Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Crazy Lake

Director(s) - Chris Leto (Rough Cut) and Jason Henne (Claustrophobia)
Starring - Libby Blanton (Eastbound and Down), Rob Mello (Badass 3: Badasses on the Bayou), and Marco DelVecchio (Snapped: Killer Couples)
Release Date - 2016
Genre - Horror
Format - Streaming (Online Screener)

Rating (out of 5):
     There is several films that I have been following closely over the last few months.  These films look amazing and are coming from filmmakers that I love and respect.  We have upcoming films from Adam Ahlbrandt, Chris Woods, Steve Rudzinski, Dustin Mills.  This year is the year for horror if you ask me.  One film that I have been really excited about checking out is Chris Leto's Crazy Lake which he co-directed with Jason Henne.  Chris has sent me several images from the film and they looked phenomenal.  Truly unlike anything of his I have seen before.  I have begged Chris to let me check the film out when it was time and he recently sent it over my way.  I'm glad he did because this movie was beautiful.
     The film follows a group of twenty-somethings as they venture out into the woods to a cabin owned by a relative of one of the men.  It was his uncles cabin and no one uses it anymore which provides the perfect setting to party down.  The legend has it that several pharmaceutical companies used the lake nearby as a testing ground where they force fed men different drugs to test the results which resulted in several of them turning crazy and killing everyone that enters their land.  Now the teens are drinking and partying unaware of the history the land holds.  Things take a dark turn when one of the men in the group suspects that the one that is hosting this little party is harboring a secret.  His first cousin is one of those men and he brought them their so he can kill them.
      I was impressed when I first heard the concept behind Crazy Lake.  That story holds endless possibilities if approached correctly.  I was curious how Leto and Henne would approach this and I can see that they handled this one perfectly and knocked it out of the park.  The acting in this one is solid.  No one really stands out from the others and no character is more memorable than the other but they still did a great job.  Leagues above most of the other indie horror productions that I have reviewed in the past.  With that being said, how fucking hot are these women?  Good god are they beautiful.  The story for this one can be looked at two different ways.  The film flows like pretty much every other slasher in the woods flick you have seen from the 1980s until today.  We get the unsuspecting teenagers/twenty-somethings doing things they should not do in the woods where something horrible has happened in the past and possibly several times since then. In that aspect this film is sub-par to mediocre.   We then get the masked killer who is hulking around and killing them one by one before entering the final girl showdown.  The second way to look at it is the origin story and how this can spawn several more films with countless killers.  I really enjoyed that aspect of the film and how it did a great job setting itself up.  Finally, the film does have some bloody deaths with some great kills and even better practical effects.  Some of the kills are stock slasher kills but other are fun with some solid practical effects that brings it on home.  Overall, Crazy Lake is a beautifully shot horror film that has a good cast and an even better story.  Crazy Lake is going to be a modern classic.  Mark my words.  The film has it all, boobs, blood, and boobs.  Check it out when you can.





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