(aka Zombies' Lake/Le Lac De Morts Vivants/The Lake Of The Living Dead)
1980
France
Director: J.A. Lazer (Jean Rollin)
Cast: Howard Vernon, Nadine Pascale,
Jean Rollin, Anouchka
 OK COUNT THEM NOW! |
 LET'S DO THE ZOMBIE SHUFFLE
|
OK COUNT THEM NOW! |
LET'S DO THE ZOMBIE SHUFFLE
|
Buy.
A nosy reporter turns up to research the myth of "The Lake of Ghosts" and the mayor (Howard Vernon) dishes the dirt about how the lake is full of nazi ghosts. One of whom whilst his unit was retreating from the village during the war, saved a young village girl, fathered a daughter with her, he fled, got shot and dumped in the lake and for some inexplicable reason the mother died, leaving the daughter behind.
Two days after they realised the water nymph went missing the villagers decide to do something about it, but well not before another girl gets lunched on! A team of naked frolicking female basketball players, ventures into the lake for a nymph dip which raises the zombies old goose-stepping spirit, the girls of course (3rd course) are unaware that the nazi zombies are lurking in the depths of a swimming pool far far away, ready to pounce on their naked-nubile-nymph bodies. Of course when the zombies surface in the lake there are only about 3 of them, and it looks very much like 3 girls get killed, not including the one that escapes to alert the village of the naked nubile nymph noshing nazi nastiness, totally obscuring the fact that around twelve girls got out of this 1970's hippy shaggin' wagon in the first place!
Eventually though after the
zombies
devour the basketball team the villagers decide to get their
finger
out and call the cops, who while investigating in their half hearted
"we
don't believe in ghosts" way, (nobody has mentioned zombies
by this point!) also become lunch for our well fed zombies. So
it's
left the to the villagers and the reporter to finish the zombies off
once
and for all. They do this with the help of the daughter of the
head
zombie, who by this time of course has met her flaky father, swapped
necklaces
with him, had lunch and reminisced about dear old dead mommy, "quality
time" (well almost)! They decide they will lure the zombies to
the
mill where with the help of some napalm (Yup you read it right) they
decide
to have a zombie barbecue. THE END! (I HOPE!)
Where the hell do I start? OK start at the feet up! All
of the zombies have boots on even though during the flashback scene you
see the resistance guys stealing boots off the Nazi's they have just
killed!
OK that's just a minor thing, during the second munching of the girl
who
turns up in that scene (is never seen before) the old green zombie
flake
paint is coming of on her chin whilst the zombie is munching her
neck!
All of the underwater sequences are clearly shot in a swimming
pool!
"Well gee how do you know?" Well that would be because you can
see
the pool filters on the walls behind the zombies' every time they
appear!
The day certainly looks like it's set in the 1970's clothing, vehicles
and such like exposing this as the period, yet, when these zombies
limber
on up out of the lake, their clothing and boots seems to be in very
good
condition for being immersed in water for 30 odd years. But well
there's another problem, when we are told in the lengthy flashback both
the moustachio from the village and the mayor were in the war helping
the
resistance shoot the nazi's and dump them in the lake. Obviously
all of the time period is screwed; I mean the Mayor and Le
Moustachè never
age from the war to the present day. And the long lost
daughter
of the Uber Nazi leader is only about 12 years old! So well that
makes it around 1957, and that's me being generous!
Some Zombie Lake sequences seemingly turn up in the Jess Franco movie, Virgin Among The Living Dead. This is as Jean Rollin says is because Franco was supposed to direct Zombie Lake, but had disappeared, the producers phoned Rollin asked him to direct it, and well the rest is Uber Zombie history! This is straight from Rollin's lips. Source: - Necronomicon Book One, Edited By Andy Black Available from Creation Books.
Watching it you can see it is definitely a Rollin job and not a Franco one. The music is inappropriatly used (and crap), and one thing we know is Franco knows his music and he very rarely screws it up. It doesn't feel Like Jess Franco either, all this crapolla with the daughter of a Ubber Nazi zombie with it's long lost daughter zombie memory-touchy-crappy-parental love rubbish is pure Rollin romanticism/poetic claptrap, when, well he should just be having her for lunch!
 JUST ONE HAPPY NAZI ZOMBIE
FAMILY!
|
 HOWARD THE EVER YOUTHFUL MAYOR. |
|
Buy Rollin DVD's at Amazon:- Please click here to check out the information on region coding and video systems. http://www.kinocite.co.uk/0/69.php http://www.braineater.com/other_hell/zlake.html |