User Reviews

Some people say if somethings bad, there's no need to go on about it. With Fever Lake, I respectively disagree.

It all starts one dark night as a young boy watches from the attic as his mother is murdered by a man (possibly his father) who we see is possessed by the "evil" of the lake. (This is indicated quite clearly by the green, evil glow in his eyes.) Flash forward to sometime in the future. We're introduced to a college school setting and a quick intro leads to Corey Haim (yes one of the "Corey's") and Mario Lopez (of TV's "Saved By The Bell"). Seems Haim has a country home up in Fever Lake so he invites some male buddies (including an oversexed idiot) and a trio of girls (two airheads by definition) up for the weekend. Of course, they know nothing of the strange events that happened at this house in Fever Lake. Sure, right, whatever.

Meanwhile the local sheriff has his hands full with Clear Springs. He's the local native American Indian (played by a white dude?) who knows the evil is coming back. He warns the sheriff again and again, but to no avail as naturally the sheriff thinks he's nutty. Plus he's busy tugging up his pants that seem to be weighed down by his gun belt (which seems to be a full-time job in itself). Not that it matters the sheriff is a classic cliché. By horror movie definition, sheriffs have to ignore any warnings especially those from spiritual Indians. Just wonderful.

Most predictably weird things start going down. Cars are acting oddly and there's an evil foreboding grey wolf stalking the woods. Meanwhile Haim's having these mind trips into the evil of Fever Lake that the local townsfolk won't talk about. Rack up another cliché. Of course, there's always someone willing to talk about it ... explain it to an audience that's assumed to be too stupid to put it together for themselves. They drop this "innocent" bit in dialog that tells us Haim's character is an orphan. Like before I was told that, I wasn't supposed to have figured out yet that Haim's character was that young boy from the beginning all along.

Hack, hack, scream, scream. A false scare or two. Making out, then dying. Panicking, then dying. Running off and dying. Wiping down car windows (!!!) and dying. The evil gets stronger, the Indian's fires burn brighter, he scream, more of the evil wolf. Then the "shocking" ending that's cheating on the part of the writers. Don't be deceived by the movie box either. It's not even scary. You'd have to watch the movie to find that out. Maybe now you won't.

I think I'd rather have a fever, in lieu of watching this again. Not only does it move as slow as molasses, but barely anything happens until the final 15-20 minutes (!) We get a decent opening, which reminded me a bit of The Shining, a relatively bloodless dog attack, and plenty of uninteresting dialog, but that's about it. There are way too many scenes with the characters meandering aimlessly. This movie is heavy on the supernatural mumbo-jumbo. I can't begin to tell you how irritated I would get at the white Indian character, Clear Springs (Michael Wise) He pops up conveniently whenever there is trouble, but he's there to warn people. He also gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in my life. He gives these stoic facial expressions, and looks like he's reading his lines off a cue card. It's also extremely cheap with a shot on video like feel. The director tries to be fancy at times, which I will give him credit for, considering the low budget, but he forgets to add thrills and suspense. With all of the supernatural stuff going on, there sure isn't anything scary. We get some laughable looking, green, glowing eyes on people, whenever they are possessed. There isn't much gore to speak of, either. We get a bloodless dog attack, and a woman melting at the end, along with blood splashes. Corey Haim isn't terrible, but he looks uninterested at times in the material. He was going through major drug problems at this juncture, and I assume this was for a much needed paycheck. He does have a great moment in the ending, but that's about it. If you look closely enough, it's not hard to figure out his shy character. I like Corey Haim a lot, but it wasn't all that great of a performance. Mario Lopez is embarrassingly bad. His character hardly does anything. Mario resorts to cheap mugging, and flashing that cheesy grin of his, basically many things that worked extremely well in Saved by The Bell. This isn't A.C Slater bro. Try branching out a bit. Bo Hopkins is actually very good as the sheriff, but this movie is beneath him, and doesn't deserve his talents. I'll give it two compliments. It has some excellent cinematography, and the twist ending, while predictable, was actually fairly well done. By the time it came my interest was LONG gone.

Final Thoughts: I watched this for Corey Haim. He was a gifted talent, and it's a shame about his addictions. This movie doesn't deserve him, nor does it deserve your time. R.I.P Corey, you deserved better.

DUD

I did not have high hopes for this one, but I still think this film managed to go below my expectations. This might have something to do with the fact that the makers of this film did not seem to have any idea what the movie was about, why any of it was happening and thought that simply putting dry ice in a lake would be scary. So much going on and none of it all that horrific until the film does manage to at least spring a gooey effect near the end as this is one of those horror films that drags on and then kills most of the characters in a fifteen minute window at the end. So be prepared to watch college kids have the most boring party ever before we get a completely plotless final act.

