LawnBoy-4 Truly, laughably, staggeringly awful. This is not only the worst zombie film ever made, it may very well be the worst film ever made, period. Robot Holocaust, R.O.T.O.R. and even Troll 2 have nothing on this travesty.Fortunately, it is so bad that it is hilarious. Trust me, it is hilarious.Horrific editing, lighting, acting, direction, cinematography, screen writing, makeup, casting, and everything else aside, the fact that it features a zombie who not only shows emotion for his kid, but actually gives her a necklace, walks hand-in-hand with her and (seriously) fights off other zombies in order to protect her(!) is, well......stupefying. A sentimental zombie, folks, and one who bestows gifts and heaps love upon his long lost daughter. I'm not kidding, it's in there.Yes, there are boatloads of silly and gratuitous nudity, all of which is poorly lighted and has no business in this movie other than to lure the desperate into the theater (assuming this ever graced the reels of a theater in France). Its inclusion and execution is so misplaced and laughably exploitative that it is completely devoid of the erotic effect that was no doubt originally intended.And then there are the bird noises. Scene after scene is dominated by loud, screeching bird noises. I do not know why. Perhaps the French countryside was simply overrun by bird noises the day this film was shot or perhaps the director felt the need to mask the sound of rusted, whirring cameras with a sound which would remind the confused viewers that the scene they were watching was, in fact, an exterior. The one good thing I'll say about the incessant bird noises is that they represent, at the very least, a reprieve from the God-awful soundtrack.There is so much else to say about this movie, but I will leave it to you to find the many "treasures" as the film painfully and slowly unfolds.Throw a "bad film" party and save this one for the finale when everyone is suitably tanked and ready for the worst of the worst. Your friends will be talking about it - and you - for years.

Leonard Smalls: The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse Needless to say, "Zombie Lake" is no masterpiece of filmmaking. It is, however, one hilariously bad Nazi-zombie flick with a few good points.1. Decent atmosphere throughout; the French countryside makes a FINE place for a pond of undead National Socialists, don't you think? 2.Nice little romantic side-story, with the Nazi-dad and his little girl.3. Plenty of athletically-built, scantily-clad chicks who seem to have little regard for decency as they regularly disrobe to take a dip in the pond.Obviously you are not going to get the next "Dawn of the Dead" here, but "Zombie Lake" is plenty entertaining to sit around and swig a couple beers, relax and have a laugh at.High points for me are the swimming pool ladders visible in some of the underwater scenes and the green makeup that even comes off onto one of the victims arms in a killing scene. The only thing that really drags this movie down is a lack of gore. The zombie killings look more like vampires biting their victims...maybe they were supposed to be vamps? Lost in translation perhaps. (After all, the literal translation of the title is "Lake of the Dead." Maybe they were in fact vampires.)At any rate, if they had thrown some of that good ole raw meat and a little gut-munching, "Zombie Lake" would have scored higher for sure.6 out of 10, kids.

Joe Ebbasi A thoroughly enjoyable film. The problem is that the gulf between director's intention and viewer enjoyment is massive. The notion that someone is presenting this film as an earnest and professional endeavour borders on the hysterical. A glance at the 'Goofs' section on this website only tells half the story. I've never witnessed so many actors clearly acknowledge the camera and grin sheepishly as in this. Most of the on screen appearances of crew and equipment mercifully passed me by but the use of a swimming pool for underwater lake footage was obvious enough, though forgivable. The dubbing is also a real treat, in particular the attempts to synchronise words with the actor's lip movements by stretching syllables in such a peculiar way that the characters often sound overly-contemplative and high on drugs. There is often lip movement that is not dubbed over, which only adds to the riotously amateurish feel. Female nudity seems to have been used as an attempted distraction from the painfully slow moving and incoherent narrative. The film opens with an attractive, bronzed mademoiselle skinny-dipping in the titular lake. There are utterly gratuitous underwater shots of between her legs which set the tone for the rest of the film, although we are not treated to quite such 'gynaecological' shots thereafter. Benny Hill and other such shameless slap-and-tickle content comes to mind, especially with the van-load of young girls (supposedly a female basketball team, although its doubtful basketball was popular enough amongst French women in the '50s to warrant a tour) who gaily strip to the bone and plunge into the lake's stagnant waters. There is something about the entire cast of characters and their behaviour that really jars. From the absurd way a group of men openly carry a dead woman through the village to leave her at the mayor's door to the bizarre behaviour of the two policemen who turn up to investigate the recent deaths in the area, one is left feeling that this is a wildly surreal collection of people in an equally surreal situation. The way the zombies repeatedly get in and out of the lake throughout is entirely inexplicable and seems only to have been scripted so that the flimsy narrative progression can be slotted artificially in between zombie-on-human encounters. Zombie behaviour is ludicrously erratic: they jerk down the road like alcoholics, lunging at people for the sake of the kill, then not bothering to eat their victims. The scene in which the zombies burst into the pub sees them more full of irritation and anger than any mindless lust for human blood – see the moment when a would be escapee's attempt to dash past the first zombie provokes a disciplinarian slap to the fellow's back. The very nature of the community that the zombies victimise is highly questionable. The population seem to look to the mayor as if he were some kind of endlessly wise deity, following every order he gives unquestioningly. Every newcomer to the village is directed straight to the mayor's odd castle-like home, as if he's the only one equipped to deal with the outside world. His exchanges with the stupid reporter are intended to be the intellectual element of the film, superstition versus science and all that baloney. When we hear him alluding to a type of fire that man cannot create we assume he means the fires of hell or something but when the reporter suggest napalm he reacts like it's the most logical and certain solution to the zombie problem he has ever heard! So they proceed to dust off the old flamethrower that every small French village has lying around somewhere and lure the zombies into a barn where they can incinerate them. We then see some shoddy replicas of the zombies being flamed, while the time of the day alternates wildly outside. The inclusion of a sub-plot revolving around the illegitimate offspring of a villager and one of the Nazi soldiers who subsequently became a zombie is a freakishly misguided attempt at an emotionally involving thread to the main 'story'. When/if you finish watching this film, pause for a moment and try to recall any of the characters' names. Chances are you won't be able to. This is mainly to do with the fact very few characters are endowed with a name, something symptomatic of the film's downright amateurism. I will probably watch this film at least five more times in my lifetime because it is a thoroughly entertaining, incoherent mishmash. This does not however excuse the people who made it, as there can be no doubt they were attempting to pass this off as legitimate cinema entertainment. It is similar to the way you might enjoy someone falling down a flight of stairs as they descend them in order to show you their awful new clothes.

