Lousy Lottery 23: Let's Take a Dive into BLOOD LAKE!
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 23! We’re headed to the lake with 1987’s Blood Lake! Before we talk about this treasure, let’s talk plot.
Oh, who am I kidding? Blood Lake movie doesn’t have any plot. Seriously. Some people are spending the weekend at one of their family’s lake house and some dude is killing people at that lake and starts killing them. There you go. That’s the plot. Perhaps what I’m saying is summed up well by the first scene. The movie opens with some guy working as a groundskeeper at a lake. Someone off camera walks up to the groundskeeper and says “I can’t afford to pay you anymore.” The groundskeeper says, “hey, I just work here.” The person off camera says, “good enough for me” and starts stabbing him to death. The dialogue made no sense and was, frankly, not needed. The killing is totally random and they do nothing to explain it ever. So, that’s basically the movie. It’s just one person after another finding themselves dead at the hands of some dude who, I suppose, lives nearby.
I honestly don’t have much more to say about this movie. It doesn’t have enough substance to analyze its contents and there’s almost nothing out there about the production or those involved. The cast is entirely made up of people who never made another movie and nearly all of them were super young. This movie is a great example of how quality and authenticity are not always the same thing. I grew up in the south in the ‘70s and ‘80s and the setting and cast were super authentic. I’ve been to countless lake ‘resorts’ like this and knew people exactly like every single member of the cast.
So, did the film accurately and authentically capture the time and place? Yes, it did. Was it quality? No, it wasn’t. It had that local commercial vibe, like it was shot by the same dude who shot the 1985 commercial for the curio shop in your hometown. The level of quality was right there, at local ‘80s commercial level. The acting was actually worse than that, though. It’s clear none of the cast were actual actors, just friends and locals. The writer also starred in it as ‘Mike.’ He would never get another screenplay shot and never act in another movie.
The director is the same way. He never made another flick either. The killer was the new husband of the director’s ex-wife. So, look, what do you say about a movie that is best described as a fairly well done home movie? I can take it apart bit by bit. I can talk about how the shots linger far too long. I can point out that there are whole scenes that didn’t need to be there. I can linger on the fact that some basic knowledge of sound recording and application would’ve changed the movie lightyears for the better. I could go on and on, but it’s really just not that sort of movie.
This movie is, well, best viewed as not a professionally produced film at all. If you watch it as a professional production, then the lackluster kills, the minimal gore and the non-existent special effects would all be distracting and frustrating. If you take it as a home movie that your buddies made, then it’s fun, funny and can be a blast. If you’re like me and lived in the south in the ‘80s, it’ll be a hell of a trip down memory lane too. So, grab yourself an ice-cold malt liquor, spark up some cheap skunkweed and check out Blood Lake on Tubi. It’s not much, but, well, I’m not sure how to finish that sentence.
Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 24! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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