Ghost Lake (2004) — Triskaidekafiles

GHOST LAKE

WRITER: Jay Woefel

DIRECTOR: Jay Woefel

STARRING: Tatum Adair as Rebecca Haster
Timothy Prindle as Stan James
Gregory Lee Kenyon as Sheriff Dobbs
Azure Sky Decker as Flora/Saundra Thompson
Chuck Franklin as Doctor Bloch
Damian Maffei as Young Fisherman

QUICK CUT: After her parents die, Rebecca leaves the big city behind to take some time for herself, and meet new people in the rural lake town of her youth.

THE MORGUE

Rebecca - A young woman who is suffering from major grief after making an innocent mistake of taking care of herself, and not being there when her parents died. She’s also prone to visions that may or may not be supernatural or mental illness in nature. She’s overly trusting, determined, and friendly.

Stan - A man Rebecca meets one night when she almost murders him. They hit it off quite well, and whiule he comes on a little strong at times, and likes to break into houses, he seems nice enough, albeit with a questionable past.

Sheriff Dobbs - The local law enforcement around Rushford Lake. Nice enough guy for a cop, and you get the sense he’s one of those who is genuinely trying to do good, help people, and change things for the better.

Flora Thompson - A young girl that Rebecca befriends, without trying to kill first, who also likes breaking into people’s homes, and is your average kid. Very precocious.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! It is October 1st, and that means it is spooky season officially, so it is the perfect time for an old fashioned ghost story. Unfortunately, Ghost Lake is not an old fashioned ghost story. It sure is somethin', though. It’s…it’s a lot.

The movie starts off at a funeral, so we're wasting no time. This is for the parents of Rebecca, but we're gonna flashback to how we got here shortly. Get comfy, because this movie loves to get nonlinear with it.

We immediately do that flashback to when her parents are still alive, and Rebecca is getting ready to go on a date. Her dad declares from his wheelchair, "You make me wanna stand up and kiss you!"

ExCUSE me??

And Jesus lived happily ever after, the end.

Rebecca has been helping her mom take care of her father, and she hasn't gone out in ages. Her mom insists she stay out late, have a good time, but even then, Becky gets too distracted, and misses her curfew.

She meets a guy at the bar, who says something like, "Don't leave now, I was just getting tired of looking at you." Becky points out how strange of a thing that is to say.

And let me tell you, we are not even four minutes into this movie, and it is already packed with 'strange things to say."

While Rebecca is shagging Randy McStranger in the back of her car, there is a gas leak back home.

Her mother succumbs to the gas leak pretty quickly, being down in the kitchen. But dad is upstairs, and in bed. He thinks he smells the gas, but because of his injury, he can't get out of bed, open the door, and down the stairs fast enough to do anything to save anyone, including himself.

This catches up with the start of the movie a whopping five minutes ago. Rebecca is wracked with guilt over the one night she wasn't there, her parents died in an arguably avoidable way.

Folks...there is so much weird shit in this movie, I HAVE to reign it in somewhere, or we'll be here all day. This movie is nearly TWO HOURS LONG, and it is packed to the rafters. But as an example, Rebecca runs away after the flashback, closes her car door which was already open? opens it back up?? and the guy she banged is crouching in the front seat??? so he can repeat his creepy line we just saw, in what I can only assume is a hallucination.

This has NOTHING to do with the plot, I'm gonna try and pare out stuff like that, just to get to the meat of this weird movie, but just so you know, you're missing out on weird ass random shit like that.

Rebecca runs all the way home like she's a little pig who didn't go to the market, and has more flashbacks of finding her parents. To be fair, repeatedly bonking the kitchen door on your dead father's head, is gonna leave some scars on your psyche.

She hears the voices of her parents, and sees them around the house, until it is all too much for Rebecca. She hops in her car (Wait, wasn't that at the cemetery? Oh never mind...) and drives off, to try and clear her head.

This will take Rebecca to the ACTUAL plot of the movie. Oh yes, this was all just prologue to get Rebecca to the titular "ghost lake" which is actually Lake Rushford, where her family has a summer home she used to go to every year.

