Le lac des morts vivants

Plot synopsis:
The story opens in a small French village 10 years after World War II. The villagers refer to a small nearby lake known as the "lake of the damned." A group of young women go skinnydipping in the lake and are attacked by zombie Nazi soldiers who drown them. The zombies later leave the lake and attack women within the town. The mayor of the town (Howard Vernon) refuses to take action against the zombie attacks until reporter Katya Moore (Marcia Sharif) arrives to investigate.
After Moore returns a book to the mayor, they discuss the history of the town during the German occupation. His story is about a young Nazi soldier who protected a local woman from enemy gunfire. He was nursed back to health by the woman, who offered him her pendant and had sex with him. Returning to the woman later, the soldier finds her dying after giving birth to their daughter Helena. The soldier and his full squadron are then killed by a team of townspeople led by the mayor. Their bodies were disposed of in the lake.
The mayor says that he believes the zombies are the soldiers returning from the dead. Later, a female basketball team visiting the town is attacked by the zombies. Given the scale of the tragedy, the mayor calls the police, who send two detectives over to investigate. They too are killed by the zombies. The mayor then devises a plan to use the zombie's relationship with Helena by having her lure them into a mill. The zombies enter the mill, which is then destroyed by the villagers using flamethrowers.

Tags: pornographic, revenge, comedy, violence

Review:
On the side of the living are local villagers lead by the Mayor (the late, great Howard Vernon) who gets the immortal line `we better face the facts that the Zombies have declared war'.
The films most notorious moment rests with the nude swimming scenes viewed from the Zombie's point of view at the bottom of the lake, and accompanied to Europop at its most wincing (`la, lala, lala la la').
Backstage tales of how quick and cheap the movie was put together are legion - the original director Jesus Franco disappeared before the film started, leaving his replacement Rollin with a two week shooting schedule and a script he hadn't even read.
Both remain the two directors worst commercial work, but Oasis is a stone dead boring 90 minutes, while Zombie's Lake is full of many absurd moments that keep the film from ever being dull and the green zombies are a hoot.
Le Lac des morts vivants (Zombie Lake) was a project with Jesus (Jess) Franco's involvement and directed by Jean Rollin.
On the outset the movie is horrible, but not nearly horrible enough to keep Jess Franco from remaking the insipid piece of cinematic waste again as La Tumba de los muertos vivientes (Oasis of the Zombies), which had the more interesting moniker of The Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies at one time or another.Jean Rollin apparently understands one standard of z-grade horror, if the movie you find yourself directing has not one single redeeming feature at all, just pad the movie with ample gratuitous nudity and most viewers will be so distracted they may not notice how horrible the film actually is.
Hint, if you're directing a lame, boring film that is going directly to video anyway and can't fix it or at least make it interesting you have no cinematic integrity.Rant aside, Zombie Lake is loaded to the gills with naked woman that just throw caution (and their clothes) to the wind at the sight of this undead infested pond.
Add to this mixture horrible zombie makeup, dull acting, a plot scripted by a highly evolved plankton, Jess Franco, and you have all the trappings of a complete disaster of a film the has Jean Rollin's name on it.
The Mayor, who was part of the resistance, organizes a posse with a flamethrower, to destroy the living dead, and uses the girl Helena to help them."Le Lac des Morts Vivants" is another hilarious low-budget horror-trash by Eurocine from the 70's and 80's recently released in Brazil on DVD with attractive cover.
Everything is absurd in this film, from the story and screenplay to the direction, acting, make-up and cinematography (the exception are the underwater scenes); but controversially I have enjoyed and had lots of fun watching this trash.
Father/daughter subplot is only reason to watch unless you're doing a doctoral thesis on the worst zombie films ever, in which case this is a necessary pit stop..
There are equally bad and even worse zombie films, as hard as it may be to believe if you haven't seen them before this (shot on video backyard films like "Stink of Flesh" or Super8mm epics like "Dead Life" come to mind).