Paul Andrews Le Lac des Mortes Vivants, or Zomie Lake as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, is set in a small French village during the 50's, it starts with a girl going missing. Local pipe smoking, beer swilling, silly mustachioed fat-boy villager Chanac (Youri Redionow) becomes worried & reports his fears to the local Mayor (Howard Vernon) who is convinced that it has something to do with a nearby lake which is supposedly haunted after a bunch of German soldiers were killed & unceremoniously dumped in it during World War II. The Mayor calls the police & they send in Inspector's Morane (Robert Foster) & Stiltz (director Jean Rollin) who don't believe the local legends & end up paying for it by being killed by German zombie soldiers, the villagers are on their own & must find a way to send the German soldiers back to their watery graves for good!This French & Spanish co-production was directed by Jean Rollin who replaced Jesus 'I have no talent' Franco at short notice when he disappeared, the production company went on to make Franco direct Oasis of the Zombies (1981) instead & the very fact that Oasis of the Zombies was made prevents Le Lac des Mortes Vivants from being the single worst European zombie film ever. Don't get me wrong because Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is still terrible & the second worst European zombie film ever, it's just that Oasis of the Zombies is even worse. Anyway, the script by intended director Franco under the pseudonym A.L. Mariaux is simply awful, there's barely any dialogue, the character's are awful, the story is rubbish, the pace of the film almost left me in a coma & Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is quite simply one of the worst films your ever likely to see. The spoken English dialogue is laughable, the English dub is full of awkward broken English that you understand but at the same time know people simply don't construct sentences or talk the way these character's do. There's virtually no violence, the story makes virtually no sense & tries to have some bizarre romantic angle between a zombie & his daughter where when he's not terrorising & eating the local villagers a German zombie visits his young daughter which just comes across as laughable, there's no explanation given as to why the zombies come back to life in the first place & there's just very little, if anything, here to enjoy.It's obvious Rollin's heart wasn't in the project, the continuity is terrible, the camera work & cinematography are awful as well with really jerky pans & zooms. The German zombie soldiers uniforms dry out incredibly quickly once they are on land & that one who visits his daughter might have been stuck at the bottom of a lake for 10 years & have pale decomposing features but at least he combs his hair & keeps it looking nice! Seriously, the production values are rock bottom & you can sit there & literally tear it to pieces, nothing works, nothing is thought out & we are basically talking amateur hour here. A World War II battle sequence is achieved using one vehicle & about four German soldiers in another embarrassing & amateurish scene. There are so many things wrong with Le Lac des Mortes Vivents I started to feel sorry for the filmmakers & actor's stuck in it. There's some nudity but not as much as you would expect & there isn't any gore at all apart from two very tame neck bitings & a bit of fake blood. A few decent gore scenes might have made Le Lac des Mortes Vivants watchable but alas the filmmakers didn't even have the budget or enthusiasm to buy some animal intestines from the local butcher. The zombie make-up sucks too, it's just green face-paint randomly applied to the actor's face, you can clearly still see patches of pinkish human flesh where the makers haven't applied the green paint evenly!Techhnically the film is a disaster, I hated the music, I hated the photography, I hated the special effects as well as the lack of them & Le Lac des Mortes Vivants really does have rock bottom production values. Filmed on location in France the picturesque village where it was shot & the surrounding countryside looks quite nice actually & is the only thing the film has going for it. The acting is awful, sure everyone's dubbed but you can just tell it's awful.Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is awful, only Oasis of the Zombies saves it from being just about the worst zombie film ever made. Even if your a die hard European horror junkie your going to have a hard time watching & enjoying this, one to avoid.