My Review Of “Blood Lake: Attack Of The Killer Lampreys”

Asylum/Animal Planet’s “Blood Lake: Attack Of The Lampreys” was a b-movie that premiered on the network awhile back. It is directed by the very talented, and often provocative Director James Cullen Bressack. “Blood Lake” starred Shannen Doherty, Jason Brooks, Zack Ward, Christopher Lloyd, Clara Hanna, Rachel True, Mark Christopher Lawrence, and Jody Barton. The CGI driven creature feature has a lakeside community terrorized by lampreys with a taste for human blood.

“Blood Lake” is exactly what I thought it would be, a crazy maelstrom of CGI critters, melodrama, and garden variety of two-dimensional characters. The story contains the same material as any other b-movie, creature feature currently playing on several genre channels on cable. “Blood Lake” does have a cool blend of nostalgia mixed in. There were moments that reminded me of the old Roger Corman “Piranhas”.

James Cullen Bressack has a specific signature of story telling that was lacking with “Blood Lake”, The raw, personal connection that I normally feel from Bresack’s films was missing in this one. There was a lot of his dark humor and creativity present “Blood Lake”, mostly with the kill scene shots. Not everything was CGI, there was the rubber lampreys, and I think I saw some practical blood effects. I don’t really get into these CGI driven b-movies-I prefer the puppeteering and animatronic creature effects of old. Still I watched the whole thing so I can say I like “Blood Lake” better than “Sharknado”-I never even made it past the first 15 minutes of that one.

“Blood Lake: Attack Of The Lampreys” has a lot of missing components to the story. The acting and scenes are clunky at times, the characters never feel real or believable. There is an obvious lack of chemistry between some of the cast that shows on screen. Still “Blood Lake” does have a fun, cheese fest thing happening that, in spite of the CGI, manages to liven up the film’s mediocrity. Plus it was enough just to see Christopher Lloyd's rectal assault by the creatures, and Zack Ward is always nice to look at on screen.