Wicked Lake
2008
Maybe you've heard this one. Four smart-ass city kids wander into the
backwoods where they encounter inbred rednecks who rape and torture the
living crap out of them. There fate is foreshadowed by an encounter with
half-witted masturbating locals at a gas station.
Yeah, I know it's the same plot as about a zillion other films, but
this one does manage to come up with a twist. The four city-slickers are
lesbian cannibal witches. That means they get some supernatural powers at
midnight, which is when they pay back better than they got.
Unbelievably, this film managed to get reviewed by three major New
York newspapers, which is astounding for a film of this caliber. For one
reason or another, it was screened at one theater in New York in late
June, 2008. I suppose the filmmakers might have thought at the time that a
theatrical trial, however small, had to be a good thing which might lead
to a wider release or major cult status. To the contrary. If a film like
this goes straight to DVD, it only gets reviewed by genre site specialists who
expect this kind of content, and the reviews are only read by people who
are receptive to this sort of material. The theatrical release only meant
that three legitimate critics were enraged by having to sit through ninety
minutes of sheer garbage, and their resulting anger exposed the film's
faults to a wide audience.
As the New York reviewers duly noted, this film is just atrocious if
the filmmakers were taking it seriously. Any torture porn, even when it is
crafted well like Eli Roth's films, is difficult enough for average people
to watch because it's custom made for a unique target audience, so there's
probably no movie-going experience more unpleasant than 90 minutes of
grade-Z cheapjack torture porn. To make matters worse, the film's revenge
theme fails because the women are as unpleasant as the rednecks, so there
is no sense of audience empathy for them when they are in danger, and no
catharsis when they rise up and give the hicks their comeuppance. "Bad guy
against bad guy" is just not an involving story line, which is why you
seldom see it used in wrestling, for example.
I couldn't figure out whether the scribes were right in saying that
this movie is the worst redneck torture porn movie of all time, or whether
the film appears lame because it was parodying lame movies. I think it
must have been the latter, because the characters are too exaggerated, the
dialogue too absurd, the violence too comically Tromaesque, and the acting
too weak and wooden for it to have been anything but intentional. You can
forgive the New York critics for missing that fact because many other
films in this genre, like House of 1000 Corpses, already have
their feet well inside the parody door, but never actually cross the
threshold.
If you take it as a joke, Wicked Lake might even give you a few
unpleasant laughs. In addition, the film is filled with enough extreme
exploitation content for genre fans, including plenty of dirty talk,
extreme levels of violence, and extensive female nudity from attractive
women. Oh, I'm not recommending the film. Far from it. I'm just saying
that it's not actually an utterly incompetent horror drama, but rather an
extended joke that just didn't work.
Although that's not much better, is it?
Eve Mauro
Robin Sydney
All four witches:
Carlee Barker, Eryn Joslyn, Mauro and Sydney