COLLECTOR'S CRYPT - THE LAKE (EPIC PICTURES BLU RAY)
Giant monster movies are all about spectacle. Even the earliest films in the genre focused on ways to create a sense of “awe” with the audience that distracted almost entirely from the practicality of what you’re seeing on-screen. (Not) Strangely enough, giant monster movies are massive hits for Hollywood, and bring across a wide spectrum of viewers alongside the assumed horror fan moviegoers. The success of these films is also the reason why they cross-pollinate interests amongst groups of film watchers who normally don’t include horror as a part of their cinema diet. It’s not just in America where these movies do well, on the contrary, we see them in parts of Scandinavian Europe and most famously in East Asian cinema. Take South Korea’s The Host from now Academy Award-winning Director Bong Joon-ho which rocked audiences worldwide in 2006, or most recently the box-office pandemic success of Godzilla vs Kong. Hell, most superhero movies are just monster movies with superhuman people fighting them. All this talk of big monsters takes us to Thailand for EPIC PICTURES’ newest blu ray release of THE LAKE. Is this towering Thai terror going to shock and awe you in the best ways, or the worst ways?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A gigantic and bloodthirsty monster emerges from a lake after its egg is stolen and unleashes its fury on a town's inhabitants, leaving a trail of destruction and death in its wake. The town of Bueng Kan, now cut off from the outside world, must mobilize its officials and citizens, as well as a group of scientists that are in town conducting research, to catch this predator before it's too late.
HOW IS IT?
If I’m being honest with myself, I think I enjoy monster movies more than I realize. Of the ones I’ve been asked to review for the site, they are usually reviewed well, and even when I think that one looks like another I still find myself engaged and entertained with almost all of them. Well, add The Lake to that list, because on the whole, this Thai monster movie delivers most of what you like to see in these films. Even if it also comes with a hearty serving of some things you don’t like. Still, if you like big monsters doing big damage you’d be hard-pressed to find more fault than fun with The Lake.
What really works about The Lake is that the filmmakers seem to be fans of these movies themselves. While it would be hard to commit to a project like this without having a greater-than-average interest in this kind of movie, you can tell that the filmmakers know and love monster movies enough to give you exactly what you want to see. Take the first act of the film, which has less downtime than action time as things kick off with quite a bang. The pacing of this film is break-neck for the first two acts, and that works in service of the high-energy tension that these kinds of movies thrive on. The monsters themselves are pretty interesting and while not groundbreaking they are menacing enough to whet your appetite for mayhem. The Lake pays special attention, especially in the first half of the film, to make this feel as authentic and grounded as possible. That focused on realism works well for The Lake and is a nice surprise since it also doesn’t pull a lot of punches. That is, until the last act.
This doesn’t often happen in this genre, but in an odd way, the tension and pacing seem to wind down in the third act rather than up and then down. It’s as if the movie takes its foot off the gas too soon and lets the story just idle to a stop rather than racing to a finish. Part of what hurts the film is something a lot of monster movies struggle with, how to have interesting characters and melodrama. The Lake has decent enough characters and actors, but it’s when the movie tries to elicit an emotional response from you that it mostly just falls flat. Many of the scenes that should serve to bring us closer to the characters could just as easily have been taken out and the film wouldn’t have suffered. While this is just one’s opinion, it shows up in the way the ending tries to offer a more democratic resolution to things that we Western audiences aren’t accustomed to. I don’t dislike how it ends, however, I just kinda wish that the climax didn’t come at the end of the 2nd act rather than the end of the 3rd. And that epilogue…well, we don’t have to talk about that, but I could’ve done without it. Nevertheless, The Lake is a solid monster film that ticks more boxes than it misses and should be an easy buy for the monster movie fan in your life.
HOW DOES IT LOOK?
The Lake is a recent film, released in 2022 and now hitting blu ray courtesy of Epic Pictures. Given the relative newness of the production, I wasn’t heading into this with any concerns over transfer quality and thankfully there aren’t any! The Lake is presented in 1080p HD with a 1.77:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The darks are not overly murky to make them hard to see, and the vibrant scenes with broader color palettes looked great on my OLED screen. Images from this release are used throughout this review and are seen below:
HOW DOES IT SOUND?
Epic Pictures offers us a variety of audio options. Given the film’s country of origin is Thailand, there is both a 5.1 DTS-HD surround sound audio track as well as a 2.0 stereo track in the original Thai langue. There are also accompanying English dub tracks with both 5.1 and 2.0 options, however, I would advise against these since they are a bit distracting. The Lake has subtitles in both English and Spanish, and the surround sound options sound superb. Given so many scenes have a large sense of scale, your back speakers certainly get a workout without having to forgo loss of dialogue along the way.
ANYTHING SPECIAL?
The Lake is relatively light in relation to special features with this release including a Behind the Scenes feature as well as some Deleted Scenes.
LAST RITES
The Lake is a mostly satisfying monster film from Thailand that should certainly quench the monster thirst fans of this spectacle-first genre have. With a solid creature design and great pacing for the first two acts, even a lackluster ending doesn’t drag this one down from being downright entertaining and a worthy addition to your monster stack!
THE GORY DETAILS
Thank you to the fine fiends over at MVD ENTERTAINMENT for providing a review copy for the crypt! THE LAKE is available NOW and can be purchased via MVD DIRECT!
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