The story first shows us this grisly murder from years ago and then we flash ahead as Corey Haim and Mario Lopez along with an annoying dude invite three ladies to a house where a bunch of horrifying crap happened. An Indian warns the town's sheriff that the evil will be coming, but the sheriff ignores the man's warnings. Deaths will come quick as everything tries to wrap up quickly and then they will spurt out something about only two girls found leaving us to not care what happened to the really annoying girl who wanted to be a novelist because we are just glad the film is over!

The main star of this one is Corey Haim and his buddy is Mario Lopez. Kind of surprised that Corey Feldman did not play in this movie as this was the decade the Corey's had a really bad time. The girls are okay, but the cutest one was the girl in town that worked at the diner. Absolutely hated the writer girl and I cringed when the one girl was making out with the dork of the group. Bo Hopkins is in this and he is almost the same sheriff character he was in Mutant.

In the end, this film was pretty bad. The effect with the writer girl at the end was okay, but at the same time, why was it happening? What was the deal with Corey's character and what did any of this have to do with evil in the lake? Very little gore going on here as I think this thing was PG-13, and with that comes no nudity. Not sure why, as back in the day a PG film could have nudity, but at a certain point it became confined to R rated films. Check out the original Clash of the Titans, you had full frontal and butt cheeks and it was rated PG. This film, PG-13 and the best we get is a bikini and a few mild kills and a wolf that kills a girl, but isn't really there? Still not sure if that was intentional or if they were making it look like the wolf was attacking by trying to do fast cuts, but it most certainly was not in the frame with the girl.

***SPOILERS*** Slasher movie involving six over sexed collage students who take a weekend trip out in the country to "Fever Lake" for fun and games and end up, as in most of these brainless teenage and collage students movies, the victims of this mysterious slasher who feels that they've invaded his space. We get a glimpse of what's to come within the first few minutes of the film with this crazed green eyed and possessed by the devil looking lunatic breaking into a house and brutally hacking the death this woman with her 6 years old son hiding in the attic. It's now some 15 years later where we see these collage students planning to take a leisurely trip into the country to chill out from all their day and night studying for their final examinations.

Lead by the studious Albert played by the late Corey Haim the students stopping off at a local diner are told by the people there to stay away from "Fever Lake" in that, "like Crystal Lake of the Friday the 13th movies", there's a deranged lunatic running around there who's over the years hacked to death some dozen persons. Eevn when the waitress of the Diner Lila,Lindsey Brooke, is later found ripped apart by this gray wolf, the first one seen in those parts in over 100 years, they still go on their merry way to "Fever Lake" hoping to take in the sun and go fishing. It's the town Sheriff Harris, played by Bo Hopkins, who tries to get the students to cancel their trip to "Fever Lake" knowing full well that there's death awaiting them there. But as usual in him dealing with lame brains like them that's way over their heads and to no avail.

***SPOILERS***It's the local wise man clear thinking and Native American Indian Clere Springs, Michael Wise, who does his damnedest to prevent the impending slaughter from happening by doing a number of what looked like rain dances to keep, as he called it, the evil from surfacing or bubbling up from under the dark waters "Fever Lake". No matter how hard Clear Spring tried nobody not even Sharrif Harris listened and the inevitable butchery that he tried to prevent happened with all the students but Albert ending up as chopped and hamburger meat. Albert or Cory Haim for his part in being the star of the movie was given a , by the movie makers, stay of execution so that like with Jason in "Friday the 13th" he'd be available for the film, "Fever Lake", sequel. Which in it having bombed out at the box office happily never came.

Fever Lake tells the tale of six teenage high school friends, Albert (Corey Haim), Steve (Mario Lopez), Bobby (Randy Josselyn) along with Sarah (Lauren Parker), Danielle (Mary-Rachel Foot) & Christy (Mattie Samradek as Mathea Webb) who all decide to spend the weekend at a house by a lake, set up by Albert they all plan to party & have fun out in the sticks away from the big city. However once there they get a strange unnerving vibe from the local townspeople, they find out that the house & lake have several ancient legends surrounding them & that evil things happen there. The six friends aren't interested in such superstitious nonsense though & intend to have a good time. Unfortunately for them the legends are true as evil things happen once more in the house by the lake...

