This slice of home-made regional horror is not objectively ‘good’ by all the usual markers of quality (script / performances / filmmaking), but the pure enthusiasm on display boosts the wannabe slasher out of the DTV barrel.
The plot as such is ‘friends go to a lake house to hang out & drink beer & smoke weed - which they do for the majority of the runtime - before a burly killer turns up and creeps around & eventually gets around to killing a couple of people.’
You really get the sense that the actors are all friends hanging out, drinking beer & flirting with each other awkwardly (the 11 year old kids talking dirty to each other is hilariously wrong). But there’s something about these performances, with everyone talking over each other & constantly cracking up, that is super endearing & somehow makes up for the lack of tension, scares, kills - y’know the usual hallmarks of a good slasher. The film is also a near perfect time capsule of the mid 80s, with mullets & perms galore.
I feel like a good chunk of slasher fans would be bored shitless with Blood Lake, but the small percentage that dig the unique vibes that can only come from filmmakers who really have no business being filmmakers apart from their unbridled passion, will get a kick out of it.
3.5 jetty corpses out of 5.