The recent trend of making films in the style of 80's slashers is kind of baffling to me. Movies like "Hatchet" and "The Tripper" are almost homages, self-referential and mostly irreverent. The problem is, those types of movies never really went away post-Scream; half naked women, some random killer(s), etc, so why the reverential treatment?

Still, they can be fun, like Nightmare Man was from this year's Horrorfest...on the other hand, they can be terrible and ridiculous, like Lake Dead.

While the movie is saved a bit once the killing starts, the first half is mostly boring filler - sex, drugs, driving montages - designed to harken back in the day when these elements were all you needed to have a half-successful franchise. With the pointless 'character development' and atrocious dialogue (I need to go back and do a "fuck" count, it'll be in the hundreds) the payoff needed to be HUGE when the shit hit the fan, and as it stands it's merely a whimper.

Though, some things do work. The 'family tradition' hinted at in the beginning isn't quite as new and bizarre as it could've been (we've all seen that X-Files episode), but the idea is still pretty cringe worthy - especially when the director decides to show us an 'intimate moment' between mother and son.

One of the major problems I had - the only really interesting character is quickly dispatched near the beginning of the movie, and all the other characters are completely interchangeable. The acting isn't going to win any Oscars, but that's not the point anyway. Not much going on with the directing either really, just standard choices made to get the job done.

If you get a chance to catch this on the cheap (or better, on the free) you might get a chuckle or two out of it, but there isn't too much going on here. If you do decide to catch it, bring your Gameboy or something for the first half because you'll be checking your watch otherwise.

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