Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Uriah43 Rather than beating around the bush I'm just going to be brutally frank and say that this is a very bad movie. As a matter of fact, I only know of a couple of zombie films which are worse. At least as of this writing. It has bad acting, a bad plot, bad action sequences, bad character development, a bad musical score, bad special effects and bad dialogue. Basically, if you can name it--it was bad. And that's the brutal truth of the matter. That said, there are also some things that might need to be taken under consideration. The dialogue for example. While it was definitely bad, it was also originally in another language so it is quite possible that some things were understated or missed in translation. Another factor to consider is that this movie was filmed in 1981 on what was probably a very small budget. As a result the cost for the special effects was probably minimal and the results reflected this. Likewise, there didn't seem to be any award-winning actors in this movie which leads me to believe that the makers of this film had to settle for whoever they could afford. And quite often you get what you pay for. Be that as it may, there were two noticeable features in this film that I thought were worth mentioning. First, there were a lot of scenes with nude females. Unfortunately, none of the scenes were really that interesting. At least I didn't think so. But one thing I did like were the scenes where the Nazi soldiers came from out of the lake. But that was about it. In summation, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and rate it slightly higher than it probably deserves but unless you're a die-hard zombie enthusiast I wouldn't waste my time on this one.

gavin6942 In a small village, somewhere in France, German soldiers, killed and thrown into the lake by the Resistance during WW II, come back.The story was written by Jess Franco, although I am not sure how much thought had to go into this one. The film was directed by Jean Rollin (who was ashamed of his own work), and the opening scene pushes even his casual attitude towards female nudity to its limits. They both have a respectable career to some degree... not sure how this ended up on their resume.Almost no effort was put into the Nazi zombies, who are just guys with a little green makeup smeared on their face. I can do a better makeup job in my bathroom, and they do not ask me to do effects for horror films. The people who were behind this should not be proud.This ranks pretty low on the "Nazi zombie" scale, behind "Dead Snow" and "Shock Waves", and even behind another Jess Franco film "Oasis of the Zombies". This is, indeed, among the worst...

chuckm76 I say just another, it's definitely one of the worst. Jesus Franco should be dragged out into the street and shot, then when he comes back as a zombie shot in the head and set on fire to make sure he doesn't come back. I hate his movies, I really don't know why I bother watching them but I feel I have to just in case he proves me wrong. He never does, 100% of the time. That's some going. Please, please don't bother watching this unless you already know you like this kind of Euro garbage. Anyone looking for a real zombie movie please look somewhere else and don't judge the whole genre on these movies. Just make sure you avoid it, if it has anything to do with Jesus Franco!!

Paul Andrews Le Lac des Mortes Vivants, or Zomie Lake as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, is set in a small French village during the 50's, it starts with a girl going missing. Local pipe smoking, beer swilling, silly mustachioed fat-boy villager Chanac (Youri Redionow) becomes worried & reports his fears to the local Mayor (Howard Vernon) who is convinced that it has something to do with a nearby lake which is supposedly haunted after a bunch of German soldiers were killed & unceremoniously dumped in it during World War II. The Mayor calls the police & they send in Inspector's Morane (Robert Foster) & Stiltz (director Jean Rollin) who don't believe the local legends & end up paying for it by being killed by German zombie soldiers, the villagers are on their own & must find a way to send the German soldiers back to their watery graves for good!This French & Spanish co-production was directed by Jean Rollin who replaced Jesus 'I have no talent' Franco at short notice when he disappeared, the production company went on to make Franco direct Oasis of the Zombies (1981) instead & the very fact that Oasis of the Zombies was made prevents Le Lac des Mortes Vivants from being the single worst European zombie film ever. Don't get me wrong because Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is still terrible & the second worst European zombie film ever, it's just that Oasis of the Zombies is even worse. Anyway, the script by intended director Franco under the pseudonym A.L. Mariaux is simply awful, there's barely any dialogue, the character's are awful, the story is rubbish, the pace of the film almost left me in a coma & Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is quite simply one of the worst films your ever likely to see. The spoken English dialogue is laughable, the English dub is full of awkward broken English that you understand but at the same time know people simply don't construct sentences or talk the way these character's do. There's virtually no violence, the story makes virtually no sense & tries to have some bizarre romantic angle between a zombie & his daughter where when he's not terrorising & eating the local villagers a German zombie visits his young daughter which just comes across as laughable, there's no explanation given as to why the zombies come back to life in the first place & there's just very little, if anything, here to enjoy.It's obvious Rollin's heart wasn't in the project, the continuity is terrible, the camera work & cinematography are awful as well with really jerky pans & zooms. The German zombie soldiers uniforms dry out incredibly quickly once they are on land & that one who visits his daughter might have been stuck at the bottom of a lake for 10 years & have pale decomposing features but at least he combs his hair & keeps it looking nice! Seriously, the production values are rock bottom & you can sit there & literally tear it to pieces, nothing works, nothing is thought out & we are basically talking amateur hour here. A World War II battle sequence is achieved using one vehicle & about four German soldiers in another embarrassing & amateurish scene. There are so many things wrong with Le Lac des Mortes Vivents I started to feel sorry for the filmmakers & actor's stuck in it. There's some nudity but not as much as you would expect & there isn't any gore at all apart from two very tame neck bitings & a bit of fake blood. A few decent gore scenes might have made Le Lac des Mortes Vivants watchable but alas the filmmakers didn't even have the budget or enthusiasm to buy some animal intestines from the local butcher. The zombie make-up sucks too, it's just green face-paint randomly applied to the actor's face, you can clearly still see patches of pinkish human flesh where the makers haven't applied the green paint evenly!Techhnically the film is a disaster, I hated the music, I hated the photography, I hated the special effects as well as the lack of them & Le Lac des Mortes Vivants really does have rock bottom production values. Filmed on location in France the picturesque village where it was shot & the surrounding countryside looks quite nice actually & is the only thing the film has going for it. The acting is awful, sure everyone's dubbed but you can just tell it's awful.Le Lac des Mortes Vivants is awful, only Oasis of the Zombies saves it from being just about the worst zombie film ever made. Even if your a die hard European horror junkie your going to have a hard time watching & enjoying this, one to avoid.