THE PEOPLE ACROSS THE LAKE (1988)

 WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEVENTIES MADE-FOR-TV HORROR MOVIES AND EIGHTIES MADE-FOR-TV HORROR MOVIES. 

Pretty much all 1970's TV horror flicks are awesome to semi-awesome whereas those made in the 80's are like this one:  uh, not good.  Now that picture up there makes it look likes it's gonna be REAL GOOD but I'm sorry to say the first half is absolutely boring as all get-out while the second half is stupid as F!  Rhoda and Major Dad . . . . OK, I'll stop with the obvious jokes . . . Valerie Harper, Gerald McRaney and their two kids are fed up with living behind security locks and house alarms in the crime-ridden city and decide they're going to move out to the country.  They find an old house on Tomahawk Lake and buy it; moving out to where they feel the air is fresh and clean and the criminals are far away.  But this family is in a made-for-TV horror movie so, besides the rather surly, unwelcoming and faintly sinister locals they also begin finding dead bodies all over the place.  First McRaney goes swimming only to surface with a dismembered female arm clinging to his shoulder and then holding on to his leg as he makes it to sure.  Now this is fantastic except for the fact that there is NO supernatural stuff going on here.  No, the arm is not a zombie arm.  So why does it hold on to his leg, you ask????  Bad writing, that's why.  Yep, here we have the first (of several) failures of this film; the screenplay is atrocious!  It alternates between extremely dull and ridiculously silly and illogical.  Now the co-writers of the screenplay are Bill McCutchen (who has only one other writing credit) and Dalene Young (who has close to 30 including such films as LITTLE DARLINGS and CROSS CREEK; both of which I liked).  It's tempting to blame the bad script of the guy who only wrote 2 things but that's probably not fair since there WAS an accomplished co-writer involved here.  Interference from the TV network, maybe???  My money's on that.  

Arthur Allan Seidelman directed and he's got a pretty substantial Cv cranking out workman-like flicks from THE CALLER (which I loved) to the Arnold-vehicle HERCULES IN NEW YORK.  So I don't know how you wanna categorize him as a director.  To be fair (to be faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrr) the direction seems quite competent but it's tough to know what anyone could've made out of this script.  Frankly, if Seidelman had cut out all the draggy scenes where nothing happens, it would be a half hour show.  So back to the plot.  McRaney calls the local sheriff but the decaying arm is gone when they get back to the lake shore.  The sheriff is bound and determined to convince him that he saw a log or a piece of debris.  The sheriff's deputy John Bryce (Jeff Kizer) stays behind for a snack and a story about several murders . . . or accidental deaths . . . that have happened in the area over the last 15 years where bodies were discovered so mangled they sometimes couldn't be identified.  Welcome to the peaceful country, folks!  Soon, the family meets Deputy John's cuddly dad Malcolm Bryce (the cuddly Barry Corbin) who always wears a carnation in his buttonhole.  He's such a sweet ole cuss.  You see where this is going.  You don't really have to guess since the original TV Guide ad for this TV movie kinda spoils the film (see below).  

I mean, do YOU recognize those eyes hanging up there at the top.  Well, it's a spoiler and kinda not at the same time.  I won't say more in case you are crazy enough to subject yourself to this snooze fest.  So this brings us to the next major failure of this movie; notably the often terrible acting going on here!  Barry Corbin, who is a fine actor normally, is absolutely embarrassingly terrible here as he chews the scenery shamelessly.  Also Valerie Harper, who was absolutely great a decade earlier in NIGHT TERROR.  Ah but, you see . . . that was a 1970's made-for-TV horror movie and they knew how to make them then.  Here Harper is pretty bad and actually annoying and unlikeable.  There's practical no one around in this film that IS likeable -- except the absolutely bonkers (in a good way) Daryl Anderson as backwoods nutcase Henry Link whom first encounters our married couple on a jog, accuses them of trespassing on his land and then aims and fires his shotgun at them! 

Anderson is filling the 'Bruce Dern' role in this movie since he acts and very closely resembles Bruce Dern.  He's a joy and definitely the best thing about the film.  So anyway, about 5 minutes later, after having been shot at while jogging in the woods, Harper and McRaney . . . . are shown jogging in the woods again.   There's some good decision making!    As far as we know, this is the following day so a psycho with a shotgun didn't deter them; in fact, they decide to get frisky on the same woodland trail and, while doing so, lie down next to a quite-a-while-dead corpse!  McRaney wises up this time and stays with the body while Harper goes to get the Sheriff.  It is discovered that this body was probably brought to that spot after having been dead inside a coffin for a good while.  Why they think this, I dunno, since no evidence is shared with us as to why they think that.  A big deal is made of this fact at the time but it is NEVER REFERRED TO AGAIN.  So OK, that's about all I have to relate except the fact that the final reel goes all psycho-crazy-loopy-coo-coo -- and NOT in a good way but in a STUPID way.  There are a group of decayed skeletal corpses in the . . . I guess fruit cellar . . . of the lakeside house but I'm afraid that goodness is all too little too late. Finally, after the inevitable and network-approved mandatory happy ending, McRaney sighs "Maybe we'll find a place this nice somewhere up north . . . or a quiet little beach town."  Yeah Gerry, I have just the place for you at Camp Crystal Lake!   I just don't know why they suddenly lost the ability to make good made-for-TV horror movies in the 1980's when the 70's were full to bursting with great ones.  Ah well, that's show biz!