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Zombie Lake (1980)



If you are a horror fan and you read much about horror movies online, you may notice that people talk a lot about the glory days of 1980s horror movies.  It was the ultimate decade for the cheesy crap that so many of us love!  In the 1980s, I had never heard of CGI, major studios weren't as concerned about being politically correct and the gore was wonderful!  Zombie Lake proves that just because a horror film was made in the 1980s doesn't mean it's a good horror film. 

Obviously I like 'bad' movies, but I like good 'bad' movies.  Director Jean Rollin has somewhat of a name in the industry for making erotic horror films and one thing I'll give the guy is he knows how to add some hot, naked chicks to a movie!  Unfortunately, that's about all Zombie Lake has going for it.


The Plot:  There is a lake filled with dead German WWII soldiers who turn into zombies and terrorize a small village in France.  The movie starts out with a hot babe getting naked and going for a swim (good way to start a movie, in my opinion).  She's quickly attacked by a zombie.  Well, more of a guy with green paint on his face than anything that you may think of as a zombie.  In the middle of the struggle, it cuts to some dull, badly overdubbed conversation back in the village.  Soon enough we're back at the lake.  A group of 7 or 8 girls decide to get naked and go swimming in the lake.  Guess what, they're attacked by zombies too!  This time it actually shows the girls getting killed by the zombies.  One of the girls gets away and runs topless into the village tavern where she passes out on a table.  This wacky event leads to story time.

Through the clever use of a flashback, we find out about how the French resistance killed all of these Nazis back during the war and threw them into the lake.  One of the German soldiers had fallen in love with a local French woman.  The two of them got it on in a barn before the guy was killed by the French resistance.  Back to present day, this soldier's daughter is one of the villagers.  The zombies go around killing and eating some more people.  A  zombie eats a nude girl in a big wooden washtub.  Another eats a girl who's about to have sex with her boyfriend.  The townspeople get worried and start shooting at the zombies, but amazingly that doesn't kill them!  In the end, the daughter tricks her zombie dad and all his Nazi zombie buddies into following her into a barn where the zombies are all exterminated with a flamethrower. 

The makeup is bad.  The gore isn't very convincing.  The story is ok, but the execution is pretty bad.  However, the nudity is plentiful and the movie was actually filmed pretty well.  Although it's not at the top of my list of horror films that I would recommend, Zombie Lake isn't completely without value if you're into naked chicks getting attacked by really bad nazi zombies.

Gore-o-meter rating: 2 out of 5 (it's not good gore, but at least there is gore)

Skin-o-meter: 5 out of 5 (lots of fully naked babes)