Ghost Lake starts at the funeral of Ruth (Linda Brown) & Richard Haster (Raymond Suriani) as their distraught daughter Rebecca (Tatum Adair) looks on, not feeling that good about things Rebecca decides to head to her parents cottage in a small town near Rushford Lake. On her way Rebecca picks up a hitchhiker named Stan James (Timothy Prindle) who also lives near the lake, they quickly become friends as Rebecca still feels bad about her parents & needs a shoulder to cry on. However, things take a turn for the worse as a terrifying set of events happen to Rebecca, first she finds the body of a dead fisherman in the lake, she sees zombies walking around & a strange girl keeps popping up. Sheriff Dobbs (Gregory Lee Kenyon) reveals that Rushford Lake has a dark & sinister past that Rebecca feels is the cause of her troubles. As Rebecca unravels the truth about the ghosts, zombies, bodies & the Lakes history she discovers great evil...<br /><br />Written & directed by Jay Woelfel who also appears in the film as a 'shadowy figure' & if that wasn't enough he also composed the music, is there no beginning to this mans talents?! OK, maybe that was a bit harsh but I personally thought Ghost Lake was a pretty dire film all round. The script takes itself extremely seriously & to be fair starts off alright as it builds reasonably well, it has a certain something about it that kept me interested but once all this nonsense about the 13th month, 13 victims & various other things that contain the number 13 kick in it all starts to become confusing, muddled & far too complicated. I don't think Ghost Lake makes itself particularly clear & that has to be down to the script & Woelfel, I don't think Ghost Lake comes across as a straight horror film as instead of going for scares & gore it tries to develop a complex mystery which just isn't that interesting or engaging, imagine a low rent The X-Files (1992 - 2002) episode. There is a good film trying to get out but unfortunately it fails, it's different & tries to surprise but I think it's predictable & I think twists need to be clever & relatively simple to work & be effective, Ghost Lake's twists are none of those things. Forget about any hordes of zombies rising from the lake as suggested on the DVD/video artwork, it doesn't happen as this is a straight faced ghost story rather than a zombie film.<br /><br />Director Woelfel was obviously working on a low budget so I'll cut it a little slack. Having said that it still looks cheap, bland, forgettable, flat & extremely dull. Forget about any scares, atmosphere or tension as there isn't any. There isn't any gore either, there's a few ghost/zombies & a few rotten corpses but nothing else, this is really tame stuff all the way.<br /><br />Technically Ghost Lake isn't too bad considering it's low budget shot-on-video origins, the best thing I can say about it is that it's competent. The acting didn't impress & I didn't like any of the character's particularly.<br /><br />Ghost lake is a pretty bad film overall, it has virtually no horror elements, the various twists are dull & just don't work out in any sort of satisfying way & the artwork on the box really is very misleading. Not recommended.