If you want a decent Nazi zombies film, check out Ken 'RotLD2' Wiederhorn's "Shock Waves" instead.Now back to the bad movie at hand: This is a low point for Jean Rollin, a well-known Eurotrash filmmaker who made some visually interesting and atmospheric films, of which this is not one.
Sadly there are not enough of these painfully silly moments to rescue this film to the 'so bad its good' list.ZOMBIE MAKEUP: green hands & face paint with movie blood, which often washes off in underwater scenes which seem to be shot in a swimming pool with a greenish curtain backdrop.DE-ANIMATION METHOD: Napalm them to dust with a flamethrower!
Their victims, however, do NOT turn into zombies.STORY: During the OP credits we see an attractive woman strip down for a skinny dip in a lake like a bad attempt to recreate a scene out of 'Jaws' or 'Piranha'.
Another village woman gets killed and her father pays the mayor a visit wanting it investigated.The mayor tells a visiting reporter about the haunted lake with some mumbo jumbo about black magic sacrifices being done there and Nazis killed by the local resistance whose bodies were dumped there for hiding.
Now the Nazis are back as zombies killing locals.A van packed with a girls' basketball team strips down for full frontal underwater footage (while indescribably bad cheesy music plays) and the girls are attacked by zombies whose makeup is coming off almost as quick as the girls' clothes did.
Let's clear one thing up first, if you want a good zombie horror movie then go rent something else.
Considering director Jean Rollin isn't exactly a hack and has made quite a few interesting and stylish horror films, why does THIS have to his best-circulated film in America?Here's a taste of what you're in for gang...Nazi soldiers shot and killed during WWII rise from a lake and terrorize the citizens of a picturesque, small French town.
If you want nudity, rent a porno - a film like "Debbie Does Dallas" is likely to be better acted, scripted, and directed than Le Lac des morts vivants, a.k.a. Zombie Lake.
Zombie Lake is the american release title, but it would be more fitting if it was "Slow People With Green Face Paint Pond." I am the biggest fan of zombies that I have ever met, I really love almost all movies with zombies, but this one is so incredibly rotten that I'm sure the cast even hated it.
The plot (if you want to call it that) deals with Nazi-zombies that just happen to be hiding in a "lake" and one day start attacking people, but it's not as cool as it sounds.
Jean Rollin replaced Jess Franco as director of Zombie Lake at the 11th hour, but to be honest, you would be hard pushed to tell: Rollin's direction is every bit as clumsy as Franco at his worst, and like so many of the Spaniard's films, the film is only worth watching for the full-on nudity from some quality Euro-crumpet and a few unintentional laughs derived from its overall sloppiness.Zombie Lake opens with a hot brunette sauntering over to the film's titular lake for a spot of skinny dipping, during which she is attacked by a zombie Nazi sporting green face paint that only extends as far as his jawline.
The scene is gore-less, scare-less and technically inept (the underwater scenes having been filmed in what looks like a cunningly disguised swimming pool), but it does allow Rollin's audience to become very well acquainted with the girl's genitalia.The sneaky vag shots and lame zombie attacks continue throughout the film, the lake continually drawing fit French fillies to its waters to frolic in the buff—and when the naked chicks are on screen, all's right with the world; but whenever Rollin tries conjure up a creepy atmosphere, scare his viewers, or inject some drama into proceedings, it all goes horribly wrong, becoming a painfully embarrassing and dreary exercise in how not to make a zombie film.3 out of 10, all points awarded purely for the T&A, best scene being the arrival at the lake of an all-female basketball team, who strip off for a refreshing dip with inevitably disastrous results..
The soldiers 'somehow' emerge from the lake several years later as zombies and start killing off naked babes.The movie is impossible to take seriously.
Let's pin swastikas to them, paint our faces green, and walk around like Frankenstien with a load in his pants while pulling topless women into the lake.' The fact that it was filmed in French and dubbed (poorly) into English only adds to the schlockiness.I only hope that the director had as much fun making this film as I did watching it, because I pity them if they thought they were cranking out competent cinema..
