Reel Advice from the Video Store Guy

Ghost Lake

**1/2

DVD

Directed by

Jay Woelfel

Written by

Jay Woelfel

Cast

Rebecca Haster ..... Tatum Adair

Stan James .... Timothy Prindle

Sheriff Dobbs .... Gregory Lee Kenyon

Doctor Bloch .... Chuck Franklin

Young Fisherman / Son #2 on Boat .... Damian Maffei

Old Fisherman .... Dan Metcalf

Ruth Haster .... Linda Brown

Richard Haster .... Raymond Suriani

Reverend .... Rick Kesler

R

111 mins

Young Wolf Productions' "Ghost Lake" is a film that tries its hardest to be all things to all people. While I can't help but respect its sheer ambition, I find myself wishing that it would pick a ball and run with it.

So what we have here is the story of a surprisingly familiar event. Anyone remember the movie "In Dreams?" Basically, that's what we have here, after a fashion. Up in the wild, untamed reaches of upstate New York (ever been to Buffalo? Wild and untamed is a good description!) State planners decided someone needed a lake.

Apparently, no one bothered to tell the residents of one particular little upstate New York town by the name of Rushford Lake, because the establishment of the lake drowned them all.

Which is pretty interesting, when you stop and think about it. I mean, how does this happen? Didn't anyone from the local zoning commission hear about this? Didn't anyone stop by Rushford Lake and say, "Hey, guys, you're gonna want to know about this...in a couple weeks here we're gonna flood the valley with somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million gallons of icy cold water. You should probably go get some change-of-address forms."

I know, it's strange already, but it gets worse. Our heroine, a girl by the name of Rebecca, has just lost her parents in a car accident, and it's not sitting well with her. She goes to our flooded little town to mourn her parents and recover, which she definitely needs. She's already hallucinating and having sex in the backseats of cars and we're not even ten minutes in yet.

Even better, once our hallucinating skank-in-waiting gets up to our flooded little town, the bodies of the flooded dead are emerging from the lake to feed on the bodies of the living.

So we've gone from "In Dreams" to "Night of the Living (albeit flooded) Dead" in the space of around thirty minutes. Wow. Talk about breaking some serious film-speed records.

The strangest thing about "Ghost Lake", you'll discover, is its rapid shuffling of genres. It can be a suspense movie, a murder mystery, a zombie movie, and then suddenly something completely different all within as little as twenty minutes. While I'm not beyond mixing things up a bit, "Ghost Lake's" frequent genre shifting gets confusing. There's a difference between spicing things up with a little variety and emptying the spice rack into the pot.

Now, despite the truly baffling nature of the plot, "Ghost Lake" has a lot going for it. Woelfel has a gift for suspense building, which he exercises to the fullest. For instance, start watching around the twelve minute mark and you'll treated to a slow sequence with lots of moving shadows and assorted jolts. Check out the nifty dual-dream sequence around the twenty two minute mark that'll also give you a heads up on the baffling plot. Woelfel's ability to create a frightening world makes itself plain around the forty minute mark--check out the run through the graveyard for all the scares you could need. And some of the effects near the end qualify for gruesome and scary points all at once.

As an interesting aside, Rebecca's last name is "Haster," a fairly clever play on "Hastur" of Lovecraft fame. Plus, it fits pretty darned well when you come right down to it.

The ending is a pretty big surprise, in and of itself. It really needs to be seen to be believed.

The special features include director's commentary, deleted scenes with commentary, two behind the scenes featurettes, an audition reel, and a trailer for "Ghost Lake." However, I'm told that I got an advance screener copy, and looking at the box it does say just that in giant white letters, so there's a chance that when you get your copy, there may be something totally different in the special features.

So don't blame me.

All in all, "Ghost Lake" is a graphic lesson in biting off more than one can chew. It's an incredibly ambitious project, and not without its charms, but this film of blind ambition proves that a film can go in entirely too many directions, giving viewers a maze instead of a roller coaster ride.

Steve's columns are entirely self-supported. Though this may change.

Politics Factzone: The truth about Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il, the leader of the free world, has decided to move on to more fertile grounds, leaving with us just the memories of 8-color rainbows, singing Korean women and couple of nuclear weapons. But who was this man whose next ambition would have been to get the next Nobel Peace prize? Here are just a few facts you should know about. more Top 5 Conspiracy Theories Related to John F. Kennedy's Assassination 26.Aug 2011 Since just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, conspiracy theories abou...read ISRAEL KEEPING GHADDAFI AFLOAT 10.Mar 2011 ...read Glen Beck Is NOT the Anti-Christ! 10.Mar 2011 Hurtful and fiery rhetoric is now media’s default setting! This slippery and m...read Recipe for A REVOLUTION! (10 easy steps - try not to get burned!) 28.Feb 2011 Rebellion is cooking in the air. People are mad as hell, and not going to take...read THE ASSANGE CASE. CIA INTERFERED WITH SWEDISH LEGAL PROCESSES EXTREME RIGHT POLITICS A DANGER TO EUROPEAN UNITY THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY. OUT OF TOUCH, OUT OF FOCUS, OUT OF CREDIBILITY AND HOPEFULLY, OUT OF THE DOOR Opinion World governments charged with criminal negligence (in response to Megaupload case) EARTH (thecheers.org) - Federal authorities of the universe have charged the governments of all the countries in the world as well as the operators actually in power in these countries with operating a criminal enterprise, the Galaxy warriors announced Today. more The Great OSCARS 2011 – or so it would seem 5.Mar 2011 So, how exciting......a morning off, the Academy Awards. I wish I could say the...read Top 7 Expensive Bordellos. Prostitution: Shakedown, Tier Down, and Priced Out 31.Jan 2011 According to a report of the Washington DC-based US Department of State, The Ph...read The Great Secret and Reason for the JFK Assassination 11.Oct 2010 The great question is why the great secret? On June 4 1963, President Kennedy s...read Don't Do it! The 3 Worst Times to Get Tattoos 4.Oct 2010 As a general rule, tattoos gotten after 2 am are a bad idea. But in a bigger pi...read

Travel Travel Warning 13 September 2010 - DO NOT TRAVEL TO IRAN 13.Sep 2010 TRAVELWISE has been watching the situation in Iran for some months in relation ...read more TRAVELWISE TRAVEL ADVISORY 5th June 2010. DO NOT TRAVEL TO ISRAEL. 5.Jun 2010 Given the recent incident whereby the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, used...read TRAVELWISE. 16 APRIL 2010. EUROPEAN TRAVEL ALTERNATIVES 16.Apr 2010 Travelwise issues the following advice in relation to cancelled flights to, fro...read TRAVELWISE 6 APRIL 2010. AUSTRALIAN AIR TRAVEL. THE BEST WAYS TO TRAVEL BY AIR IN AUSTRALIA. 5.Apr 2010 Regular readers might have seen and read the various advisory and no-fly notice...read TRAVELWISE 2 APRIL 2010. QANTAS. 2.Apr 2010 Some concerns have been raised in relation to some of the maintenance practices...read Sport No Payoff From the Playoffs $16.50 will Get Anyone in the Hall Mr McGwire Stupid Athlete Tricks Technology Think Big! Think the World's Largest International Trade Show Top 9 cool laptop accessories for laptop geeks Twittering: I'm not that interesting Cheers Jesus' Answering Machine Brown Couch or twelve midgets in the town square How To Be Happy Drugged Out Saturday Nights Muslim Decapitation: Bad, or Simply Misunderstood?