Zombie Lake (1981) User Reviews

Zombie Lake/Swimming Pool.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 19 September 2012]

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 Toten Korp from Shock Waves left the rejects behind.

[leagueofstruggle · 2/10 · 9 March 2004]

To my knowledge there are technically three underwater Nazi zombie movies. The father of the other two is Shockwaves and really the only one worth viewing. An odd spin off from this film is Oasis of the Zombies and Zombie Lake. Le Lac des morts vivants (Zombie Lake) was a project with Jesus (Jess) Franco's involvement and directed by Jean Rollin. Although I personally am not too fond of Jean Rollin's work and definitely despise the hack work of Jess Franco, a man who has never made a movie that could keep me interested, I honestly couldn't believe Rollin had anything to do with this project. 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. Modern directors should take note of this since 99 percent of horror films made after 1986 are boring and virtually unwatchable and won't go lowbrow because the director thinks he has integrity. 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. Naturally the zombies swim around and eliminate all comers in a decidedly stiff and mostly bloodless fashion. The lake scenes are just awful and could well be used by film schools as a glaring example of how to completely destroy anything resembling film continuity. We have naked ladies splashing in knee-deep water. Cut to the zombies completely submerged walking under the girls' thrashing legs. Cut back to knee-deep water then back to them swimming and freely floating in ten feet of water above the zombies. Back and forth we cut between the lake shots and the underwater shots probably filmed in the deep end of Jess Franco's swimming pool. 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. This film runs neck and neck with Oasis of the Zombies for being the worst zombie film ever. Oasis of the Zombies lacks even gratuitous nudity but has other redeeming qualities. Both movies are truly awful and even the cheese factor isn't high enough to warrant humorous jibes at it. Princesse de l'érotisme Christina (Virgin Among the Living Dead) is still worse than Zombie Lake by light years however and it is, you guessed it, another Jess Franco project. Fortunately the underwater Nazi zombie movie genre played itself out after just a few movies and actually should have ended with Shock Waves. Given with the state of Hollywood these days it should only be another year or so before Zombie Lake is remade by some flash in pan director that is completely devoid of any of his own ideas. It will probably be remade with a multi-million dollar budget and will still be awful or even worse than the original. Is that possible? Oh yes, very possible.

Hilarious Horror-Trash by Eurocine

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 9 July 2012]

In World War II, in a small village in France vanquished by the German army, a local woman has a love affair with one soldier and they have a daughter, Helena. One day, the German soldiers are ambushed and killed by the French Resistance and their bodies are thrown into a lake.

Ten years later, the soldiers become an army of undead attacking the locals. 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. Although not responsible for the direction, the touch of Jesus Franco is visible. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Lago dos Zumbis" ("The Zombie's Lake")

Another Z-movie Eurocine triumph

[gavcrimson · 1 May 2000]

The most seen (although not exactly appreciated) film of French producers Eurocine- responsible for numerous sex, horror, spy and adventure films. In their Seventies heyday Eurocine seemed like the illegitimate child of sensational pulp paperbacks of the Fifties and Sixties. Always put together cheaply and rough looking but always with great packaging, embracing the sort of lurid subjects that always grabbed the public's attention, if not their intelligence. With Zombie's Lake, subjects didn't come more sensational than `mad murdering Zombies' ogling and picking off semi-nude women. During the end of the Second World War, the French resistance manages to dispose of the local Nazis and throw their bodies into the lake of the title. The lake was previously used for witchcraft, so many years later the (green!) undead Nazi Zombies are rising from the lake, and chewing down on the most of Eurocine's repertory players including the director (putting in a cameo as a detective). Oh and you just have to mention their attack on the local female netball team, all of whom just love to go swimming naked in the lake, even though its possibly the most dirtiest lake ever committed to celluloid. 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'. Along the way we're treated to some truly appalling makeup and lots of fun in watching drunken looking Frenchmen with green muck on their faces pretend to terrorise people. 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'). Just to make your life that little more miserable, many versions of the film are missing all the nude scenes, being replaced by softer out-takes of the girls in ghastly ill- fitting underwear. Otherwise the bane of this prosperous films existence is the subplot a `touching' relationship between a little girl and her Nazi /Zombie dad. Largely unnecessary to the film although when you realise that the little girl (Anouchka Lesoeur) is the daughter of the producer it becomes obvious why its there. On a technical level the film is a nightmare, Eurocine in the best `recycled vinyl blues' tradition couldn't make a new hit film without recycling several others. Hence the main theme music is taken from Eurocine's Female Vampire, and the WW2 footage from a war film (Convoy of Girls aka The Depraved Third Reich to be precise). 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. Given these conditions that any aspect of the film is memorable is remarkable. Perhaps its better to view the film's merits- compared with its forgetable `cousin' The Oasis of the Zombies- the film Jesus Franco did make when the Eurocine producers caught up with him, which resurrects the Nazi Zombie theme as well as lots of recycled WW2 footage. 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. Although only recommended to the truly die-hard the end results are a perversely entertaining last blast from the golden era of the European horror movie.

