The Lake (2022) is a horror thriller movie directed by Lee Thongkham and Aqing Xu. It deals with a girl who finds an egg that belongs to a big monster living in a lake. It comes out to terrorize the people around it. Below is my The Lake (2022) movie review
There are a lot of wrong things with this movie. For one, the script seems very rushed. A lot of scenes are very redundant and the characters ask the same questions multiple times. On top of this the scenes pass by very fast to be replaced by others that seem out of place. The pacing was all over the place. It gave the movie a look of everything being rushed and no attention was paid to the characters.
The characters are very dry and lack any meaningful background. We know the basics of them but not much else. They are dragged from one place to another and seem quite confused about what is going on. As mentioned, the dialogue is pretty bad. The subtitles make it look like it was looping, but it wasn’t. Also, many scenes go on for far too long without giving us much.
When the monster attacks, there is no gore. It does not smash any big buildings. At most it walks around and roars while trying to look menacing. As mentioned, there is no gore or blood. Most of it is shown after the attacks (picture people in hospitals, blood on cars, vehicles smashed up, etc). When the smaller creatures attack, you see some closeups of it but the shaking is so bad that it takes you out of it. A lot of scenes, even the talking ones, seem to be too shaky which makes it annoying to watch.
One thing (and probably the only thing) that can be praised is the special effects. A lot of animatronics are used here and some of the scenes of the creatures look great. When the smaller ones attack, the blend of CGI and practical effects is decent for the budget. However, the shakiness of the camera quickly ruins it and takes out the thrill of it. The big monster is mainly practical and the close up scenes are great. The rain (featured in most of the movie) gives it a more menacing look.
In the movie there is a nod to Jurassic Park, a 1993 classic. In the movie there are two characters that are trapped in a car with a monster circling it. This is similar to Jurassic Park with a T-rex surrounding the car. Where this movie differs is in the actions of the characters. In this movie the characters have an egg that the creature clearly wants. They just keep screaming when they see the creature and could not put two and two together to push the egg out. One of them is a smart young girl while the other is close to being a grown up. This one scene made me so angry and also made me realize that most of the actions by others in the movie are really stupid.
Overall the movie feels slow, has limited action, bad characters, even worse dialogue and pacing, and has no gore or meaningful rampage scenes. Many scenes are very shaky and distracting. The CGI and practical effects are well blended together. They are very limited though. Clocking in at 90 min, the movie seems dull. We have no reason to care for the characters. If there were no monsters, this movie would be even more boring.
Thanks for reading my The Lake (2022) movie review