But oh, while she drives, the movie flashes back SOME MORE to when she was just at the house, with more visions of her parents ghosts that drove her to drive off. Look, I love a nonlinear narrative, but this is just a jumble. The big upside here, it at least breaks up driving all through the credits.

She drives so far away, night falls, and she nearly runs over a guy, which would have brought her body count to three, and we're not even ten minutes in.

Rebecca offers to give him a ride, which is the least she can do for almost killing him. He lives in another cottage not far from hers, which is convenient.

She then almost hits something ELSE, but for some reason, the cutaway to the road doesn't show anything?? What went wrong here?? Did they use the wrong shot, forget to include the animal, or what??

When she gets to her place, she finds the power is out, and makes her way to the basement, for a rather long scene with THRILLING FUSE CHANGING ACTION.

Once the power is back on, Stan mysteriously returns, breaking into her house to make sure she was okay. He shows her how he got in, and they go through the whole house to make sure no one else is there, for no real reason other than walking through the house.

After they determine the house is empty, Stan goes to leave, and Rebecca gives him a kiss. Well, that came out of nowhere. You met him all of five minutes ago.

The next morning, Rebecca goes for a run, sees a guy fishing off a dock, and then meets and befriends a little girl. She joins Becky on her run, until she gets bored and takes off into the forest, to return to her people, the fae.

On her way back, she sees the dock where the fisherman was is empty, and goes to investigate. She runs into the man who owns the dock, and he chases her off.

After Becky leaves, the fisherman goes back to his fishing, until a ghost finally comes out of the lake, and drags him into the murky depths.

Well, at least justice is served quickly at Ghost Lake.

The Lady of the Lake wants her sword back.

Back at the cottage, Rebecca goes through some old photo albums, until one of her parents starts to move. Lady, the last time that happened, some kids were attacked by a clown, best to get outta there now.

She ends up dropping the album, which wakes her up, because THAT WAS ALL A DREAM. But as she wakes up, she sees the ceiling fixture is leaking water.

Rebecca gets up, looks outside, and sees the entire area flooded to above the rooftops of the cottages around the lake.

Gotta take a swim down to the corner store.

Her home isn't completely flooded though, and she looks out a window near the highest point of the house. A hand reaches in to grab her and...she drops the photo album again, because THE IT WAS ALL A DREAM WAS ALL A DREAM.

Oh yeah, this movie just got on my bad side.

That night, before going to bed, Rebecca hears some noises in her attic. She doesn't find anything when she goes to investigate, because heaven forbid anything actually happens in the waking world in this movie.

Once she leaves, the little girl from earlier does sneak out of the shadows though, so we've learned two things; the kid loves to go into places she doesn't belong, and Rebecca is REALLY unobservant/bad at searching.

Stan shows back up to wine and dine Rebecca, so I guess that's a no to getting an early night's rest for her.

They hear more noises from upstairs, and decide instead of investigating again, to go outside and stare at the sky.

Once they're gone, the little girl comes into the living room and stares ominously at the fire. This will have zero bearing on the plot, it's just there to make you question things. Like, why are you watching this movie?

Following an awkward conversation by the lake, Rebecca decides she wants to go skinny dipping in the lake, and drags Stan along with her.

Stan starts freaking out because he feels something grabbing at him, and he goes under the surface. Instead of Stan, the body of the fisherman from earlier rises up, and they call the police.

But when the cops show up, the body is gone, and so is Stan. Officer Dobbs tells Rebecca that Stan was put on trial for killing his father, but he was found innocent.

Rebecca doesn't really care about any of this, and asks what any of this has to do with what she's been trying to tell Dobbs for the last hour. Lady, I don't understand what you've been trying to tell me for the last hour either.

They head out to where Rebecca saw the fisherman the other day, and this leads Dobbs to give one GIANT heaping of lakesposition.

We learn that the lake was man-made, a dam was built to flood the area, and it flooded out an old man's house. Over the years, he would return to this very spot to fish, going senile, and one day being dragged out into the lake by a fish he caught. The body was never recovered.