Lost for words

[Dockelektro · 1/10 · 24 January 2002]

Really can't say anything clear about this movie because it just leaves me breathless. The laughter is a thing you won't be able to control on this atrociously awful turkey, where zombies are rapists, and lose their green make up behind the ears. Maybe they made this movie to see if they managed to make the worst movie ever, because it is a pretty good candidate to the title. This movie is probably the equivalent of used toilet paper, it looks as it's been made by a alcoholic butcher with the sexual appetite of a 18 year old. See it, it is absolutely unmissable, the crap is everywhere, and probably it was made on purpose: even the gunshots are out of sync! Don't miss the lake scenes, where the women are standing in a shallow water but the underwater shots show them swimming with water by their necks! Incredible piece of bad moviemaking, see it to believe that there are movies like this one!

Night of the Living Brain Dead Rip-Offs

[capkronos · 3/10 · 4 May 2003]

Let's clear one thing up first, if you want a good zombie horror movie then go rent something else. If you are looking for nonstop naked Euro babes and unintentional laughs in the form of terrible dubbing and FX, then look no further. 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. The green-faced flesheater make-up could easily be the worst ever. It opens with a very long segment featuring a naked woman walking around, sunbathing, then swimming. Zombie POV shots show her doggy paddling around for what seems to be an hour before she is pulled under. In another scene, a zombie stalking a woman has normal hands, but when he attacks and kills her his hands are suddenly green. My favorite part is when an all-girl basketball team arrive in a van ("Come on out girls! HAHA!"), strip naked and splash around in the lake. Underwater shots capture them from all angles before they get killed. Howard Vernon, Europe's answer to John Carradine, stars as a mayor who tells a reporter in flashback the fate of the zombie soldiers. OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (1981) has a similar theme and was made by the same crew, but different director (Jesus Franco). Both are insufferably terrible!

Score: 1 out of 10

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.

[Death_to_Pan_and_Scan · 2/10 · 1 August 2006]

This film can get pretty amusing at times in its ridiculousness. I gave it an extra point just for the subplot which while silly was an unusual touch that added something to this otherwise awful film.

Zombie fans often list this film as THE WORST zombie film ever (Jess Franco's Nazi zombie film "Oasis of the Zombies" is similarly categorized for its awfulness). 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). Jean Rollin made a better not-quite-zombie story with the tainted vineyard plague film "Grapes of Death" which I recommend over this and which had vague similarity to Romero's "The Crazies". 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. The overwhelming amount of nudity here seems fairly typical for him (he did make some lesbian vampire films, after all) but the atmosphere does not remind me of other work of his I have seen. It took me a couple sittings to make it through this garbage, but it did have its moments. How many times have you seen zombies attempt hand to hand combat, even using a knife? 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! ZOMBIE FEASTING?: these are what I call 'necking zombies'. They don't feast in traditional Romero or O'Bannon sense; they simply chew at necks and drink blood like they are pretend vampires. 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'. She ignores a warning sign by knocking it over. It's not a simple 'no swimming' sign mind you, but a skull and crossbones that would seem to indicate some reasonable level of danger. Needless to say, she gets killed by a zombie. 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. Inept horror movie cops are dispatched to investigate.

***WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD*** There's a young girl whose daddy was a German soldier killed in a local battle right after her mommy died in her childbirth. Now daddy comes back from his watery grave to meet her and protects her from other zombies including being attacked by a knife-wielding zombie. Yes, you read that right! The zombies also attack villagers with sideways karate chops. Go figure.

Enlisted to help solve the locals' walking dead problem, the zombie's daughter asks for a whole lotta blood to set a trap for them, but she wants her daddy spared. Her guardian convinces her that daddy zombie WANTS to die (probably to escape from being trapped in this awful movie). During the final zombie rampage through town, the reporter follows a movie tradition of stupidly needing to get that all-important photo shot.

Zombies + boobs = fun?

[Torgo_Approves · 1/10 · 8 October 2006]

(r#81)

This movie is schlock of the highest order, but you'd expect that the copious amounts of nudity would save it, right? Wrong! 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. This is a tedious hackwork. I knew it was going to be crap when I saw it, but I figured, it's got lots of 80's babes going skinny dipping, so how bad can it be? The answer was: extremely bad. This is a new low in zombie movies, and quite possibly the worst of its kind. Yes, I said it: 'Zombie Lake' is worse than 'House of the Dead'. At least the latter had a tiny, tiny bit of entertainment value. This is dreary, overlong, and just plain dull! It's the movie equivalent of Ben Affleck. It's like a Bergman movie without the fun.

The plot concerns a zombie dad who looks like a cross between Edward Scissorhands and The Mask. He rises from his watery grave to search for his daughter, who was supposedly born during the second world war but must have suffered some kind of disease that caused her to stop aging for about 30 years. Sound like fun yet? Good, because that's as much plot as you're gonna get. This movie might be worth watching for the nekkid women, but I just barely got through it once and you should be either drunk, stoned, very horny and alone, or all of the above before attempting to tackle this atrocity.

The eighties, man, the eighties. Those were the days. Only then could you build an entire movie around the subject of boobies. Wow.

What was that?

[bensonmum2 · 1/10 · 4 February 2005]

• A group of Nazi soldiers are gunned down by the locals in a small French village. Deciding they must hide the bodies as quickly as possible, the dead Nazis are thrown into the local lake. Twelve years later, several young females either go missing or turn up dead. Could it be the legend the locals call "The Ghost of the Lake"? 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. To start with, the pacing is non-existent. The movie gets off to a snails pace and goes downhill from there. By the time the flashback sequence rolls around, things come to a grinding halt. The acting is just as bad. I would be amazed to learn that anyone other than Howard Vernon ever had much of a career in acting.

• There are scenes in Zombie Lake that will amaze and astound. Some of the more memorable moments include:

* Zombies with ever changing skin color. When the zombies first emerge from the lake, the skin color is almost normal. Within a matter of minutes, the zombies are a fluorescent green. In some scenes, the whole head and neck are green. In the blink of an eye, only the face is green. * Zombies have feelings too. The sight of the love sick zombie staring hopefully at the house of his former lover is almost too much to take. * Zombies make good fathers. As if the love sick zombie wasn't enough, imagine a green faced zombie walking down the street holding his little girl's hand. * Boots are fascinating. The movie gives us several minutes of shots of zombie boots stumbling along a path. At first, they go left. Next, they go right. The excitement was almost more than I could take. * 12 year old girls are the best defense against zombies. Of course no one in the village except the little girl has the slightest idea of how to kill the zombies. * Zombies pull knives on each other. Watching two zombies roll around on the ground as they try to stab each other is one of the most amazingly ridiculous sights I've ever seen. They should have asked the 12 year old girl about how to fight a zombie. * There's so much more, but you get the idea.

• The ineptitude on display is amazing. But, then again, the movie was directed by Jean Rollin and co-written by Jesus Franco. I don't know why anyone would expect any better.

• Even though I've rated Zobmie Lake a 1/10, I still recommend the movie to anyone with a stomach for bad cinema. This movie really must be seen to be believed.

