The recent deluge of top-tier genre fare emerging from Thailand has been a joyous sight to behold for horror fanatics as the country has positioned itself quite nicely in the past years as a major player in the market. From the found-footage supernatural nightmare in The Medium, ghost movies in Inhuman Kiss, Cracked, and Ghost Lab to the giant monster throwback Leio, the country's output has allowed them to rise significantly in the crowded Asian scene with plenty looking for Japan, South Korea, and to a lesser extent Indonesia and China for their film output. Now, fresh on the heels of his recent hit The Maid, Lee Thongkham teams up with Aqing Xu for a new monster movie called The Lake which is now available through Epic Pictures.
Living in a remote Thai village, Lin (Suchar Manayang) is distraught when her younger sister May (Wilawan Chatborirak) discovers a giant lizard egg by a nearby lake in their community. After her brother Keng (Thanachat Tunyachat) feels there is no danger in the egg, they decide to leave it only to discover that it belongs to a monstrous human-like fish/lizard hybrid that begins rampaging across the local citizens drawing both troubled police officer James (Teerapat Sajakul), who's trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter Pam (Supansa Wedkama) and Professor Yang (Zang Jinsheng), who's researching the troubled geographical conditions with his assistant Chen (Ren Youxuan), into helping them stop the creature. However, as they do so, they realize there may be more to the creature than they expected and are forced to stop an even bigger threat than they ever imagined.
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Overall, “The Lake” has quite a lot to like. Among the stronger elements is a generally fun setup from co-director Thongkham that mixes together several impressive elements into a modern-day monster movie throwback. The initial idea of the creature appearing in the village and setting out on a path of revenge after May innocently takes its egg away is fine enough. That is because it gets us to the expected monster carnage with a modicum of foresight required to believe it since real creatures would be that protective over their young. This realism-minded setup is matched by the secondary human storyline involving Professor Yang and Chen arriving and trying to study the burgeoning conditions around the lake before the creature shows up. Since their mission was to figure out why the area was so unusual beforehand it all makes sense as to why the creature is there attacking everyone. The ensuing intervention from the local police and other armed forces is at first seen as a logical means of protecting the citizens.
That manages to set the stage for “The Lake” to feature a slew of impressive creature action. Making good use of the creature's size advantage over normal citizens, the initial sequences including the opening attack on the villagers at the lake or the later chase of Keng and Lin through the local rice paddies, offer a lot to like. These end up featuring high-energy action as their lightning-fast agility and physical weaponry are put to use in large-scale ambushes to wipe out and attack others. The confrontation with the police where they manage to capture it in the city streets is equally fun with a decidedly entertaining twist coming into play, keeping them from killing it. As well, a later sequence involving the massive mother arriving and stalking Pam, May, and James inside a stranded car as it looks for its missing egg being transported inside, is a truly chilling and suspenseful action scene.
This becomes the starting point for “The Lake” to turn into a solid kaiju-style offering in the final half. While the audience has been aware all along of the existence of the massive mother, the characters' blissful ignorance when dealing with the escaped human-sized creature is understandable due to their encounters thus far. Since the smaller creature was the one out and about rampaging in the community and the mother's off-screen presence after leaving no witnesses, the discovery of the mother's existence all along turns into a rather fun city attack sequence. Filled with rushing crowds, multiple encounters with citizens fleeing the area, a rather ingenious plan to stop it that plays off what's been established in the film's lore and a series of great effects work to showcase the monster interacting with humanity, there's quite a lot to like with this one.
There are a few issues with “The Lake” that hold it down. One of the main drawbacks is a curious decision to remove several potentially intriguing sequences with the creature attacking major parts of the city and reserving them as flashbacks. Rather than get to see the creature rampaging at a playground or a construction site, they're instead portrayed as the inspector arrives at the aftermath with inserts used to depict what initially happened. Since they're back-to-back sequences in the film placed only minutes apart from each other, the decision to feature them in this manner is confusing more than anything. The other issue here is the confusing epitaph that finishes this one with some bizarre action and a highly unnecessary coda about the true monstrous persona in humanity that has no real build-up and feels quite bizarre to be added onto this story when it had a more logical endpoint much earlier.
Despite a few minor flaws, there are more than enough positives in “The Lake” to make for a highly enjoyable genre throwback. Viewers who are intrigued by the concept, are monster movie fans in general or are big Asian horror watchers will have the most to like here.