The legend goes that every 13 years, he returns to take someone else into the lake, like this is "Stephen King's WET" or something.

Rebecca asks why 13 years, and duh, because it's spooky! And sure, that holds up for an urban legend point of view, but since it's also a fact that holds true, just saying "It's spooky!" doesn't really explain anything??

Back home, there's more noises upstairs, and this time Rebecca actually finds the kid. Flora explains she got in through the broken screen door that Stan used earlier, and Rebecca takes her home.

The kid randomly jumps out of the car and runs off into the graveyard, saying that's where she lives And yeah, I'd be like "fuck it, nope, that's where the kid lives? I'm out." but not Becky! She goes running into the graveyard after Flora.

She eventually gives up, and returns to her car, finding her steering wheel wet, getting attacked by the dead fisherman.

Rebecca runs home, and runs into the OTHER fisherman she first saw, and boy is she glad to see him...until his face melts off. Poor girl is having a WEEK.

After running into Stan, and spending the night together, Rebecca wakes up the next day, with him already gone, picking up her car. She sees a boat go down in the lake, and swims out to try and save the people. But once again, there is nothing there when she gets out there.

Yet again the cops come out, find nothing, and apparently what Rebeca saw matches a fishing accident that happened 50 years ago. Point of order, shouldn't that be 49 years? I know in reality, people would likely round it up, but the movie WANTS to sell this 13 year cycle.

That night, the dead fisherman shows up at her door, begging her forgiveness, since she was nice when he was so rude to her. He wants her to come outside, so he can explain, and yeah, it's just as suspiccious as it sounds. So...ghosts are reverse vampies, and have to invite you outside?

But then the even deader fisherman shows up, grabs the other dead fisherman, and he turns into a bloated corpse splurfing water everywhere.

The two fisherman wander off and disappear in a flash of blue, like they're Quantum Leaping out of the movie, leaving Rebecca alone with her confusion.

So Rebecca goes into research mode, and hits the library, finding all the deaths that have happened every thirteen years, on the thirteen of some months. I think they might even all be Friday the 13ths.

The little girl shows up to apologise for running off, and read out dialogue like they're run on sentences. Oh, and then Becky sees an article about that same girl dying recently.

Since she has been suspicious of the little girl for at least the last 20 minutes, Rebecca calls the librarian over, and she doesn't see Flora.

I know it's a key light hitting the girl, but she looks cut out and pasted in.

Once they're alone again, Rebecca demands the girl tell her what she is, like they're Edward and Bella. But the kid blurts out the latest strange bit of dialogue, "You're a grown up! You can count to thirteen!"

Rebecca resumes her research montage, collecting information on all the deaths, and enlists Stan to go see all the murder sites. Oh she would love true crime podcasts in about ten years.

Stan points out that if the fisherman is this cycle's victim, then it will be a long time before another person dies, right? But no! He's already tried to claim another victim, so now things are different! Because he's the 13th victim! Why? I don't know! He's on third! And I don't give a darn!!

Look, I am the first person to be all here for the use of the number 13, but this movie is just tossing it around for shits and giggles.

While we get more lakesposition, we also get to see a pair of the previous victims resurface, to claim their new victims. Rebecca sees the ghosts attacking, but Stan doesn't.

This leads me to question...does he see the effects/aftermath of the ghosts attack? One of the ghosts smashes his victim's head with a cinder block. Does Stan just see a head explode into red mist? Does he see a random person flailing as they are dragged by unseen forces to the lake? Or do the people just up and disappear?

We then settle in for more research and lore into the number 13 and why it's so "spooky". And okay, you get a few points because I am a sucker for lore about the number 13. There is a reason this movie is the last one we’re reviewing before the end of our 16th year.

Stan actually pokes a lot of reasonable holes in all this, which does no favours for the actual plot. I don't think I've ever seen a movie do the work of delivering me all the plot holes in dialogue.

