One is an over-the-top, almost punch-drunk nod to old school gore-and-nudity combo meals, and the other is one of the finest indie horror releases I've had the pleasure to see all year.  Read on to find out which one is which.

Lake Dead

This one is a real step back in time.If you've ever wanted to experience, or re-experience, grindhouse horror from, say, the 1973-1987 era, here's your chance.  At times feeling neither like a B-movie or even a C-Movie, but more like an outright exploitation flick, Lake Dead has a directness and lack of pretension that can be quite refreshing.  There's brutal, barely realistic violence throughout and a softcore sensibility that's always lurking around in the background.  If you recall fondly the tone and subject matter of the sleazy horror comics of yesteryear—think Creepy and Eerie and titles that were even more downmarket—you'll be in heaven with Lake Dead.  I didn’t know people made movies like this anymore, which perhaps shows how sheltered I am.

The acting, as one might expect, is uneven at best.  There are hilarious turns by Pat McNeely and James C. Burns, whose timing and line-readings are dead-on.  And then there's the rest of the cast, which often looks (and, more distressingly, acts) as if they've escaped from the pages of a JC Penney catalog.

The nasty and simplistic story is not really worth touching upon.  If you're familiar with the twisted family of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre cycle or, basically, if you've seen any horror movie, ever, that involves urban/suburban folks camping/vacationing/"checking out"-a-run-down motel/hotel, then trust me—you already know Lake Dead's plot.  Be warned, though:  there are repeated instances of rape, both implied and explicit, in Lake Dead.  To be fair about this caveat, though, these scenes do kind of make sense in terms of the script's overall themes, the key phrase being "kind of."

So, hey, if questionable taste is not a big issue for you, but you do appreciate fast-paced, high-spirited, and often campy horror fare, then Lake Dead is for you.  And you should definitely not wait for the DVD, but rather catch it at Horrorfest, preferably in an urban setting late at night.In a nice touch of serendipity, I actually saw Lake Dead on New York's 42nd Street, arguably once the world's grindhouse capital.  Let me tell you, the audience hasn’t changed much in 25 years, and Lake Dead is a talk-back-to-the-screen movie par excellence (which I think it's intended to be).  It's the kind of movie where you can expect many of the best one-liners to be delivered by audience members.

Mulberry Street

Easily my favorite film at Horrorfest so far.  With a tone as thoughtful and serious-minded as Lake Dead's isn’t, Mulberry Street clearly shares a lot in terms of its premise and its occasionally hyper-kinetic style with 28 Days Later (2003).  That said, Mulberry Street deserves to be hailed as an object lesson in smart and effective low-budget filmmaking that more than delivers on its genre promises.

During a leisurely-paced opening act that belies the ferocity to come, director Jim Mickle lays the groundwork for his story with disarming sensitivity.  And he backs up a good heart with a strong eye.  When there's a choice between using the obvious or standard angle for a given shot and using an evocative or interesting one, he opts for creativity every time.  In fact, I'm sure that a re-viewing of the film would yield still more instances of his talent.  For example, it's only now that I realize that one of the final images in the movie, a sheet of fabric falling from a great height, echoes an important early shot in which an errant laundry item floats onto a tree branch.  The movie has that kind of subtlety.  You might have to squint a little in the gloom to catch all of it, but it's there.

The list of details that Mulberry Street gets right is pretty staggering.  Let's start with how TV spots and stock footage deliver exposition in a way that's more believable than 90% of the features out there in any genre or budget-range.  In addition, the eclectic soundtrack is consistently surprising and the sound editing in general is remarkable by any standard.  Indeed, at times the movie achieves an Altmanesque collage of sound, combining ambient noise, off- and on-screen sources of dialogue, and musical accents to establish mood and setting in ways that are beyond effective.  This approach is augmented by the wonderful work of D.P. Ryan Samul, who lights every scene as if he knows the location intimately.  Thanks to him, and to production designer Beth Mickle, you can practically smell the beer-soaked wood in the bar scenes.

What's most impressive, though, about Mulberry Street is how all the different elements work together. Of course this can partly be explained by the fact that the multi-talented Mr. Mickle, who edited the film, was also its sound editor and visual effects coordinator.  As a result, the movie feels all-of-a-piece artistically.  For example, the revulsion that the monsters trigger in the audience is due only partly to the makeup effects.  It's also a product of the direction given to the actors portraying them, whose gestures and animal-like sounds are super-creepy, as well as the cinematography, which blankets them in just enough to shadow to leave things a bit suggestive.

The script, by Mickle and lead actor Nick Damici, is surprisingly meditative.  Its latent subject matter is not only New York City (whose sensibility it captures perfectly), but also contemporary urban life in general, including its paranoia.  Without hitting the audience over the head with allusions or messages, the script manages to tie the action into this decade's signature fears and real-world disasters—9/11 obviously, given the setting and circumstances, but also Hurricane Katrina and the specter of animal-to-human virus vectors.

Kim Blair is billed as the female lead, and she does a nice job, especially considering that most of her performance is wordless and done in isolation from the rest of the ensemble.  For me, however, the female star is Bo Corre, who plays opposite Damici.  It's a testament to their fine, understated work that, before the carnage starts, you could watch this movie and imagine it being a slice-of-life drama, a romantic comedy, or perhaps even a film noir.  They fully inhabit the characters and make them just heroic enough, just real enough, to work.  This is also a tribute to the script, which fleshes out each character with idiosyncratic dialogue in a way that shows that they are not mere monster-fodder.  Perhaps that's why the violent ends that many of them meet strike one as tragic or heroic or, in many cases, both—but not as idle tally marks in a formulaic body count.

By the way, in case you were wondering if I'm alone in such a positive response to Mulberry Street, you should know that the Horrorfest crowd erupted into applause and cheers many, many times during the screening I attended.  And to those whom the downbeat ending may leave feeling miffed, I'd like to draw attention to the unexpected moments of redemption that immediately precede it.  The movie wants you to take away both, sadness and possibility.