Zombie Lake is not a very good movie. It is only occasionally interesting - every once in a while there is a disorienting, just plain "off" vibe that is intriguing. But mostly, it's pretty stagnant and unexciting. The gore is pretty weak, as is the story - not that it's incoherent. It just feels like there was the bare minimum of effort put in to even *tell* a story. And the zombie makeup is borderline unacceptable. (I don't know who you report crappy zombie makeup to, but consider yourself warned, Zombie Lake.) There is a surprising amount of nudity though (all female, of course). Maybe the idea was to try and distract you from its many faults? Which may or may not work, depending how you feel about that sort of thing.
The film is about about a lake with some zombies in it. They got there "during the war" when some French villagers ambushed and killed a half-dozen German soldiers. The villagers didn't want any other Germans rolling through and torching the place, so they decided to hide the bodies by tossing them into a nearby lake. And now, "ten years later," they're back. (I had this pegged as taking place in the 70's, what with the technology and the cars, but if you believe the film it must be the 50s.) There's no reason given for the zombies' return - no toxic waste dumping or weirdo cult stuff - they're just rising from their watery grave and killing people. Although the lake has a bad reputation (it's even known locally as the "Lake of the Damned") so it's unclear if this has been an issue before. Look, a lot of Zombie Lake is unclear, all right? You just have to roll with it.
The first thing you notice about Zombie Lake is the nudity - it wastes little time getting to a nude woman sunbathing. (I was thinking to myself "Oh, France, you scamps with your blase attitude towards nudity.") And I'm used to seeing full frontal nudity in these sorts of things, the camera lingering a little too long on the pubic hair, whatever. But Zombie Lake takes things a step further by following our sunbather into the lake as she goes skinny dipping - and shooting upwards at the young lady. Imagine the motions you make while treading water... so you end up with more of an eyeful than you usually get - even by the standards of a Jean Rollin film. He's certainly no stranger to using oft-naked women in his films, but I was expecting more of a deft or artsier touch. Here, it feels a bit exploitative - and perhaps even the driving force behind the film. And then, after a bit of skinny dipping, she's killed by zombies. Which in this film means "thrashes around a bit while a zombie holds her."
In fact, if you consider the girls basketball team that goes into the lake a little later on, you could accurately say that totally nude swimmers are the zombies' main source of food in this film. Or actually, main victims - you expect zombies to eat people, but it's not really clear what they are doing here. Maybe a bite, but there's no gut-munching to be found. Late in the film, they all seem content to drink blood out of a bowl, so who knows?
So, zombies and a lot of nudity... sounds okay? But it doesn't work out that way. The zombies kind of suck. Some of them are just dudes painted green. And it's not water-proof makeup, which is a problem when your zombies live in a lake. There's more than one shot of a zombie emerging from the water and the makeup is clearly washing off. The ones with prosthetic makeup have the distinct look of green silly putty just haphazardly put on their faces. The whole visual approach to the zombies just tells me that the filmmakers just didn't care. Gore-wise, it's pretty bad too - the zombies just sort of press their mouths to the victims neck, and blood drips out - no fleshy bits or anything. They seem more like vampires at some points. And it'd be nice if there was "something" to explain what their deal is. The best you get is this well-crafted sign:
which is promptly knocked over and ignored by our first nude young lady en route to her doomed skinny dip. I mean, you get a backstory as to who they were when they were alive, but no attempt to explain why they're around now. I can take ambiguity when it seems like it's intentional and other parts of the film are well thought out, but here it just seems like laziness.
It's too bad, because I've definitely liked what I've seen from director Jean Rollin in the past. He seems pretty adept at blending artsiness and horror to a uniquely disconcerting effect. And there's a little of that here. This is most apparent in the score, which is just sort of in shambles, for lack of a better term. It's mostly jangled, unstructured guitars and an orchestra more intent on making noise than following any one specific tune. It's unsettling, and even though the zombie attacks are weak, thanks to the tunes it was the only (non-nudity) times of the film that really made me perk up.
But still, Zombie Lake has the feel of a half-assed attempt. It's just kind of lazy, and lacks any sort of visual hook, crazy style, bizarre performance, or interesting story that something like this needs to make it worth a watch.
I would not recommend this film.
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