Most notably, he points out that some of the things Rebecca has seen, haven't happened, and don't seem to be real. And that's almost a relief, because if they're just her latest episodes, she can take her pills, and this all goes away. All things being told, the actress does a good job of feeling like she has been through it, and is a bit unhinged from all this.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ghosts filled with water off the shoulder of the highway. I watched a boat crash and glitter in the mist off Rushford Falls. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in a lake.

Of course, she then sees the boat again, and this time other people see it too, while Stan is being VERY insistent about her taking her pulls.

Which leads me to MORE questions...is she now some random psychic? Are her visions, her episodes, just misdiagnosed and treated like a mental illness? Or does she actually have problems AND ghosts?

The cops show up and find the dead bodies, in fact they find ALL the dead bodies, all over the lake. Or...at least, the original 13, including Flora. I think. I am starting to lose track here.

Officer Exposition and Rebecca head to the Thompsons’ to tell them they found the body of their grandchild, and the little girl is also there...because they were TWINS. The body is actually Saundra. Oooh that convolutes everything!

We have to take your ball in for questioning.

And this raises EVEN MORE questions, because if they were TWINS, she CLEARLY didn't die 13 years ago, and I think they said it was last year, or the year before that. So again, that's a two year, at most, cycle. Not 13. Every time this movie starts to make sense, they make things more confusing.

The deaths all seem to be reoccurring in the order they happened in, so Dobbs and Rebecca rush to the next scene, to try and stop things. There's some nice philosophizing here that natural cycles can be broken, all it takes is one person to change things. It might actually be too deep for this movie.

Unfortunately, another death occurs, but it's the NEXT one in the cycle, not the person they were waiting for at the dam. Which would break the rules, but when Rachel gets to the site of the accident, the couple are still alive.

Rebecca returns home, and doesn't want to be alone, so she heads to Stan's. Unfortunately, the little girl was inside, and she didn't want to be alone either. Oops. Her dead twin shows up, and leads Flora down to the lake, to take her life

Stan and Rebecca have sex while the girl gets taken to the lake to be drowned. If people she cares about keep dying because she was having sex and not looking out for them, Rebecca is gonna have years of therapy to look forward to.

Following another nightmare, Rebecca wants to go back to the town hall where the bodies are being stored (don’t ask, small town), and assures Stan that the sheriff won't harass him. Because not harassing people, that's what cops are known for.

Also, while they had sex, Rebecca found some scars on Stan's back. This, plus his weird behaviour, and never being around when anyone else is, lead her to believe he's one of the dead. But if he is a zombie ghost, and she had sex with him, does that make it…nope, no, don’t wanna think about that.

Who keeps a glowing green fish tank that bathes the entire room like you're in a Dario Argento film??

She tells Officer Dobbs, and before they can have it out, the Thompsons identify the body of their granddaughter. Saundra suddenly looks normal for a half second, making Gramma scream.

Everyone rushes to the sound, and then all the dead bodies start to get up like it's a zombie jamboree.

Oh, also, the couple that survived their encounter earlier...don't for much longer, as they decide this is too much, try to leave, and instead meet their delayed fate.

The living dead girl does some weird shit to freak people out, and the cop tries to take charge. Rebecca brushes against him, and notices he's covered in wet sound effects. He tries to brush it off by saying he fell into some water, but Rebecca is sure he's dead.

She tries to get the doctor to check his pulse, but when he does, Dobbs gut shots the doctor, and drags him off, because I guess that's his victim to claim.

Oh, he also drops more lore, about how they all have their victim they have to take, and at a specific time. I'm sorry, but we're a bit late to be rewriting the rules YET AGAIN.

And then this happens for no reason, and it has not happened previously. No joke here. I just can’t any more with this movie.

The twins' grandfather, like me, says he doesn't understand any of this. Rebecca shoots back with, "Understanding any of this doesn't matter, surviving it does!!" Which is pretty much this movie's way of saying "It's magic, we don’t have to explain it!"

Also, if understanding anything in this movie was required to survive, we would ALL be screwed.

Stan and Rebecca have an awkward moment, what with the whole accusation thing, but for now, there's more important things to deal with.

