahead to shoot the film.

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