On February 26th, Kino-Lorber and Redemption Films—as part of their ongoing distribution partnership—are releasing two of the shabbiest low-budget
zombie films to have ever shambled into the cinema, 1981's Zombie Lake and 1982's Oasis of the Zombies. Besides a few minor differences in plot and setting, they're essentially the
same movie, both involving cursed locales, flashbacks to World War II, illegitimate children fathered by soldiers, and Nazi zombies that rise from their
mass graves to feast on sexy ladies. The similarities are no accident. Eurocine Productions initially hired cult horror/skin-flick filmmaker Jesús "Jess"
Franco (Exorcism, Female Vampire) to helm Zombie Lake, but when he dropped out due to time-commitment issues, the
directorial reins were passed to fellow euro-sleaze artiste Jean Rollin, the oddball sub-surrealist known for his many, many, manylesbianvampiremovies. The following year, Franco would return to the premise and make his own version, Oasis of the
Zombies. Both films are utter garbage—boring, poorly made, and prime examples of the kind of low-budget zombie knockoffs trailing in the wake of
George Romero's Dawn of the Dead—but they're somehow guileless and almost charming in their awfulness. I wouldn't say so bad they're
good, but so bad I'm glad, in some perverse way, that they exist at all.
Teenaged Mutant Nazi Zombie
Jean Rollin made some genuinely fascinating films—atmospheric, more le fantastique than grand guignol—but Zombie Lake
isn't one of them. Besides a few poetic embellishments, it's clear that he was merely a hired gun on this one, and the title sequence credits him as
"J.A. Laser." (An admittedly killer pseudonym.) Opening in rural France, the film wastes no time getting straight to the gratuitous nudity; a woman
undresses in a lakeside gazebo, jumps right in, and scissor-kicks through the lily-pads while the camera ogles her at length underwater in what's clearly
just a pool somewhere. Out of the not-so-murky depths, a living dead Nazi infantryman floats up—knife in hand, face painted Teenaged Mutant
Ninja Turtle green—and attacks the girl, who shrieks and splashes to no avail, exposing generous T&A in the process.
"Now, wait, that doesn't sound so bad," you might say, and you'd be right—the film's few zombie attacks are loveably cheesy, not-quite-erotic fun,
awash in bad makeup effects and clumsy, herky-jerky camerawork. Where Zombie Lake goes stagnant is in its insistence on having a slow,
drawn-out, merely perfunctory-feeling plot. After the swimming girl goes missing and another local lass is murdered crossing a footbridge into town, the
nosy reporter Katya (Marcia Sharif) shows up with her camera and notebook, eager to get "an unusual yarn about that odd little lake of yours."
She gets more than than from the village mayor (Howard Vernon), who spins her the entire tale of "the damned lake of the damned," going back ten
years to the Nazi occupation of France. The film's middle section is occupied by this flashback, which is unusual for having some of the only war/combat
scenes in Jean Rollin's mostly sappho-vampiric body of work. As the German forces are rolling through the countryside, a Nazi soldier saves a local
woman from a mortar attack, and they subsequently share a literal roll in the hay. Nine months later, as his unit retreats, he stops in to check on her,
only to find that she's on the verge of dying post-childbirth. As a parting gift, she gives him a ridiculously cheap-looking necklace, which will come into
play later when their little girl—now ten, and living with her grandmother—sees it and recognizes the zombie on the doorstep as her dad. Anyway, as
to how the Nazi soldiers became undead ghouls, it's pretty simple. French resistance fighter intercept the unit outside of town, mow them
down, and then dump the corpses in the lake, which has apparently been cursed since the Inquisition. Hence, zombies.
As if in reward for sitting through this oh-so-tedious exposition, the film returns to the present day, where a team of sexy female volleyball players—
not making this up—has stopped at the lake to skinny-dip and frolic naked. (As sexy female volleyball players are wont to do, amirite?) This is basically
just like the opening scene, but instead of one nubile young thing splashing around, there are nearly a dozen, terrorized as the zombie squadron
suddenly emerges from the lac du zombie. A pair of detectives arrive to investigate—one of whom is played by Rollin himself—but they too
meet a grisly end. (The detectives, thankfully, are not nude.) As the zombies go a'shuffling into the village, chomping at the necks of anyone
who gets in their way, the mayor and reporter discuss the biblical apocalypse, napalm, and other possible ways of ridding the area of its nasty undead
infestation.