They hurry down to the lake to try and save the doctor, but they're too late. Or right on time. Or I don't even know. Officer Exposition blathers MORE about how they have to kill their victims at exactly 13 minutes, at the end of the cycle, or else it all continues. Because sure, let's add EVEN MORE RULES.

You know what my actual problem is? Not that they keep adding rules, but that they just come out of nowhere because someone says so. We even just start assuming the new ghosts have to kill people for no particular reason.

I just...so many questions. And I don't even want to get into it. Why is all of this happening? Why the obsessive use of 13? How are these rules and cycles affected by everything being different this year? Ugh I want to go on but just...this is hurting my brain. I actually thought I had this mostly sorted out, but the more I watch this movie, the more frustrating it becomes.

ANYways, Rebecca is the preordained 13th victim. But if all the previous ghosts have to kill their chosen victims, why are some of THOSE ghosts ALSO killing victims THIS year? Arblghsklnnpfn. I need a flow chart.

Oh, and the ghost that needs to kill Rebeca? Why, it's Stan! He IS a zombie ghost after all, and always as been! The Thompson girl led him down to the lake after he killed his father, and she killed him, 13 weeks ago! But...but...

Rebecca runs away, and Stan chases after her, even if he's refusing to kill her. She runs and stumbles, falling, I shit you not, right into the lake. Geeze, she's gonna take care of this problem for us.

Stan tries to get Rebecca out of the water, but the twins grab him instead. If he won't do the lake's bidding, it will take him back to his watery grave, I guess.

Rebecca can't save him though, and she runs off, with all the zombie ghosts following her, chanting, "Join us!' But...I thought Stan had to kill her? And at a specific time? So why are you still trying? Isn't the important cycle now broken?

Flora comes along though, and leads Rebecca away. Stan climbs up out of the water, to chat with Dobbs. And we find out he faked his second death, because Rebecca is a mess, everyone she loves dies, so her grief will lead her to take her OWN life. Because I guess that's good enough? But what about the timing of it and AAAAAARGH.

Back with the girls, Rebecca comments that Flora's hand is still warm, and she's still alive. Flora says she was always stronger than her sister, so she survived. So again...the cycle. Everyone dying IN ORDER. At SPECIFIC TIMES. And this is now ALREADY BROKEN. *hits head on the desk*

Oh, and if they can tell Flora is alive because she's still warm, wouldn't that mean...when Becky and Stan had sex...that Stan was...cold? No no no no not going there.

So the two girls walk into the water, holding their breath, while the time runs out on the cycle, and hopefully the ghosts go away when it fails. But. It. Already HAS FAILED.

While everything falls apart, Dobbs points out that Stan is starting to "show his age" with signs of being dead. Which again MAKES NO SENSE since he died *months* ago, and there is another body, bloated and waxy, RIGHT BEHIND HIM that died YESTERDAY. And Dobbs, who died just a few hours ago, looks worse than Stan! But not as bad as Wet Brett.

Water water everywhere, and not a plot to think.

Rebecca resurfaces, and tries to give Flora CPR, and Stan shows up to say Rebecca killed the girl, making her the 13th victim, but she was ALREADY SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD and PART OF THE CYCLE and *sobs*

Fortunately, Flora comes back to life, cutting off Stan's gloating when he chokes on lake water. Thank gods.

Rebecca chases Stan, and beats the watery stuffing out of him with a giant stick. This is all oddly satisfying.

And that’s for making me have sex with a corpse!

After kicking Stan back into the lake, Rebecca makes the long drive home, to see how her other houseghosts are doing.

Her parents are still there, and say that she's been blaming herself too long for their deaths, and they disappear. So basically, "So sorry for harassing you! If we had forgiven you a week ago, this whole movie could have been avoided!"??

But, I guess that passes for character growth and closure, and this movie is finally over.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Aside from being interlaced, it looks pretty good. It’s not a nice, sharp, big budget picture, but you can see everything. It could maybe use a bit more contrast, but you can see most of the effects makeup, so I can’t complain too much.

Audio: Serviceable, but nothing too special. Any movie I can see and hear clearly is a win.

