Lake Noir (2013)

 

Content Warning: rape scene

A group of teenagers (at least one of whom is played by an actor clearly well into his 30s) drive up to an isolated lake for a weekend of swimming, fishing, boozing and screwing.  Not necessarily in that order.

They're the only ones camping at this particular lake, which proves a boon for those of them with a more fornicatory agenda.  The guys are especially delighted when a local warns them off from staying off at the lake, providing a rambling explanation involving a twenty year old rape and murder that has left the area stalked by a vicious supernatural killer.  This, they reason, will make a great ghost story to tell the ladies, and ensure they want to cuddle extra tight once the lights go out.

The idea that there really might be a murderous monster at the lake of course does not occur to them, which is why most of them will be dead by the end of the film.  That's not a spoiler, right?  "Bunch of highly-sexed teens go to the lake" has meant "bunch of teens get murdered" for over forty years now.

So this is a reasonably recent film which is consciously and openly modelling itself on slasher films in general and the Friday the 13th franchise in specific.  Which is something I could get on board with, to be honest, were it executed with any verve or imagination.

Alas, neither of these qualities are on show in Lake Noir.  The people behind the film appear to believe that as long as there are some topless ladies and a few deaths, they've done all they need to do.  Injecting any kind of life into the script, or indeed even giving the actors lines that sound like something real people might say, appears to be have been ruled out as far too much work.

Now sure, realism was never high on the agenda for the Friday films, either, but at least most of those understood the idea of at least trying to build tension, and of making the kill scenes dynamic and graphic so that the audience might actually react to them.  Lake Noir has kill scenes that are as dull as the painful dialogue that preceded them.