A review of "Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lamprey's"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lamprey’s”

By: Brian Cotnoir

     Hey Folks, it’s time to review another film by The Asylum!  I don’t’ know about the rest of you, but now I get excited whenever I get to review one of the films from the Mock-Buster Kings!  So let’s take a look at one of their latest film releases “Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lamprey’s”!             

     So the plot to “Blood Lake” is almost identical to the plot from Steven Speilberg’s “Jaws”, but it was made on (what seems like) 1/8 the budget of Joe Dante’s “Piranha”...and that’s pretty much all this film is...so yeah...now that I’ve covered the plot, let’s talk about other things in the film.                  

    First of all, I fail to see what’s so terrifying about a lamprey. In fact, I’d never heard of lamprey until I’ve saw this film, but from what I gathered it’s a type of river eel that feeds on fish...that’s not really all that frightening.  When you compare that to a shark or a piranha a lamprey just seems like more of a nuisance than a threat.  I mean, at least with a piranha what they lack in size the make up with razor sharp teeth and swarms.  Plus, lamprey doesn’t sound like an intimidating creature name. It sounds more like the name you’d give to a light fairy or pixie then a bloodthirsty killer animal.                        

What are you doing Chris? Trying to pull
a competent performance out of your a$$?

The acting in this film is ranges from poor to desperately poor.  The child and teen actors in this film obviously don’t give anything resembling a competent performance in this film.  I’m assuming they just grabbed the random kids from the town they were filming in and asked if they would like to be in a Horror film, because I don’t think any of them were given any type of audition.  The character Rich has to be one of the Worst and most useless characters I’ve ever seen in a film.  Rich is played by actor Fred Stoller and not only does he give one of the Worst Performances I’ve ever seen in a film, but also the Most Annoying Performance I’ve seen in a film since Michael Jeter in “Drop Zone”. I hated Rich so much that whenever he was on screen I kept saying to myself “Oh God, I hope this character gets killed off at some point in the film!”  That’s how bad a character he truly is!  But don’t worry, “Blood Lake” isn’t just a bunch of no-name and no talented actors on screen, it also features some well-known actors and actresses as well. Actress Shannon Doherty, plays the wife or the films protagonist, and Zack Ward (aka Scut Farkus from “A Christmas Story”) has a small role in the film as well, but the most famous and recognizable character in the film is Christopher Lloyd, who is pretty much playing the same character as the Mayor from “Jaws”: he is more concerned with losing tourist dollars than the risk of losing human life in his towns waters, he ignores the requests to shut down the beaches to try to quell the situation, and offers no additional funding or resources that could stop the situation all together.  But what’s most sad about this is how poorly Christopher Lloyd acts in this film.  Whenever, Christopher Lloyd appears in this film he seems bored, unmotivated, and like he’s not even trying to give a competent performance.  That’s really saying something because it was only couple years earlier he appeared in another Mock-Buster style film “Piranha 3-D” and its sequel “Piranha 3DD”.  Now nobody thought that “Piranha 3-D” was going to be a good film, in fact they only real differences between “Piranha 3-D” and “Blood Lake” that I could notice were “Piranha” had better CG and slightly better actors, and gratuitous amounts of hardcore nudity.  Even though “Piranha 3-D” was a bad film, Christopher Lloyd appeared alert and professional on screen and did his best to give a competent and memorable performance.  When you watch him in “Blood Lake” it’s kind of like watching Bela Lugosi appear in one of Edward D. Wood Jr.’s films.  I was very disappointed with Christopher Lloyd’s performance.             

Terrible!  You're all just terrible!!!

     You shouldn’t be surprised that “Blood Lake” is a terrible film, and I’m not just saying it’s terrible only because it was made and distributed by The Asylum, I’m saying that also because this film was made as a TV movie for Animal Planet!  1.)  Animal Planet isn’t really the go-to channel for Horror movies.  I don’t think they don’t have the same type of audience that is drawn to Horror films like the Syfy Network or AMC 2.)  Who the hell likes Animal Planet that much that they would tune in to watch this crapfest?!  Egad, this is a bad movie that you should avoid entirely, and I think this go without saying that it will most likely be a frontrunner for the Splatter! Award for Worst Film of the Year.  So stay tuned for that to see if it comes true.