Sound Bite: “I don't understand what any of this has to do with what I've been trying to tell you for the last hour!" A fucking mood here.

Body Count: I feel like I keep missing bodies in this movie, with how rules keep changing, who’s dead, who’s alive, at least two deaths taking place off camera…so if anyone who has seen this movie notices I missed a body in the count, NO YOU DIDN’T.

1 - Two minutes into the movie, and Ruth Haster dies of a gas leak.
2 - And her husband dies shortly after
3 - A fisherman gets drowned by a ghost
4 - Guy gets his head bashed in with a cinder block
5 - Girl gets dragged into the lake
6 through 9 - Four people go down in a boat crash
10 - The cop dies off camera
11 - Little girl gets taken into the lake by her twin
12 - The driver who survived gets pounced on by the zombie ghosts.
13 - As does his girlfriend
14 - Stan died off camera
15 - And on camera

Best Corpse: Saundra’s corpse is kinda gnarly, and even though yes, it is a sometimes ridiculous looking rubbery puppet, I kinda love it. Real commitment to the bit.

Blood Type - B: There’s not a ton of blood, but the movie does have quite a bit of makeup effects, and again, they look a bit camp, but it works for me. It all looks waxy and rubbery and soggy bloated corpse.

Sex Appeal: There’s some boobs here when Rebecca has sex, and even some shirtless men for the ladies.

Drink Up! Every time someone says the number thirteen.

Movie Review: Here’s the thing. I clearly, at one point, stopped enjoying this movie. But I have to be honest, I WANT to like this movie. I want to REALLY like it. I covered another movie by Jay Woefel a couple years ago, Beyond Dream's Door. And I am a big big fan of that one, even though it has it’s own moments of incomprehensibility and plot complications. It gets away with it just a bit more, because the movie is built on dreams and dream logic. You can’t hide behind that stuff in a movie like this though. In the commentary, Jay tries to justify it by saying he didn’t want to answer everything, because urban legends are mysterious and spooky. Which is fine for spooky stories around the campfire. If you’re setting out a story, and you have someone investigating things, you’re setting yourself up to explain things. This movie somehow adheres to the filmmaking rule of “show don’t tell”, while also telling a WHOLE lot. I both needed more clarity in the plot, and a little less telling. If you step back and look at the big picture, you can kinda see what they were going for, and in broad strokes the core plot makes sense, but the details make everything a mess. The plot feels overly complicated for what it is, and the languid pace don't do it many favours. The movie is somehow both slow, and too packed with information. That said, there is some really good cinematography here, the acting of the main cast is solid enough, if not exactly award winning, and is technically well made. But so, so messy and convoluted. Two out of five soggy corpses.

Entertainment Value: This movie swings so wildly from being VERY entertaining, with weird bits of dialogue, a plot that is all over the place, a child actor who is doing her best, and some amazingly camp special effects that I love. This movie first came to my attention because of a video trying to figure out the rules for the ghosts, and after my first viewing or two, I thought I had it sorted out. A lot of the confusion comes from there basically being TWO sets of ghosts; the lake ghosts with their curse, and Rebecca’s parents. These ghosts operate on two separate rulesets, and you could even argue that Rebecca’s parents aren’t even real, just figments of her imagination, so there’s only one set of ghosts, and their rules. But on subsequent viewings, those rules for the lake ghosts just get increasingly more confusing and make less sense the more I watched the movie, and the more I thought about it. When the movie isn’t getting convoluted and eating it’s own tale, there’s plenty to have fun with, and even the increasing levels of ???? are fun, but at some point, it starts to hurt. It is absolutely a movie worth seeing once, just to see how bonkers and messy it gets. Like I said, I want to like this movie, even if just on a fun camp level, and it’s so frustrating that a technically proficient enough film is such a dire headscratchingly baffling movie at the end of the day. It is one of those movies that I say is lesser than the sum of it’s parts, because while you can point to a lot of things and go “this is good, this is good, that’s all right” it never fully comes together in a satisfying way. Three out of five gas leaks, and that’s mostly because I just can’t look away.

This movie EXHAUSTED me, folks.