Co-produced & directed by Ralph E. Portillo I hated Fever Lake, I guess it just about has everything I hate in a film. The script by Michael Edwards is as slow & boring as they come, after the obligatory opening (off screen) murder the next 50 odd minutes of Fever Lake introduces the six teenage character's & the fact that they are going to spend a weekend in a house by a lake which has Indian legends attached to it, seriously that's the entire first 50 minutes, nothing else of any significance happens at all. This thing is a complete total & utter snooze-fest, I've seen some pretty boring & uneventful films in my time but Fever Lake is right up there the absolute worst of them! If you can stay awake long enough to see the ending you shouldn't have bothered because personally I didn't think it made any sense, a conversation at the end suggests that only two females were found dead yet there should have been three, right I get that bit but so the hell what? What's the problem? Why the stupid close up on the woman's worried eyes? We never see where the third female went or why she wouldn't be dead & I just don't see what point the filmmakers are trying to make, I really don't. What about the guy in the back of the police car whose eyes start to glow bright green, isn't that meant to be the shock ending? Reading some of the comments on the IMDb I was surprised that many refer to the 'shock' or 'twist' ending, well I don't see any twist or shock ending at all, did I miss something? It was obvious who the kid with green eyes at the beginning was since it was 'his' house & he was an orphan. Anyway, I hate this film, it's slow, it takes itself way too seriously, the character's are awful & the story is both predictable & unoriginal. Interestingly Fever Lake was released the same year as Scream (1996) which revitalised the horror genre, comparing the two in terms of story & basic entertainment value Fever Lake feels like it belongs in the stone-age. Oh well, that's another 100 odd minutes of my life wasted I suppose...

Director Portillo does nothing to liven things up, he directs at an absolute snails pace & Fever Lake really is one of the dullest films I've ever seen. It makes watching paint dry sound like fun. There's no scares, no atmosphere or tension & the horror elements are just lame. There's a distinct lack of bloodshed as well, as far as I saw there was an off screen axe murder at the start, a stupid bit when a woman is murdered but you just see her face with a few drops of blood on it & I have no idea how she died & a Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) rip-off where two lovers are impaled, this time with an axe which in the scene in question at first goes right through both of them & lodges in the floor beneath the bed but when the murderer goes back to reclaim the axe a few scenes later it's only stuck in the guys back an inch or two. Overall Fever Lake is very tame & won't satisfy anyone looking for the red stuff.

It's with an element of surprise that I report to you that technically Fever Lake actually ain't too bad at all & to give it some credit where it's due it's quite well made with some decent photography, it certainly doesn't look as cheap as some straight-to-video low budget crap horror films that I've suffered through. It's still a really crap film though. The acting is predictably bad, Bo 'I'll appear in any crap for rent money' Hopkins slums it as the local Sheriff while it probably finished off both Haim's & Lopez's careers, if they ever had ones to start with.

Fever Lake is a really awful teen horror that has no redeeming features or positive aspects at all, I pretty much hated it & I'm glad I caught it on TV rather than have to spend any of my hard earned money on it. Do yourself a favour & give this boring turkey a miss. Apparently also available in an edited version known as Demon Kid, I have no idea why.

I honestly hate rating any movie the dreaded 1/10. In some respects, giving a 1/10 to a bad movie is taking the easy way out. I do my very best to find something positive to say. As hard as I try, I can't do that with Fever Lake. The only glimmer of anything remotely positive I can come up with is the marginally decent acting on the part of Lauren Parker. But she's not good enough to raise the rating. Overall, Fever Lake is a dull, lifeless, mess of a movie. I have a hard time understanding why it was even made. There is absolutely no reason to watch this disaster.

So, what makes Fever Lake so bad? Acting – Horrible. Mario Lopez never could act and Corey Haim gives the laziest performance I think I've ever seen. Plot – Unoriginal. Gee, a group of college age kids heads off to a house on a lake – wonder what's going to happen? Direction – Uninspired. Ralph Portillo brings nothing new to the genre. Special effects – Lame. It's easy to see there was no budget for Fever Lake. Music – Annoying. Whoever wrote the score should be taken out and shot. Treatment of Native Americans – Insulting. Not only does a white dude play the part of Clear Springs, he does so in a ridiculously stereotypical stilted speech pattern. Sets and costuming – Unremarkable. The whole things looks like it might have been filmed in my neighbor's house with the clothes found in their closet. Characters – Stupid. These are some of the most idiotic people put on film.

This list could go on and on. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Again, as much as I hate doing it, I cannot in good conscience rate Fever Lake anything but a 1/10.