Crazy Lake Review – Think National Lampoon’s Friday the 13th
Mike Sprague
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Starring Tom Latimer, Marco DelVecchio, Libby Blanton, Skyler Joy, Keily Fernandez, and Rob Mello
Directed by Jason Henne and Christopher Leto
Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
A group of attractive twenty-somethings head out to a cabin in the middle of the woods by a lake. After a night of drinking and pre-marital sex, the bros and hoes start to get picked off by a psycho killer one by gory one.
Heard that story before? Sure you have. Still, enjoy watching that story play out time and time again? Of course you do.
It is with this in mind we wanted to toss out our review of the new slasher throwback Crazy Lake. While I basically just laid the plot out for you guys in the above paragraph, let me get into this particular slasher’s story a bit more for the sake of the review.
A group of attractive twenty-somethings heads out to a friend’s family cabin in the woods by a lake. The lake in question comes with a local legend because of course it does. This lake’s legend is that back in the day there was a mental institution not far way that would bring out their worst patients, tie cinder blocks to their feet, throw their crazy asses into the lake, and “watch them float down to the bottom.”
As you can imagine, the lake is now filled with the dead bodies of tons of crazy people. But it seems one of them survived. And he/she’s on the loose in the woods surrounding the group’s cabin. Cue the POV stalking sequences and the blood n’ boobs. If you’re like me you’ll find exactly zero things wrong with this being the set up for a slasher flick. Slashers don’t need the best scripts to do what they do best.
And Crazy Lake is a great example of this.
Before I snatched up my copy from Amazon this past weekend and gave it a go, I was told the film was bad. “Don’t bother,” I was told. Well, I glad I didn’t listen because Crazy Lake has all the slasher good times one could have hoped for.
I was actually pretty surprised by the quality of this one. The camerawork is a bit too bright for my tastes, but the nighttime scenes come alive with fog and blue moonlight. Good stuff. Not to be overly immature here, but come on, let’s not make this about mise en scène or such nonsense. Let’s talk about the B&B, aka the blood n’ boobs. In this aspect, the motion picture delivers in spades. We get more than a few ladies (and dudes) going full-on top-nude and skimpy bathing suits (guys and girls) for days.
On top of that, the movie keeps the blood flowing with a higher than average body count. This film understands what only a choice few other slashers have known throughout time, which is: You are not limited to merely your core victim pool. Too many slashers set up a group of five-to-ten friends and only pick them off throughout the running time.
Crazy Lake not only dispatches its main cast over its short time on screen (spoiler?) but the film also throws in completely random cutaways to other victims in the surrounding woods getting sliced and diced. These random side characters and scenes have zero impact on the story overall, but do they need to? No. They just keep the blood flowing and the kill count consistent.
Take note, other slashers.
On top of that, the leads are all (mostly) credible with the top actors being Diana Riley as the wholesome “virgin”/final girl and Matthew Valena as the male hero. The cast overall was likable, and while I still was eagerly awaiting all of their demises, the wait wasn’t a painful experience by any means. Charming peeps for sure. Hated their music though.
That said, there were some negative aspects threating to pull the whole production down to the bottom of the lake. The two major issues were that the film’s “comic relief” was the least funny person in the whole movie. This film sports comedic performances from most of the cast, and they all pull it off with a subtle charm that will have you grinning.
But then there’s “that guy.” I’m not going to name names here, but that guy was beyond annoying. And I don’t care if that was an intentional choice on the part of the filmmakers (for some reason).
Basically, if he was part of your group of friends, he’d be the guy you’d all sigh and deflate when you hear his car pull up. Like, “Haha, that was a good joke. Man, we’re all the best of friends! (*hears car door shut just outside) Sh*t. Bryan’s here…”
On top of that guy ruining the movie’s good times, some of the kills were more than a little weak. Blood splashes and cutaways if you know what I mean. But that said the movie has more than its fair share of gory goodness with slashed out guts, impaled eyeballs, hatchets to the head, and more. The red stuff was out to play in Crazy Lake and I was happy with what the film ultimately served up. Tag to all of that a killer who looked badass and a minor twist or two and Crazy Lake gets a recommend from this guy.
In the end, Crazy Lake reminded me of the recent horror-comedy Zombeavers. A film I was told to steer clear of, but I enjoyed the hell out of. Yes, I loved the silly fun that was Zombeavers, and if you did too, you’ll find quite a bit to enjoy about Crazy Lake as well.
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Crazy Lake
Summary
Crazy Lake has everything you could want in a mindless slasher flick and the comedic tone keeps the good times rolling. Think National Lampoon presents Friday the 13th.
Categorized:Reviews