I watched this one night with a few mates drunk and ended up talking all the way thru it.I remember one of my friends trying to tell us rollin was a god and fulci had never made anything as mad as...you guessed it ZOMBIE LAKE!!
Somewhere in France there is a small village.Near it there is a lake which contains several undead Nazi soldiers.These Nazis were killed at some point during World War II by the French resistance and the bodies were dumped into the lake.For reasons unknown to us the zombies finally rise out of the lake and the mayhem begins."Zombie Lake" is basically an excuse to show plenty of young,attractive women completely naked.Of course being a big fan of sleazy exploitation I'm not complaining about that.However the list of flaws is very long:the makeup of the zombies is atrocious,the direction is painfully bad,the music is horrible and there are several scenes that were put into the film that make no sense whatsoever.So if you are a fan of truly bad Z-grade Euro-trash cinema give this one a look.However Jean Rollin's lesbian vampire flicks are much better than this hilarious piece of garbage.3 out of 10..
In a small village, somewhere in France, German soldiers, killed and thrown into the lake by the Resistance during WW II, come back.The story was written by Jess Franco, although I am not sure how much thought had to go into this one.
The people who were behind this should not be proud.This ranks pretty low on the "Nazi zombie" scale, behind "Dead Snow" and "Shock Waves", and even behind another Jess Franco film "Oasis of the Zombies".
The story though had something going for it, I do enjoy a water setting for my horror and I like the idea of zombies emerging from a lake to kill people and drain them of blood.
I can not believe in a book I read they said they thought "Burial Ground" was the epitome of bad zombie movies, and I think they mentioned this one.
These Nazis walking at a snail's pace, are able to catch and kill the entire town, including an incredibly fit and attractive women's soccer team ;OK Mr. Director, you've lost me now, your monsters move at about six hours per mile and yet can catch 20-year-old girls in great shape.
It isn't the worst  it's more entertaining than House of the Dead  but it certainly must be a serious candidate for the most inept.The story concerns a group of German soldiers who are killed by French partisans and thrown in a cursed lake.
Even the camera-work is diabolical.From the Jean Rollin movies I've seen, it seems clear that Zombie Lake incorporates all of the faults that can be seen in his other work but minus any of the good bits he sometimes manages to come up with.
Mainly, having the word Zombie in the title, and actually having badly, face-painted, football fans as the titled Lake owners, the dubbing is atrocious, and the plot all but comes to a crashing halt in places.
The blood and gore is not really worth mentioning as all of it is off screen with the simple ketchup spray of blood on the floor or grass to give indication of death.To top this movie off the dialog itself is really poor, and the UK DVD disc I viewed has quite possibly the worst dubbing ever; it was quite clear that all the voices were done by a single man and woman.Overall, this film has to be seen to be believed, ironically enough I strongly urge you just to take our word for it – and for the love of god don't watch it.
Some might vote for Bianchi's Nights of Terror (Burial Ground, Zombie Horror) to claim first prize for being the worst of such films, but for me I have to go for Zombie Lake.In pre-production the prolific Jesus Franco was scheduled to direct this boring affair concerning underwater-Nazi-zombies who terrorise the nearby village.
Review based on 86-minutes long version entitled "Zombies' Lake"Another movie where the plot (presuming there was one) takes second place to the nudity and gore, this shlock flick begins with a yummy looking girl skinny dipping being attacked and drowned by a pancake-faced zombie , who then rises from the lake to ...
("We better face the fact that zombies have declared war!") Shots of zombies rising up from the lake to attack people are somewhat creepy, but it turns comical when their victims just simply stand there and watch as the zombies walk toward them and kill them.
"Zombie Lake" made me feel bad about myself for watching it.This movie does everything wrong.
"Zombie Lake" is an undeniably cheesy, but quite entertaining Nazi-zombie movie.**SPOILERS**A mysterious rash of disappearances plagues a small French town, and The Mayor, (Howard Vernon) is under fire from the townspeople to solve them.
