Mini Film Review – The Lake

Yesterday I watched The Lake; and it was a bit dull! Directed by Lee Thongkham, and starring Teerapat Sajakul, Sushar Manaying, and Wanmai Chatborirak; The Lake is a monster movie from Thailand, where the town of Bueng Kan is thrown into chaos, after the sudden arrival of a large predator from a nearby lake! I had only heard of this film about a month ago, but after watching the trailer, I desperately wanted to see it, it looked so awesome. The opening few minutes do not dissappoint. The rain in the night, the shuddering egg on the ground, and the amazing monster that appears. It was looking so promising…and then the rest of the film happens! And despite the film being called ‘The Lake’, the lake barely features in it. Initially, it feels like a lesson in wasted opportunities, as the investigative story, may have benefitted from not showing the monster so early, and instead build-up to it, like say the original Godzilla, although the plot early on is strangely simillar to the synopsis to Peter Benchley‘s White Shark. But then the Doctor Who monster appears! This occassionally CGI creature, but more often rubber suited actor, just spoils the scene really, and the film doesn’t improve from here. The main problem is the huge amount of filler shots. The last 40 minutes is mostly made of constant cut aways and close-ups of people running, shrieking, or looking scarred, on repeat, rather than say: moving the scene on! There’s so much time given to these slow borring shots, time which could have been given to other more helpful things, such as more character backstory, and of course, some help from either a scientist, or mythologist; discussing on how/why this creature has suddenly decided to appear. The story of the film is just that: A monster appears, for no given reason, and then it just ends, whilst trying to be as tragic as possible; but ruined thanks to little character development. It likes to try and work in some kind of myth/legend, but it shows this via 30 seconds of narrative after the opening, and 2 minutes at the very end, but by in large fails to assist the viewer in any form of understanding! There are some fleeting blink and you’ll miss them moments to really enjoy here; but the rest of it is just so borring (which is even more of a shame, given that Epic Poster)!