Fever Lake (1997): When Bad Movies Happen to Good Podcasters
There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Fever Lake - a film so spectacularly terrible that we had to split our discussion into two episodes. Starring Corey Haim and Mario Lopez, this direct-to-video nightmare has an IMDB rating of 2.6, and honestly, that feels generous.
The premise: college kids (though they act like high schoolers) head to a remote cabin on cursed Fever Lake for a weekend party. People die. It’s supposed to be scary. It’s not. Let’s be clear: this movie gave us laughs. Entirely unintentional laughs, but that’s literally the only reason it’s getting any cents from us.
The Directing and Editing Are Crimes Against Cinema The editing is an absolute disaster. Scenes don’t connect. Audio is disembodied. Characters have conversations with painfully long pauses between every line, like they weren’t even filmed in the same room.
There’s a scene where Lily the waitress talks to Bud at a bait shop, and the editing makes it look like a staring contest punctuated by occasional words. Just bizarre, uncomfortable pauses everywhere.
The cinematography tries to be “artsy” with weird lake shots but mostly just padded the runtime. Multiple montages of people driving set to “action music” when literally nothing is happening. Just cars on straightaways. Fields. Trees. Hay. For minutes.
Corey Haim Cannot Stop Touching Mario Lopez This might be the most memorable aspect of the entire film. Albert (Corey Haim) is constantly - and we mean CONSTANTLY - touching, poking, jabbing, and hanging on Steve (Mario Lopez). Arms around shoulders, hands on waists, tapping his back, hitting his arms. It’s relentless and deeply uncomfortable. We decided this was probably just Corey Haim not knowing what to do with his hands, but good lord, it’s distracting. Poor Steve must have been bruised by the end of filming.
The “Evil” Is the Laziest Prankster Ever The evil of Fever Lake is supposed to be terrifying. Instead, it mostly just pranks people. Cars appear to run out of gas but are actually full. Doors lock themselves. A laptop changes text to say spooky things. A very chill wolf gets possessed but is more interested in sniffing for moles than attacking anyone. That’s it. For most of the movie, the evil just inconveniences people. It’s the most passive-aggressive entity we’ve ever seen.
The Math Makes No Sense The curse supposedly strikes every 15 years. Lily the waitress says the opening murder (clearly set in the 1940s based on the car and clothes) happened “a few years ago” when she was two. She’s 16 now. That would put the murder in the mid-1990s, not the 1940s. Albert is somehow the little boy from the 1940s opening, which would make him 70 years old, but he’s clearly in his twenties. The timeline is a complete mess.
We eventually decided everyone in town lives forever unless someone stays at the cursed house. It’s the only explanation that makes the math work - Lily is actually 350 years old, which is why “a couple years ago” means decades to her. We’re pretty sure we just wrote a better plot than the actual movie.
Random Scenes That Go Nowhere Animal pelts that make Sarah scream (after being calm about a tarantula on her shoulder). A wolf chasing Lily that amounts to nothing. Clear Springs staring intensely at a “sexy fire.” That wolf scene deserves special mention. There’s a whole montage of a wolf supposedly chasing Lily, except it’s clearly someone’s pet mostly sniffing the ground. Lily falls into a random circle of rocks and gets attacked by… nothing. You see nothing attacking her. She’s just rolling around. Then the wolf shows up to eat what looks like raw chicken from Food Lion. It was hilariously bad.
Clear Springs and His Sexy Fire
Clear Springs is a Native American character who speaks broken English like he just learned the language yesterday, even though he’s in modern clothes. His job is to stare at things and say “Evil is coming.” The best part is his relationship with fire. During montages, he stares intensely at a campfire like he wants to fuck it. We called it the “sexy fire.” It eventually traps him in flames, and we thought he died. He didn’t - he just raised his arms and screamed defiantly, which is apparently how you fight fire.
The Kills Are Terrible Bobby and Christie get killed by an axe that goes through both of them AND the concrete slab they’re on. Physically impossible. Steve dies after wiping the BACK window of the car instead of the front windshield. He deserved it for that stupidity alone.
The Big Reveal Makes Even Less Sense Albert is the killer, possessed by evil. Except he’s also somehow the boy from the 1940s, which is mathematically impossible. Sarah gets possessed
by his mother’s spirit and wears terrible witch makeup that gets progressively worse.
Our theory: The evil possesses people every 15 years to reenact the original murders. It’s the only explanation that kind of works, and even that’s a stretch.
The Ending Is Baffling The sheriff tries burning down the house by standing directly next to it while throwing a Molotov cocktail. If it had lit, he’d be toast. The fire won’t stay lit because the evil won’t let it. Clear Springs shows up to say “told you so” before walking away. But the final shot shows Albert in a cop car with glowing eyes. So maybe the evil left with him? Then why can’t the house burn? Nothing makes sense.
The Verdict We’re giving Fever Lake 0.5 cents out of 10. The only reason it gets anything is because it made us laugh - not with it, but at it.
The editing is a disaster. The acting is wooden except when Corey Haim inappropriately touches everyone. The evil is a lazy prankster. The math doesn’t work. Plot points go nowhere. Clear Springs eye-fucks a fire. College kids act like high schoolers.
If you want to understand this movie in one scene, skip to 48 minutes 13 seconds where Lily gets “attacked” by nothing while a bored wolf occasionally glances at her before eating grocery store chicken. That’s Fever Lake in a nutshell.
Don’t watch this unless you enjoy mocking bad movies. Even then, reconsider. We spent four hours cataloging its failures across two episodes. The only curse here is that we actually watched it twice because our audio didn’t record the first time.