Just another piece of zombie trash

[chuckm76 · 1/10 · 16 March 2009]

I say just another, it's definitely one of the worst. Jesus Franco should be dragged out into the street and shot, then when he comes back as a zombie shot in the head and set on fire to make sure he doesn't come back. I hate his movies, I really don't know why I bother watching them but I feel I have to just in case he proves me wrong. He never does, 100% of the time. That's some going. Please, please don't bother watching this unless you already know you like this kind of Euro garbage. Anyone looking for a real zombie movie please look somewhere else and don't judge the whole genre on these movies. Just make sure you avoid it, if it has anything to do with Jesus Franco!!

Below average Zombie exploitation co-produced by France/Spain in which Nazi living dead reemerge from a creepy lake

[ma-cortes · 4/10 · 16 February 2021]

Eerie Zombie movie with sleazeness , scary scenes , grisly killings , gory events, and lots of nudism . It deals with a small village during WWII when a Nazi squadron appears , as they are taken down by the Partisans and their bodies are thrown into a nearly lagoon . Along the way one of them fell in love for a villager girl who gave a medallion to her German soldier lover . Many years later , the Nazi living dead reappear from the lake causing wreak havok . Along the way , a journalist starts investigating and unearths the horrifying past involving the previous resistance fighters and the Mayor himself : Howard Vernon . How long can you hold your breath! God help us if they rise again ! They are waiting for you .. just beneath the surface ! If you think the Nazis have gone under you're dead wrong , If you were terrified by Zombie Lake ..this one will eat you alive ! The ultimate horror within a lake ! There's no rest for the wicked in the lake of the living dead !

This is a ridiculous and absurd Zombie movie with chills , thrills , naked girls , and lots of blood and gore . Silly and implausible script by Jesús Franco himself who was firstly planned to shot , in fact here shows up some of his regular actors as Antonio Mayans , Nadie Pascal, and of course Howard Vernon . Stars the prolific actor Howard Vernon as the Mayor who took part of the WWII resistance and nowadays has to confront a bunch of bloody Zombies by forming a posse with flamethrower.

The picture was lousily and embarrassely directed by Jean Rollin who replaced Jesús Franco at very last minute , in fact this Zombie Lake follows clearly his botcher style and equally Franco made a similar film : Oasis of the Livind Dead 1982 . Rollin was a French artist who directed various genres with penchant for erotic and terror . As this professional was a French writer-director of surreal low budget horror and fantasy films . From the mid-1970's , turned out primarily exploitation , erotic and porno movies , as Rollin directed the following ones : The Night of the Hunted , The Living dead Girl , Fiancee of Dracula , Bacchanales sexuelles , The Naked Princess , Curse of Living dead , among others . Rating : 3.5/10 . Inferior Zombie movie.

Great

[Races-2 · 10/10 · 2 January 2000]

This movie works great for one thing:Naked Chicks. Sure this movie has a weak plot, but I think it was made for 13- 16 year old boys who would enjoy the excess nudity the most. I am writing this a man who was thirteen when he saw and thought wow! The actual plot is about Nazi zombies that attack a small town. Do the zombies win or the town? Who cares there are alot of naked chicks to keep any 13 year old boy busy.

Severely idiotic zombie farce

[Red-Barracuda · 6/10 · 4 June 2007]

Where to begin? This is, just possibly, the most moronic zombie movie ever made. 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. A few years later they rise up as zombies and proceed to attack the village.

It's a similar premise to Oasis of the Zombies. And it shares that film's incompetence, except this film is even more badly made. Everything about it is shoddy in the extreme. The script is seriously stupid. Whose idea was it to have the paternal zombie? The scenes with the little girl are among the most idiotic I have ever witnessed and I've seen a lot of rubbish. The zombie make-up is, to say the least, half-hearted. Faces covered in green paint do not a great zombie make, especially when that said green paint rubs off onto their victims. The underwater scenes are quite clearly a swimming pool – you can see the bloody sides for goodness sake. And it's not the best when we witness a zombie swim up to catch some air. The acting/dubbing is of the most disastrous kind, everyone is spectacularly unconvincing and unsympathetic. And don't get me started on the supposed time-frame. Judging by the age of the little girl, this film is clearly meant to be set in the 50's but this does not explain the 80's fashions, haircuts and vehicles. They haven't even tried to cover these up. It's a travesty. 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. He's a director who has very little ability to conjure up suspense and horror. He is much more comfortable with sleaze and this movie is full of that at least. There is tons of full-frontal female nudity. But it's still not even very erotic.

