brandonlewislaw If you're a huge horror fan like me, you know you run low on options sometimes. This site comes in handy when you come across an obscure one that you don't know anything about. Good way of saving time and avoiding the train-wrecks. Anyhow, I went against the overwhelmingly bad reviews. Something about friends doing road trips to secluded places..that campy experience..nothing supernatural involved...right up my alley. Figured what the hell, I'll give it 15 minutes. Long story short, I loved this damn movie. I loved the characters. For amateur actors, they did a hell of a job. And the twist...the twist got me. Horror movies are so cliché now, you can guess the twist long before it happens. I guess it's that I just didn't see any reason to suspect a twist. The movie was so straightforward. You can usually see them coming from a mile away. Not this time. If any of you have ever seen "Adam & Evil"..It has terrible reviews on here too but I loved it. Same general plot, not as good as this though. Bottom line: Obviously I'm in the minority, but I'm not an idiot. I've seen probably a thousand horror movies. I know garbage when I see it. That said, I loved this movie. Give it a shot if you come across it. Find it on the internet or at the bottom of a clearance rack DVD bin. You might be surprised. PS. I gave it a 10 just based on the principle. People throwing 1 star ratings at it is absurd. So count me in on the absurdity.

captaincameron I should have known better. The DVD cover said it was from the producers of "Twilight." The producers of "Twilight" took a mediocre, highly overrated book and turned it into an even more mediocre and overrated movie. (Although to be fair, when forced by my Ph. D. holding wife who somehow is a fan of the Twilight nonsense to see the third movie, it was pleasing when the werewolf character was running away and the strung-out little girl who is the lead called "Jacob, stay!") But enough of the time wasted in my life on Twilight. Sam's Lake is another 87 minutes I'll never get back. Acting--crap. Plot--crap. "Supernatural horror that will leave you trembling"--none. Zero. The most supernatural thing was that my liver didn't climb up my throat and choke my brain for watching this. I am certain that there are other movies this bad out there, but I am hard pressed to remember one. Save yourself. Avoid this flick. Tell your friends.

Coventry I realize Sam's Lake isn't anything quite like Crystal Lake, but still I was secretly hoping that Jason Voorhees would pop out of the water during one of the numerous boring moments and increase the bloodshed and body count a little. No such luck, unfortunately, as "Sam's Lake" is a fairly pretentious and wannabe clever thriller instead of just an amusing and undemanding slasher. The opening sequences of this film are exactly the same as the opening sequences of approximately 7.500 other horror films, with a group of friends heading out to a remote middle-of-nowhere forest area for a weekend of fun and laughter. The only slight difference here maybe is that the main characters aren't sex-addicted teenagers but losers in their early thirties with dysfunctional backgrounds. There's very little going on during the first 45 minutes, except the atmospheric narration of a local urban legend campfire tale about a mentally unbalanced young boy who escaped from the asylum and returned to the area to slaughter his family members. The events further in the film are obviously related to this local legend, but not exactly like you would expect. The group stupidly decides to explore the murder's ramshackle cabin and find a journal that sheds a disturbing new light on the urban myth. If you manage to struggle through this incredibly dull film (though there are a couple of nice shots of leaves floating on the lake's surface), there's an essential plot twist after about an hour of playtime. Admittedly this particular twist is quite original and unpredictable, but it's probably also the single most implausible thing I've ever seen. Also, the twist may give a powerful short energy boost to the film, but the finale is a tedious and confusing mess again. I think I must have stopped paying attention to the story lines, because all of a sudden a Rob Zombie look-alike showed up. What the hell? The murder sequences are tame and most of them occur off-screen, which is the one thing that every horror fanatic hates. "Sam's Lake" is boring and largely derivative with only a small handful of notable moments. Hardly a movie to recommend.

em89072002 From the Friday THE THIRTEENTHs to CABIN FEVER this 'cabin by the lake/ teens in the woods' horror genre has been done to death.SAM'S LAKE both adds and detracts from this genre at the same time; it adds another piece of rubbish to the pile and it detracts from the few truly original and quality productions in this genre.The story is just a knock-off that pulls elements from the numerous other flicks in the genre. Instead of crazy Jason with his crazy mother, crazy Samantha has a crazy father and crazy brother. Her rag-tag band of young somewhat buff friends/victims are little more than bland stereotypes for a diversity campaign. The horror aspect is a real disappointment; the victims never really fight back and are easily killed. The horror scenes just aren't scary and the acting is bad. In an obvious attempt to pander to preteen girls and perhaps a gay following from his other so-called acting ventures, the actor who plays Sam's brother takes his shirt off and runs around in the woods half naked during the final night hunt and killing segment. Within the story this is illogical --- there's no reason for it; but, as a gimmick to keep viewers watching the practice of showing some skin is done in movies all the time --- but usually with more attractive actors.