The fact still remains, is that the ineptness of the effects if the real reason why this is judged harshly, otherwise it's not that bad of a film.The Final Verdict: While nowhere near the list of the worst zombie movies ever made, this is still a quite enjoyable and definitely cheesy entry.
There's a lot to like and a lot to dislike, and therefore is only to be recommended for the most discriminating Euro-Horror fan or those looking for a new movie to rip on with friends.Rated UR/R: Full Female Nudity, Violence, Language and several sex scenes.
The film features some of the most stupid scenes ever to grace cinema - we've got a bus load of naked girls turning up out of nowhere, a man who comes home to his daughter...as a zombie and worst of all; the day is saved by said little girl.
The plot is completely pointless in substance as well as style; Zombie Lake is a completely redundant film that doesn't even work as a fun waste of time.
This goes on through out entire movie until it's discovered, by reading about Zombies and how they operate or what makes them tic, that only the blast of a flame thrower can do them in.***SPOILERS*** There's also a touching side-story here with zombafied German solider Pierre Escourrou finding his long lost daughter Helena who was the result of an affair he had back in WWII with local French woman Nadina Pascal.
Plenty of athletically-built, scantily-clad chicks who seem to have little regard for decency as they regularly disrobe to take a dip in the pond.Obviously you are not going to get the next "Dawn of the Dead" here, but "Zombie Lake" is plenty entertaining to sit around and swig a couple beers, relax and have a laugh at.High points for me are the swimming pool ladders visible in some of the underwater scenes and the green makeup that even comes off onto one of the victims arms in a killing scene.
But, if you like nudity...is this the zombie movie for you...entire basketball teams of nudity and an opening underwater sequence that'll have you ignoring the fact that this lake looks like a pool with bed sheets as back drops...you'll see what I mean..
I love bad horror movies, especially when they include zombies and dubbed inenglish.
I don't know that this is the worst movie that I've seen in my life, what I do know for a fact is that I've never seen a worst movie.Zombie Lake (lac des morts vivants) has a brutal combination of awful acting, really bad makeup and an even worst script.
Several years later, they come back from their watery grave as green-faced zombies killing off locals, most of them being nubile women who prefer skinny dipping in the lake.Jean Rollin's cheap Euro zombie film is so bad that it's...
And then there's this way too long flashback of the story of the lake, but still, nothing is explained, and then a women's volleyball team gets to the lake and gets naked before getting killed off, all except one who gets away in a pair of short-shorts.Then the whole movie goes into this timid versian with this little girl and her zombie father.
The Nazis have come back as zombies to seek their revenge on the people of the village.There are a lot of bad movies, but Zombie Lake must surely be near the top of the heap.
These zombies decide to come to life several years or maybe decades later with green face paint, still brand new looking uniforms, ridiculous expressions and they start to take their revenge on some travelling female sports team who decide to get naked and go frolicking in the titular lake.
Told in flashback, a group of Nazi soldiers are killed and dumped into a lake which somehow reanimates them years later and brings them back to 'zombie' life.
I believe that ZOMBIE LAKE is the first Jean Rollin film that I've had the "pleasure" of watching.
All that said, ZOMBIE LAKE is not the worst film I've seen by any stretch.
It's also not a good film by any stretch - but it has it's moments, most of which are entertaining strictly for their hilariousness.All you really need to know about this film is that it's about Nazi-zombies who come out of a cursed lake to feed on nude women.
The film's incomparable awfulness, however, makes it quite fun to watch for anybody who can enjoy awful cinema.In World War 2, the local resistance of a small French village killed a bunch of Nazi soldiers and (very smartly) threw their corpses into a lake that had been known as an obscure place of black magic since ancient times.
The Nazi-Zombies must be the most ridiculously looking living dead ever - They look quite the same as they did before they were killed, only that the makeup 'artist' here painted their faces green.
Quite possibly the greatest zombie movie ever filmed.