By all accounts, Blood Lake appears to be a movie. A camera is present, and people pretending to be someone else do things in front of it. They also say things in front of it, although not always in its general direction. Somebody then assembled those things into a chronological fashion. Another somebody made music for it; yet another slapped credits on both ends. The result was duplicated onto VHS cassettes that members of the public rented for a set period of time and inserted into their VCRs, presumably for purposes of entertainment.
And yet, even after lowering expectations to the substandards of shot-on-video, straight-to-tape projects, I’m hesitant to call Blood Lake a movie. The story lacks story beats. Dialogue seems to be improvised; lighting, an afterthought. With one exception, its actors were not and are not actors. But at least it is in focus, question mark?
Although one Tim Boggs is credited as director (and never to be again), the driving creative force is writer, producer and leading man Doug Barry. As the mulleted, muscled Mike, he’s one-half of the dude bros (the other being Mike Kaufman’s Bryan) who have Trans Am’d their respective girlfriends (Angela Darter and The Ripper’s Andrea Adams) to a weekend at Cedar Lake, a real spot in southeast Oklahoma, where this thing was filmed — er, recorded. Also in tow are Mike’s tween brother, Tony (Travis Krasser), and Tony’s girl friend and hopeful “sex partner,” Susan (Christie Willoughby).
They drink beer. They waterski. They drink more beer. They waterski again. They urge little Tony to nail Susan, which sounds incredibly uncomfortable because it totally is. They drink more beer. People are killed by a fat guy in overalls who looks like Billy Jack ate Jenny Craig. (He’s played by the ironically named Tiny Frazier, whose car-sales business is thanked in the closing credits — and that’s only the second strangest thing you’ll read there, thanks to a special-effects shout-out to “An Act of God.”)
My heart should belong to Blood Lake, for three primary reasons:
• SOV ’80s horror is “my jam,” as the kids say.
• Ditto for the era’s slashers shot in my home state of Oklahoma: Blood Cult, Terror at Tenkiller, Offerings, et al.
• Throughout grade school, Krasser and Willoughby were among my brother’s best friends.
And yet, I don’t. Blood Lake not only tried my patience, but actively grated on my nerves. It’s hard not to feel that way when nearly every scene agonizingly unfolds in real time, whether the characters are shootin’ the shit on the dock (three minutes), playing quarters (five minutes) or engaging in the aforementioned waterskiing (10 minutes). What should be the simplest conversations would flummox even Robert Altman’s sound editors; take for example, this exchange of Mike and his lady bidding two lake rats adieu after a night of drinkin’, tokin’ and jokin’:
“Hey, thanks a lot for tonight, it was fun.”
“All right.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Thanks for coming by. Y’all be careful.”
“Okay, buh-bye.”
“Take it easy.”
“Yeah, we’ll see you all tomorrow.”
“Be careful.”
“All right.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Bye-bye.”
“See you later.”
“Bye.”
And I’m sure I missed a couple.
The most entertaining made-for-VHS horrors come chock-full of accidentally ridiculous and hilarious lines. Because Krasser’s aggressively rapey act is neither, Blood Lake has one scene that made me laugh aloud. The rest of the movie is like being the fly on the wall of a lake house, and everyone in the kitchen is too lazy to grab a swatter to put you out of your misery.
As detailed in Richard Mogg’s wonderful book, Analog Nightmares: The Shot On Video Horror Films of 1982-1995, the story behind Blood Lake is far more compelling than watching Blood Lake. If Barry thought he was crafting the country’s next hit slasher, he was delusional and yet missed a target so easy to hit that the result is too misguided to deserve the label of “derivative.” Flick Attack contributor Richard York put it best: “Not enough blood. Too much lake.” —Rod Lott