Zombie Lake is one of those horror movies that only a zombie-lover can understand. Here is the non-remorseful confession by BHM Zombie Master Lee Roberts.

Written by: The Zombie Master Lee Roberts
November 30, 2006.

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Release: 1980
Directed by: Jean Rollin
Written by: Jesus Franco and Julian Esteban 

Starring:
Howard Vernon as The Mayor
Pierre-Marie Escourrou as German Soldier                               
Anouchka as Helena

Have you ever had one of those guilty pleasures that you just knew that no one else would understand?  You know what I am talking about; Buffy season one on DVD, Brittany Spears cd in your truck, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park on VHS.

For the Zombie Master it is Zombie Lake. Filmed in France, Zombie Lake is one of the many reasons why it is hard to take French horror seriously. The acting sucks, the directing sucks, the dialogue sucks, the dubbing sucks, the Special FX sucks and I absolutely love this film.

We start Zombie Lake with a female going to what has to be one of the nastiest lakes I have ever seen. She then looks around and strips to her bare essentials and jumps in. What on the surface looks like a lake, looks like a swimming pool from the zombie point of view. For some reason though, you really don’t notice that at first. In a scene reminiscent of Jaws (albeit a very under-budget Jaws) the girl gets attacked and dragged down by a zombie.

 
These are not any ordinary zombie, heavens no, these are Nazi zombies. How did they happen to inhabit this particular lake? Interesting story that one is. The mayor (Howard Vernon) tells it to a reporter lady in a very drawn out flash back sequence. It seems that back during the war this small French village was full of resistance fighters and attacked and killed a group of Nazis. They then dumped the body in the lake outside of town. To make matters worse, the lake was used for witchcraft in the past. So now the dead Nazis are undead Nazis.

Oh yeah, as a sub-plot (plot? We don’t need no stinkin’ plot) the lead zombie (Pierre-Marie Escourrou) had a tryst with a French woman when he was a Nazi and now has a daughter in the village. Can you feel the love? I knew that you could.

Zombie Lake is horrible beyond compare and is also one of the funniest “not-meant-to-be-funny” movies I have seen. Case in point: A female football (soccer) team pulls up to the lake shore in a van. They proceed to get naked and decide, for no apparent reason, to go splash around in the water. Of course, this upsets the zombies and they start to attack. In the meantime, the girls who are not being attacked are still splashing around in the water leisurely awaiting their turn. Scenes like this and the ability to see cameramen in mirrors without having to search for them is what makes Zombie Lake fun.

 
If you are not a diehard zombie fan or you think that all movies should have some moniker of substance then Zombie Lake is definitely not for you. However, if you believe that Ed Wood is the most under-rated director of all time, then you owe it to yourself to have a copy of Zombie Lake in your library.  Questions or comments about Zombie Lake?  Contact us!

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