A family consisting of mother, father, daughter and boyfriend take a retreat to a cabin at Lake Alice, Wisconsin, during the Holidays, but the joys of the season take a deadly turn when a mysterious slayer suddenly emerges.

"Lake Alice" (2018) is a modern slasher Indie in the mold of traditional slashers with the tropes thereof, e.g. The silent killer with a mask of some sort. The technical filmmaking is good except for a couple of issues. What works best is the authentic cold winter setting of northern Wisconsin. I like the whole set-up of the family returning to their home town in the rural Great Lakes region and the entertaining drama thereof. Sometimes the director spends a little too much time on a mundane scene, but I felt it established the reality of the situation, so I didn't mind.

The second half is where some weaknesses rear their heads. I didn't find the killings very convincing for the most part. For instance, when the first person is fatally attacked I giggled and thought maybe it was a prank. Most of the rest of the assaults have an unreal vibe as well and were okay at best. So the director is good at drama but needs to improve when it comes to staging action/suspense sequences. The micro-budget Indie "The Ridge" (2005) had the opposite problem: The drama of the first half is so weak it tempts the viewer to tune out, but the horrific second half wherein the killer chases the victims is superbly done.

The diff between this and "The Ridge" is that "Lake Alice" features a Whodunit angle. The first half establishes 4-5 possible suspects and the scriptwriter came up with a decent conclusion (as far as whom the killer turns out to be and the details thereof). The director just needs to work out the kinks in the attack sequences.

The movie runs 1 hour, 18 minutes, and was shot at Tomahawk in the Lake Alice region of northern Wisconsin.

GRADE: C.

'Lake Alice' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing if unoriginal premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Lake Alice' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is very little to recommend in 'Lake Alice'.

Lets start with the positive, and sadly it is the only redeeming quality. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky, despite the rather direct to video schlocky way it's generally shot (apart from the odd nice one) and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm.

Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less unsettled and never gaining momentum. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and all of the acting is lacking severely, seeming to think that screaming your head off a good deal counts as good acting. Caroline Tudor is especially poor.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace and film drags on forever, never recovering until finally getting slightly intriguing to the ending when something sort of finally happens. Even the ending however is botched, due to being so incomplete-feeling, illogical and hard to swallow. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense.

A lot of 'Lake Alice' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or unsetling

There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, while the horror elements are unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show any sense of horror. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it, and the music doesn't really fit, sounds cheap and like it belonged somewhere else entirely.

Concluding, terrible. 2/10 Bethany Cox

"Lake Tomahawk" and "Lake Alice" are the same film. There is an axe in the film (once maybe) and I don't recall seeing the lake other than in a postcard scene. In any case this is really a cabin in the woods who-dun-it and has nothing to do with the title.

Sarah (Caroline Tudor) comes home from California to Wisconsin to spend time with her parents at their cabin home. She brings along her boyfriend (Brad Schmidt) who proposes. The film then spends 45 minutes creating suspects for the killings we know are about to come. Then they happen. Two resurrections and one WTF ending later the film is over. The twist wasn't really a twist as it has been done in a dozen films or more. It is okay when it is done well, but they pranced it around too much and in fact it didn't make any sense to do it as far as the plot was concerned, it was done strictly for the audience. It was hard to judge the characters as they lacked consistency.

Guide: f-word. No sex or nudity