Lake Alice (2017)

The Thomas family goes out to their cabin in the woods to celebrate Christimas together with their daughter and her boyfriend, but their first Christmas together may be their last.

Review

Lake Alice - it was under the title Lake Tomahawk when I saw it, but I can't even find a reference for that on IMDB - is, on paper, a fine idea. A family of four go to the old family home just outside Small-Towns-Ville, where they are greeted with hostility for acts of the past, that we the viewer are not yet familiar with. Cue the slashening.

It definitely wants you to play the game of working out who is under the mask. And all of that works just fine. The acting is average. Nothing is notable, yet nothing is tragic. So far so good. Even the direction is okay.

It does fall down on a couple of points, however. The first is the sound design. It's shockingly bad. While many low budget horrors have the constant issue of the stings, ambient music, and Foley being far too loud, Lake Alice has, well, none of it. It's people talking and doing things with virtually no audio beyond that at all. Which is horrible. But worse - it's not scary. Which is sad, because the villain design is pretty solid, if simple.

Writer, Stevie Jane Miller (debut) put together a solid screenplay. Lead Caroline Tudor (Secrets of a Psychopath) shoulders the film well. It just doesn't quite reach the heights it reaches for, with a lack of gore, little suspense, and awful sound design.

Disappointingly close to a made for TV whodunnit, over the slasher film they went for.