Fishy Is As Fishy Does: The Lake (2023) Review

Director: Lee Thongkham

Notable Cast: Theerapat Sajakul, Sushar Manaying, Vithaya Pansringarm, Supansa Wedkama, Wanmai Chatborrirak, Thanachat Tullayachat, Ren Youxan, Su Qiucheng

 

"What is more cruel than the monster is the lie...the lie that a group of people made to cover up their own failure so that everything remains peaceful. But there was never true peace."

 

The quote above is delivered via a voiceover narrative that bookends the Thai blockbuster The Lake. While I am normally one to roll my eyes at these kinds of storytelling choices, it’s one that lingered with me well into the credits and the Thai pop song that adored them. Was this by-the-numbers monster flick one that had far more depth under its surface than I gave it credit for while watching it?

 

Yeah, there is more depth than expected. The brilliance (and perhaps the biggest obstacle) of The Lake is that this monster flick, which steals fully from other monster movies in both concept and execution, is way better than it ever should be. It is monster madness that somehow manages to pop in some incredibly heartfelt moments and some odd moments of existential crisis that elevate the experience. All while it delivers some fun bigger-than-life fish monster mayhem. 

 

The Blood Splatter: 2018 Horror Vol. 1 [The Midnight Man, Terrifier, Pyewacket]

THE MIDNIGHT MAN (2018)

Director: Travis Zariwny

Notable Cast: Grayson Gabriel, Emily Haine, Gabrielle Haugh, Summer H. Howell, Keenan Lehmann, Louise Linton, Meredith Rose, Robert Englund, Lin Shaye

The reason why I’ve called you into my office today is that, well, to put it nicely, we need to talk about The Midnight Man. Recently, there has been some speculation that The Midnight Man could have been a good movie. Really, there is potential here. It has a fun monster/game concept at its core, it features a couple of roles for horror elite actors, and the production value is sharp. The problem with it is not how it looks from the outside. It’s the inside. The Midnight Man has one of the thinnest and most illogical scripts I’ve had the pleasure to experience in a long time, the performances of the two/three leads are perplexing at best (jaw droppingly awful at worst,) and the film has a confusing tone. In all honesty, I spent the entire run time of the film desperately trying to figure out if it was meant to be funny. If it was, I didn’t laugh. If it wasn’t, boy, I sure feel awkward that this is how it came out.

Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight (2018)

Director: Alan Lo

Notable Cast: Michael Ning, Louis Cheung, Alex Man, Carrie Ng, Cherry Ngan, Venus Wong, Chu Pak-Him, Chu Pak-Houg, Rosa Maria Velasco, Eco Tang, J. Arie, Terry Zou, Angie Shum, Anita Chui

To give this review a bit of context, I certainly went into Zombiology with tempered expectations. Most of the people I had previously spoken to about the film thought the film was just rehash of other zombie movie tropes and, outside of the truly insane horror films of decades past, Hong Kong isn’t a place known for producing great horror films – even if it’s mixed with comedy. What makes Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight such a strange and somewhat refreshing experience is that it has no qualms with using its tropes in abrasive parallels with one another. This film is an energetic shotgun blast of zombie cinema. It’s scattered, perplexing, and forceful with some of its heavy-handed themes. Yet, like its subtitle weirdly promised, I thoroughly enjoyed myself while watching it. It’s definitely a film that I can see rubbing its audience the wrong way in how it approaches some of its subject matter, but for those perhaps more versed in Asian and zombie cinema it might just be one of those overlooked gems worth digging.