THE LAKE ON CLINTON ROAD (2015)

Studio:       Osiris Entertainment
Director:    Deshon Hardy
Writer:       Deshon Hardy
Producer:  Aram Spike Bauman
Stars:     Leah Jones, Richard Ryker, Ant Grant, India Autry, Matty Poslusny, Stephanie Marrone, Collin Jamison

Review Score:

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Summary:

A ghost terrorizes six friends partying at a remote cabin near a lake on the reportedly haunted Clinton Road.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Alex and his girlfriend Jillian watch interrogation footage of Detective Stevens and Officer Miller interviewing hysterical mother Diana White after she drowned her young son Jackson in the lake on Clinton Road. To celebrate Alex’s birthday, Alex and Jillian drive from Massachusetts to a remote house on the lake at the end of Clinton Road in New Jersey with Jillian’s best friend Amber, Amber’s boyfriend Jaime, their friend Mark, and Mark’s girlfriend Stacy.

While everyone parties around a campfire at night, Jillian swims in the lake and feels something grabbing at her beneath the surface. Jillian realizes that her necklace is missing when she gets out of the water.

By morning, Jillian begins feeling increasingly stranger. Following the sounds of children, Jillian explores the house and finds a hidden box of old family photos that includes a picture of her as a child. Jillian shows the photo to Alex, who agrees it is a strange discovery.

Paranormal activity begins plaguing the houseguests as the ghosts of Jackson White and a little girl appear intermittently around the property. Alex, Jaime, Mark, and Amber hear Stacy screaming when she is attacked by an unseen presence. The foursome returns to the house to discover Stacy and Jillian missing. Jillian is soon found wandering the lake in a trance while wearing the ghost girl’s dress. Mark presumes that Stacy simply left without telling anyone.

Later that night, Jaime is attacked by Amber while she is in a state of possession. The following day, Alex sees Jaime wandering the lake while naked and in a trance, although Amber has returned to normal. Alex, Mark, and Amber watch in shock as Jaime disappears into the water. Alex angers Mark when he admits he brought everyone to a supposedly haunted location.

Alex finds a voicemail on his phone from Jillian asking for help. Alex is then chased through the trees by shapes in bloody sheets.

The ghost boy assaults Amber in the house’s basement. In a state of possession, Jillian attacks Mark before inexplicably vanishing. Mark flees from the house and is chased by a ghost car before Alex finds him.

Alex and Mark return to the house to find their truck keys. The ghost boy attacks Mark. Alex finds Jillian sitting in a trance before the room becomes consumed by paranormal activity. Alex is attacked.

Jillian sees the ghost boy wearing her necklace. She then has a flashback that insinuates she was Jackson White’s sister and she witnessed their mother drowning him. Jillian removes the necklace from the boy and he collapses into a heap of lake muck.

Alex and Jillian make it back to Clinton Road where they are picked up by a passing motorist. The ghost boy appears in the backseat with them.

In a post-credits scene, four teenagers drive on Clinton Road to scare each other and end up pursued by a mysterious vehicle.

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Review:

It’s Alex’s birthday!  So after watching a somehow readily-available online video of police interrogating a hysterical mother about drowning her son in a haunted lake, Alex and his girlfriend Jillian gather four college friends who look suspiciously older than 21 and head off for fun at a remote cabin on that same lake.  Cue the cookie-cut montage of fist pumping, ass slapping, Solo cup swigging, and selfie video-taking set to music thumping the lyrics, “it’s time to party!”

Said party turns out to be a pretty lame celebration, which is apropos since the movie using it as a prelude is pretty lame, too.  The simple sixsome merely chugs booze and listens to crappy tunes via more montages while carousing around a campfire, cavorting in the kitchen, and otherwise engaging in a birthday fete so uneventful, one wonders why they bothered driving from Massachusetts to New Jersey to holiday at what basically amounts to a scum-covered pond in the woods.

It’s not all yawn-worthy fun and zero games, though.  Clinton Road is supposedly cursed.  And the ghost boy who died in its shallow waters has a paranormal bone to pick with the houseguests, one of whom has a convenient connection to the tragedy, of course.  Following still more montage moments of football tossing dudes and slow-motion sequences of wet workout girls, a supernatural specter pops up to possess, murder, and torment the sextet one at a time.

“The Lake on Clinton Road” tries squeezing additional mileage out of its “based on true events” tagline.  The “truth” is that there actually is a Clinton Road in New Jersey.  The “events” are supposed sightings of ghost children and ghost vehicles proffered by paranormal enthusiasts with suspect explanations for shapes in the shadows encountered at night on a dark road.  Urban folklore doesn’t even offer a worthwhile origin story behind either the phantom boy or the phantom truck at the heart of the haunting.  Neither does “The Lake on Clinton Road.”

Limping through the motions of patching up a plotline, some loose points are dotted involving apparitions, trances, inexplicable vanishings, and secret family histories.  Yet any line connecting those dots is just as much of an intangible entity as the pint-sized poltergeist barking “boo!” at Alex and his boring buds.

One of the bland characters likens himself to Turtle from “Entourage,” if that offers any indication as to the level of hipness in their personalities.  Another presumes his girlfriend left on foot without saying goodbye after hearing her scream and finding her missing, if that says anything about the depth of intelligence motivating everyone’s actions.

“The Lake on Clinton Road” doesn’t have a gaffer or an electric department listed in its credits.  In fact, excluding the actors and actresses, less than 10 people in total are credited as having participated in the film’s production.  That explains why every scene is seemingly lit by whatever household bulbs and ambient light happened to be bouncing around at the time, resulting in a visual look nearly as flat as the script.

Astonishingly, two people are listed as being responsible for the sound.  Considering that constitutes about 25% of the film’s staff, you would think the audio end of things might be manned well enough to avoid simple technical gaffes like dialogue spiking into ear-piercing garbles whenever someone screams a party-hearty “whoo!”  Apparently not.

The credits also identify the existence of a screenplay, although if the cast read it, they do an excellent job of hiding that fact through rhythmless line delivery that sounds more like uninspired improvisation than anything resembling rehearsed theatrics or off-book abilities.  Take a rodeo lasso and rope in a camera that cannot keep off lead actress Leah Jones’ ass, a bloated seven-minute post-credits scene pointlessly padding the runtime, and an assembly line attitude towards crafting a low-level motion picture, and the result is a movie so flavorless, it cannot even be described as vanilla.

NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.

Review Score:  15

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