The meticulous reviewer of this film threw a mystery - is it Ken Meyer, who is now producer Steven Soderbergh. The KP sees no difference between them, the IMDB, on the contrary, shares. And that and that version of the truth may well be, since many well-known directors began with low-budget horror in the 1980s. And slasher was also one of the most popular subgenres of scary cinema at the time.
Who cares? In those early years, slashers shot as often as comic books or zombie movies do now. Many directors, having made one or two films, then disappeared from the cinema, and someone left for other genres, like Andrew Davis. Even Sean C. Cunningham, the author of Friday the 13th, did not shoot the slashers anymore. Therefore, Ken Meyer could later become a producer of a class A movie, or he could finish with a movie and get a job selling bananas or frying a barbecue on the beach, simultaneously looking at the tanned bodies of local beauties. Moreover, his film is not a hoax, as you might think, looking at the poster. It may creep in the thought that it was specially filmed for screening in grindhouse cinemas, where there were double sessions - at one price were two similar films.
Perhaps “Terror on Lake Tinkiller” will disappoint many slasheromans. It is not similar to the already established at that time genre of youth horror stories and more like a thriller about the vicious attraction of the maniac to the main character. Murders occur quite routinely, as if in a crime film about a criminal from noir, and the identity of the villain is absolutely not hidden. According to the title, you could wait for a version a la “Friday 13”, but the director deceives the expectations of the audience, offering him, perhaps, a less scary, but more original spectacle.
Bloody effects are quite a few, as well as erotics, but well written characters. They are perceived by adults who have a worldview, life experience, desires and goals. The maniac is devoid of infernal qualities and appears before the viewer a man with an inferiority complex who kills those women who reject him as a man. Thus, Meyer’s film has much more in common with erotic thrillers about criminal passion, such as Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct.
In turn, the audience of the film should be completely different - not fans of the massacre on Crystal Lake, but rather connoisseurs of thrillers, that is, those works that keep in suspense, but do not seek to scare horror scenes. Meyer's budget was very low, which is clearly visible both in special effects and in the quality of the film. But it is impossible not to admit that he managed to shoot an interesting movie, with a good play of actors, colorful characters, sometimes walking along the very edge of the slasher, but avoiding many cliches. So it's not fair that this film is clearly lost in the slasher stream of those years. Hardly many Horrormans even suspect its existence. “Terror on Lake Tinkiller” is initially perceived without any enthusiasm, as another story about a forest maniac, but then it is not a pity that you were deceived, presenting a psychopathological thriller instead of a slasher. This is probably better than that.
6.5 out of 10