Rating: ***
Starring: Judd Nelson, Hedy Burress, Michael Weatherly
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Stanley Caldwell is our resident scriptwriter, working on a slasher flick alone in a cabin by the lake and taking his time to do proper research to make this movie as effectively grueling as possible, much to the annoyance of his agent. The truth, however, is that his so-called "research" is more of hands-on calculated murders wherein he enacts his story's killings on kidnapped girls and study their reactions, right before he tends their bodies underwater in his own personal "garden".
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Seeing Mallory as the only survivor of the crime, the local cops concocted a plan with the group that saved her to create a life-sized replica of her with a spy-cam hidden in one of the eyes, hoping to capture who the killer is. This sadly fails, and Mallory was soon captured again while cops and friends alike try their best to put the pieces together and find out who's behind the drownings.
Not the most gruesome the sub-genre has to offer, the film still is an entertaining watch for a TV flick since it did provide a lot of interesting elements to keep the story far from being a dragging wreck.

It has its slow parts, purposely to focus on Caldwell and those who he interacts with, along to those who survived their encounters with him; thankfully this is well-written despite suffering from cheap clichés on amateur snooping and the still-popular-then self-satire started by the outbreak of 90s teen slashers. A worthwhile watch if you're up to something different for your dead teenager films apart from a higher bodycount and more misogynic messes.
Bodycount:
1 female weighed down a lake, drowned
4 females found weighed in a lake and drowned
1 male found hacked on the chest with a cleaver
1 female weighed down a lake, drowned
Total: 7
Return to Cabin By The Lake (2001)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Judd Nelson, Brian Krause, Dahlia Salem
A surprising follow-up, Return to Cabin by The Lake continues the story of one Stanley Caldwell, a screenwriter-slash-serial killer who faked his own death the last time around he got too close on being captured.
Now learning to disguise himself with cheap wigs and glue-on facial hair, Caldwell had now set his eyes on directing his own films after a few "pep talk" with one of his agents. (and soon, victim) Invading the set of a movie based on his own story, he murders his way to a directorial debut, but also finds himself in a predicament where his true identity is in risk of being exposed by relatives of past victims and even some of his own casts. In typical Caldwell fashion, he nonchalantly fixes these problems one by one, may it be through simple manipulation, or simply murder.


Almost a drag, but thankfully had Nelson showcase an interesting serial killer with a now more personal mission to keep it from sinking any lower. Not for everybody's taste, but I find it a worthwhile TV time-waster.
Bodycount:
1 female tied to a potted rose vine and weighed down into a lake, drowned
1 male shredded through boat propeller
1 male buried alive in a coffin
Total: 3