THE LAKE *** Thailand 2022 Dir: Lee Thongkham & Aqing Xu. 120 mins
A superb finale to Grimmfest 2022, THE LAKE is a Thai homage to Japanese giant monster horror where a young girl finds a large egg by the river and takes it back to her village. Unfortunately, it’s mum follows her.
Considering we were deliriously tired, this film was a total hoot thanks to it’s unintentional humour. The subtitles seemed to have been created via Google Translate and some didn’t seem quite right for the situation on screen. This may have, in part, been due to the script being a little too repetitive when it came to dialogue. The words “Kill It” are for 2022 what “Evil Dies Tonight” was for 2021. Ideal for a drinking game!
Unintentional humour aside, this film was quite well made with some amazing special effects that fit into the storyline well. The only exception would be the crazy amount of gas canister explosions that really were overused. The monster was certainly more amusing than it was scary but it could have looked far worse.
THE LAKE obviously had a decent sized budget with a cast of what appeared to be thousands, the good special effects and some good sound. Most surprising, was the Hollywood style score that made this film even more brilliant.
If you push aside the continuity, mostly with issues caused by the weather, this is a pretty great film for late night viewing.
Review by Poppy Blundell