Middle-aged couple Rachel and Chuck Yoman are fed up with their busy and stressful professional lives and, moreover, begin to find their home in the suburban neighborhood too dangerous. The latter is hilariously illustrated when a neighbor, who lost the keys of his house, shows up at the kitchen window and scares the hell out of Rachel. So, much against the will of their teenage daughter Lisa, the family leaves the city and moves to a quiet and remote lakeshore village named Tomahawk.
Ha! Silly people, you obviously haven't seen many horror movies! Every horror fan knows that quiet and remote little villages and their inhabitants are far more dangerous than big cities. It goes well for a little while, as Chuck starts an unprofitable business of manufacturing surfboards, and the family befriends the town's patriarch Malcolm Bryce. But then Chuck gets embraced by a floating corpse when he goes swimming in the lake, and nobody believes him when the corpse inexplicably disappears.
Made-for-television horror movies were brilliant in the 70s and early 80s, but as per the mid-80s and during the 90s they somehow evolved into soap opera/family dramas with - if we're lucky - a couple of macabre elements. "The People Across the Lake" tries hard, and occasionally succeeds, to generate a bit of tension and atmosphere, but it largely remains a pedestrian effort. It's fairly clear where the plot twists are leading to, regarding both identity of the killer and his/her crazed motivations. And, oh yes, even after nearly 30 years, the influence of granddaddy "Psycho" remains enormous.
Ha! Silly people, you obviously haven't seen many horror movies! Every horror fan knows that quiet and remote little villages and their inhabitants are far more dangerous than big cities. It goes well for a little while, as Chuck starts an unprofitable business of manufacturing surfboards, and the family befriends the town's patriarch Malcolm Bryce. But then Chuck gets embraced by a floating corpse when he goes swimming in the lake, and nobody believes him when the corpse inexplicably disappears.
Made-for-television horror movies were brilliant in the 70s and early 80s, but as per the mid-80s and during the 90s they somehow evolved into soap opera/family dramas with - if we're lucky - a couple of macabre elements. "The People Across the Lake" tries hard, and occasionally succeeds, to generate a bit of tension and atmosphere, but it largely remains a pedestrian effort. It's fairly clear where the plot twists are leading to, regarding both identity of the killer and his/her crazed motivations. And, oh yes, even after nearly 30 years, the influence of granddaddy "Psycho" remains enormous.