This isn't a complete waste of time because it's fun to watch as a cinematic car crash. You'll get a few laughs at this mess of a movie. There are too many mistakes to mention and the general level of shoddiness is spectacular. For zombie completists and bad film fanatics only.

Willing suspension of disbelief

[Horatio-7 · 1/10 · 22 July 1999]

Zombie Lake, as it is also titled, may well have one of the shakiest plots ever filmed. It has been said that King Lear can be told as a fairy tale, so too can Zombie Lake be told as the rantings of an idiot. Like poker bidding, it continues to raise the level of foolishness. It makes one curious to the writers basis for the story. Maybe this: 1. There's a lake in France. believeable so far 2. World War II happened, many Nazis died, and some were put in this lake WWII happened - yes; Nazis were killed - yes; Some wound up in a lake - well they had to put them somewhere didn't they; 3. 30 years later, they wake up and leave the lake ;zombies are common enough in film, OK, I buy that; 4. 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. You couldn't have them go after the elderly or people who are perhaps bedridden or without legs, because really, that's really what the Nazis would be best at. Continents move faster than these Nazis. These zombies are relatively slow when compared to other dead people. Yet in your film you show them catching a whole town off guard. Shame on you and a pox on your kin for producing such a film that should truly only be watched as punishment for serious crimes.

Extremely enjoyable when you´re in a drunk condition!

[DJ Inferno · 17 February 2002]

Jean Rollin´s ("The Living Dead Girl") "Zombie Lake" is a giant laughfest, however a very entertaining one! The story (Yeah, what story?!?) is about a squad of German Gestapo soldiers who were killed by a bunch of French partisans and afterwards sank in a lake. Twelve years later they rise as living dead and take merciless revenge... As I said, a very cheesy flick, because the quality of this film is on not higher than amateurish level: the zombie´s faces were painted with green color, the acting is a joke, the camera is permanently wobbling and the location also could be the dump where I´m living in! The main attraction is when a bus of young chicks arrives at the lake, the girls take off their clothes, rush into the water and then get munched by the dead one by one! Absolutely hilarious!! You don´t have to wonder when you´ll notice that the script was written by sleaze master Jess Franco..! However, the liked the underwater shots and the WW2-flashback was well-executed, too! Finally another great party movie, extremely enjoyable when you´re drunk, and an absolute icon of bad taste!!!

The art of awfulness (big spoilers)

[Coventry · 1/10 · 4 January 2005]

Pardon me for truly loving this piece of unnameable garbage! In case you expected that this collaboration between a team of euro-exploitation experts would have resulted in a must-see schlock adventure, you'll certainly feel cheated. Zombie Lake in fact is nothing but a cheap excuse to show naked chicks and to get a piece of the profitable 'underwater Nazi-zombies' pie (if that even is a sub genre description). Jean Rollin, who received an immense cult-status thanks to his overrated lesbian vampire flicks, directed this lovely junk while living-legend Jess Franco was co-responsible for the script (what script?!?). Now, both eminent icons insert their own typical style elements, but the wholesome simply is a giant turkey, impossible to sit through in case you're not familiar with the art of Z-movies. The two-line synopsis of Zombie Lake is yet promising: The famous lake near a small French village is congested with a squadron of Nazi Zombies that were killed by local vigilantes during the war. Twelve years later, they rise from the depths to settle the score. Granted, it's cheesy and overdone but a premise like this is guaranteed to deliver fun! Too bad Rollin inserts a dull sub-plot about an emotional zombie (?) who discovers he has an unofficial daughter in the village. The prominent negative elements are obvious: atrocious acting, laughable plot and terrible make-up effects (apparently, French zombies turn completely green-faced) but – to me personally – it are the little stupidities that make this production so awfully hilarious. It's nearly impossible to sum up them all but here's a short anthology of the most "memorable" idiocy, anyway: (SPOILERS – of course)

• During a flashback sequence, we see an airborn attack on the village and there's a local beauty running towards the middle of a meadow where she then stops to scream hysterically… Run for shelter, woman!!!