Like many of Rollin's films, Zombie Lake has a vibe that could variously be described as "dreamy" or "woefully incompetent," depending on
how generous you're feeling. You can also tell the director is far outside his vampire-centric comfort zone. He just doesn't know what to do with the
walking dead. If you go in expecting something even remotely Romero-esque, you'll be gravely disappointed by the relatively gore-less action, the
plodding story, and the lack of any kind of social subtext. (No zombies-as-mindless-consumers-at-the-mall here.) There's no denying that Zombie
Lake is a shallow, stagnant exercise in titillation and horror. At the same time, its own badness—specifically the notion that a film so dull and inept
could be so guilelessly passed off as entertainment—is reason enough for fans of awful movies to watch it at least once.
Like most of the Kino/Redemption titles released thus far, Zombie Lake is essentially presented "as-is," with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of
an archival negative that hasn't been digitally cleaned up or significantly doctored in any way beyond—presumably—some light color correction. This
means you'll notice some semi-frequent specks, light scratches, and small bits of debris, but considering the film's age, budget, and reputation, the
damage here is quite minimal. I've previously seen Zombie Lake on VHS and DVD—some might say that's two times too many—and now seeing
it resurrected on Blu-ray is a revelation in clarity. The 35mm photography resolves nicely in high definition, allowing for sharper lines and more detailed
textures, most noticeably in the atrocious zombie makeup. Color seems accurate too, with good image density and contrast. Of course, the upside of an
"as-is" transfer for a film like this is twofold: 1.) the picture is untouched by digital noise reduction and edge enhancement, and 2.) you feel like you're
sitting in some dingy grindhouse theater, watching a naturally battered 35mm print. I don't know if I'd want a spotless version of Zombie
Lake.
Kino/Redemption have given us two audio options for Zombie Lake, the original French track and an English dub, both presented in
uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0. Now, I'm typically an advocate for listening to a film in its original language, but I can't say that it matters much here;
the film was shot silently, and all sound was dubbed in later, so both tracks have a boxy, artificial quality, and even the French lip-syncing is slightly off at
times. So pick whichever you'd like. There are some small differences in the two tracks, though. Flipping back and forth between them, I noticed a few
instances where a line would be spoken in French, but there would be silence in the English track, despite the subtitles still showing up. There are also
some tonal discrepancies, with the music in the French track sounding a bit more muffled and lowered than in the English mix, where it's brighter and
cleaner. In both, high-end sounds can get somewhat peaky and harsh, but that's not exactly unexpected for a film of this caliber. At the very least, both
of these tracks are functional, and free of any significant hisses, heavy clicks, or dropouts. The disc includes optional English subtitles in easy-to-read
white lettering.
English Credit Sequence (HD, 2:32): Identical to French version but for English titles.
Alternate Scenes (HD, 2:02 and 3:58): Two toned-down-for-television alternate cuts of the opening sequence and the volleyball team
scene, where the previously naked girls are all wearing panties/bras/t-shirts.
Jean Rollin Trailers (HD): English and French trailers for Zombie Lake, plus trailers for Oasis of the Zombies, The Rape
of the Vampire, and Demoniacs.
Is Zombie Lake the worst zombie movie of all time? Hardly. I can think of a dozen more modern, more obnoxious undead movies I'd rather see
napalm-scorched from the face of the earth. (Like, say, the insipid Day of the Dead remake.) That said, Zombie Lake is unmistakably
awful—slow, un-scary, and devoid of the expected horror genre thrills—and this is one of the few reasons people still watch it today. It's become one of
those bad movies that fans of bad movies are basically required to see at least once. So, have at it—Kino's high-definition transfer means the zombie
make-up looks more comically inept than ever.
The Salvation Group, creator of the Redemption, Sacrament, Jezebel, and Purgatory film labels, is planning to bring to Blu-ray a number of cult films in the coming months, including Martin Campbell's The Sex Thief (1974), Jean Rollin's Zombie Lake (1981), and Jess ...