• During the first zombie-rampage, a very young girl (I doubt she's old enough to appear naked, by the way) is attacked while taking a bath…in the middle of nowhere! She's just bathing next to a cornfield with no house in sight!

• While developing a plan to destroy the zombies, a 12-year-old girl is telling the mayor how things will be done! And she doesn't take no for an answer…Quite an authority figure, this mayor - In order to distract the zombies, they're offered a bucket of blood to drink from. First of all, I didn't realize zombies drink blood… And even better is the fact that they're kindly waiting their turn for drinking blood from a mug!!

• Last but not least there's the obliged group-nudity sequence! And it's a real good one in Zombie Lake, ladies and gentlemen. A van filled with female basketball players arrives at the lake and they spontaneously strip for a swim. Giggling for no reason and motivating each other to go wild. The voyeuristic underwater camera-work also make it lean close to pornography, by the way.

If you like bad cinema, look no further. Zombie Lake really triumphs on every level. Normally, I have some positive aspects to mention but I can't find any here no matter how hard I try. The music is okay, but that's because it's a recycled soundtrack from at least 10 other exploitation classics. And, even though he acts just as bad as everyone else, it was nice to see Howard Vernon again. This Jess Franco regular appeared in over a hundred trashy films, but this is by far the most embarrassing thing he ever was involved in. In case you have a healthy dose of humor, this film is warmly recommended. In case you only swear by films like "Citizen Kane" …avoid!

Schlockiness at its finest.

[groatski · 3/10 · 24 January 2004]

A must-see for WWII militaria collectors, reenactors, and historians. Watch this around a big screen TV with a bunch of your buddies and lots of beer and you'll laugh your asses off, then bury the tape in the back yard and never see it again.

Brief plot: A group of Nazi soldiers in Italy are killed by the local resistance and dumped into a lake, but not before one of them impregnates a local girl. 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. The total budget of the film was probably $75, including the tape in the camera. It was like a bunch of teenage boys with a weekend to kill got hold of a video camera and said, 'Hey, I got a bunch of old Swedish uniforms. 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.

Amphibious zombies with bad make up n lousy kills.

[Fella_shibby · 1/10 · 6 October 2020]

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs. Revisited it recently n forwarded some very boring scenes.

A small town is attacked by Nazi zombies who were killed by the town's villagers 20 years earlier. The mayor of the town refuses to take action against the zombie attacks until a reporter arrives to investigate and unearths some terrifying past involving the villagers n the mayor himself.

It has a very lousy sex scene with a lengthy foreplay without the intercourse n with lousy music The film moves at a very slow pace, the make up of the zombies r terrible n only their eyes r constantly kept in a staring mode. In fact, the guy who played the mayor, Howard Vernon, his eyes r more bigger than the zombies. The zombie attack scenes r very lousy n forget bah any scare factor or tension.

A CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE

[245 · 1/10 · 26 December 1999]

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. The director, Rollin, who surprisingly has done some good movies, tries to make up for this junk by adding lots of nudity. If you're looking for a good zombie movie, try Zombie, and if you're looking for a good 'bad' movie, try something by Ed Wood, avoid this, it cost me.75c to rent it, and I felt ripped off.

Absolutely dreadful zombie flick.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 3/10 · 21 February 2005]

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.

Not Quite As Bad As I Was Led To Believe...

[EVOL666 · 5/10 · 14 February 2007]

I believe that ZOMBIE LAKE is the first Jean Rollin film that I've had the "pleasure" of watching. Though I'm quite a bit exploit fan, I've never really bothered with his films as most compare him to Jess Franco - and I don't really care for Franco's films, and this film in particular was co-written by Franco. 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. That's really about it...

Yeah, ZOMBIE LAKE is stupid, poorly-made, laughable trash-cinema - but so are a thousand other exploit films out there, several of which are far worse than this one. At least this film features copious underwater cooch shots and some amusing and ridiculous scenarios. Nothing notable about this one at all, but the amount of female full-frontal and general silliness makes ZOMBIE LAKE worth at least an "average" rating...5/10

Unoriginal and basically unwatchable

[metalrage666 · 1/10 · 16 September 2015]

There are so many things wrong with this trash that throwing an entire thesaurus of negativity at it still wouldn't come close to describing how painfully slow and terrible this is.

Basically, (by way of a flashback story), a bunch of Nazis are killed by the French resistance in world war 2 and their bodies are disposed of in a nearby lake. Roll credits please.

Anyway for no other reason apart from a pathetic script, these deceased soldiers are now zombies because of, oh who knows why, let's just say why the hell not and save on logic. 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. So queue the back up team left over from Shock Waves to suddenly surface at this point and pull the naked screaming girls to a watery grave.

Somehow and seemingly much, much later, all these dead dudes are corralled in a warehouse or mill of some kind, it's burnt to the ground by local townspeople, take bath with toaster, kill self, the end!

I could make random guesses on why this got made, voodoo, gypsy curse maybe, director caught sleeping with boss' wife, who knows; maybe when this crap was being made they were attempting some kind of weird zombie/porn crossover cult film and failed dismally. Even with all the naked underwater shots and inappropriate zombie gropings going on, nothing except fire, lots and lots of heaven sent holy fire can save us from this.....whatever this is.

If you really want to punish yourself then watch this. If you really hate somebody at work, it becomes the perfect secret Santa gift.

Rollin's New Wave Study of Past and Present

[dianerpessler-46164 · 10/10 · 14 July 2015]

Visionary French New Wave director Jean Rollin brought true artistic power to what is superficially a disturbing horror film. However, as the film progresses, it soon becomes evident there are significant themes being explored by Rollin under the guise of terror. Collaboration, retribution, and passion are sensitively observed in this film and it's certainly much more of an existentially realistic cinema journey than the simple title would lead one to believe. At times the intensity of the horror is so overwhelming it nearly becomes unendurable. However, Rollin never allows this to go so far that obscures what he is trying to say with his film. Ultimately, the motion picture works on two important levels. One is as a creative and ingenious horror film that pushes the very limits of the genre. The second is as one of the most significant cinematic statements regarding Post-WWII France and the way French society tried to reconcile the actions of citizens during the war with the present. It is that clash between past and present that explodes across the screen in what is the strongest expression of this great director's philosophy.

Better than I'd expected

[willpak · 6/10 · 11 September 2002]

I've being avoiding Zombie Lake for a while now, as I'd heard such bad things about it. But a couple of weeks ago I was hard up for some, Euro sleeze, so I popped it into the old VCR and hoped for the best. In many ways, Zombie Lake, is a disaster of a movie. 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. But, other than that, i enjoyed it! Only the hardest of heart, would not be touched by the Zombie love affair, especially, as its score, is the enchanting theme from Female Vampire (played over and over). Or, the relationship that develops between the head honcho, Zombie, and the girl that turns out to be his daughter! The other treats I'll leave for your viewing pleasure, but rest assured, this is no where near as bad as some people make out (well, if you enjoy this sort of thing). Its certainly, cheeper than cheep, but at least you get two Euro sleezemiesters, (Rollin + Franco), for your money.

Cheesy as the old "Chiller Theater" movies can get

[MovieWiz66 · 5/10 · 30 April 2007]

I give it a 5,because if you are one of the fans of low-budget cheese(some are quite good actually)and 1970s and early 80's zombie flicks,you will get a hoot out of this one. As someone said in an earlier post..so bad its good. One of those type films. The makeup,acting and special effects(especially the bombing sequence)are hilariously bad. However,the scenery is beautiful,the town is a very beautiful little town. Like many of the flicks from this era,the producers went heavy on the nudity and blood factors. This one actually tries to include a zombie love story...LOL. I remember watching this on the old "Chiller Theater" flicks that used to come on in the 70's after the local news. Back then we only had 3 channels so to get any horror film was a real treat. I guess that is why these movies remain popular with my generation(40 years old). We grew up on Chiller Theater which could be hosted by anyone from Elvira to Seymour,ahh..the good ole days..LOL.