Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake
Something's wrong beneath shadow lake... dead wrong!
Year of Release: 1981
Also Known As: Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell
Genre: Horror/Adventure
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 89 minutes (1:29)
Director: Bill Rebane
Cast:
Glenn Scherer ... Kelly Sr.
Brad Ellingson ... Kelly Jr.
Karen McDiarmid ... Elli
Alan Ross ... John
Julie Wheaton ... Susan
Jerry Gregoris ... Charlie
Doreen Moze ... Chris
Paul Callaway ... Rana
Richard Lange ... Rana
Summary:
Beneath the murky depths of Shadow Lake lies an ancient and priceless treasure of gold.
Legend has it that the lake is inhabited by Rana, an evil, frog-like creature, a fierce and furious protector of the gold.
Since childhood, Kelly Morgan has been haunted by terrifying memories of his gruesome encounter with this underwater beast.
Now as a man, Kelly returns to Shadow Lake, determined to retrieve the treasure any way he can. His perilous quest is filled with gripping suspense and terror. He has no idea of the horror that awaits him at Shadow Lake...
Review:
Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake, remindin' us that when the money runs low your monster can quickly become more bull than frog.
I don't wanna go gettin' too heavy on anybody, but every now and again a movie comes along that makes ya stop and examine your place in the universe.
Sometimes the viewing experience is so profound that it makes you question beliefs that you've held your entire life. Other times it's not a message so much as sheer beauty that takes you back to a simpler time and helps you recapture that sense of child-like wonder you hadn't felt since the night before your first shift runnin' the planer at Stumpy's Lumber Mill and Renderin' Plant when your future seemed bright and your potential limitless. Then there're flicks like Rana that cause your mind to drift, your body to wander toward the cooler, and your mouth to run as a defense mechanism to prevent permanent brain damage by blocking absorption of the film's actual content.
I dunno why I'm tellin' you all this, but ever since I had the guys over to barbecue and hit the flicks last week I've achieved a level of serenity that I haven't experienced since 1986 when I took Donna "the Sauna" Driscoll to see Critters at the Grime Time and we lost track of the plot and our shoes.
The guys and I'd just finished Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep and I guess it was probably Roger's recent passing (and a few dozen Pole Cats) that set the stage, and right around the time Billy Hilliard finished reassurin' the fire department that the smoke blanketing the neighborhood was an integral part of the grilling process the evenin' took a turn for the philosophical.
"Man alive, that Corman sure made a legacy for 'imself, didn't he?" Duke Tankersley mused, his mind still plainly fixed on the talents of Linda Shayne.
"'Vuh biggef," Billy agreed, his expression somber and overflowing with reverence.
"Well, there'll never be another Corman, but Bill Rebane's no slouch either," Cleave Furguson observed as Rebane's name flashed across the bed sheet we were projectin' onto.
"Who's he?" Mrs. Sadie asked cautiously.
"You never heard of Bill Rebane?" Cleave demanded after chokin' on a swig of his Pole Cat.
Mrs. Sadie just shook her head and looked at the area where her feet woulda been if not for the bra busters blockin' the view.
"The Giant Spider Invasion? Blood Harvest? Custer's Revenge?" Cleave suggested incredulously.
"That's Twister's Revenge, numb nuts," Sadie corrected.
"Right, yeah. Twister's Revenge. What was Custer's Revenge again?" Cleave puzzled.
"Never mind, just watch the flick," I instructed, tryna spare Mrs. Sadie from the details of that particular topic.
"Still, I'd like to be remembered like Roger or Bill someday," Cleave remarked, his attention wandering from the impalement of an unfortunate bass fisherman.
"Want me to sing 'I Will Remember You?'" Roxanne teased.
I hadda stop the movie for a few minutes while everyone pelted Roxanne with beer cans until she promised to stop and it seemed like maybe we were gonna get back to the business of mutant frogmen but Cleave refused to drop the subject.
"Seriously. You've got Jeannie... what the hell've I got?" Cleave grumbled.
"A terminal case of butthurt from the sounda things," Duke replied.
"'Course you'd say that. You slew Crudfin AND Searano de Beargerac! You'll probably go down as the toughest woodsman in Chickawalka history!" Cleave asserted.
Duke just grinned real smug like and tossed the baseball Apollo'd deposited in his lap.
By this point Cleave had reached full-blown pity party status, and so obviously that hadda be the moment when Mrs. Sadie chimed in to make the situation ten times worse.
"I still think it's mean to kill all those animals, but the work you do memorializes them forever," Mrs. Sadie insisted, tryna raise Cleave's spirits.
"I cram styrofoam into trophy game the likes of which I've never even seen, let alone shot. And I do it for rich, arrogant ballbags who throw a fit if a single eyelash is outta place!" Cleave growled, seemingly becoming aware of the nature of his job for the first time.
"AND I make less at it than YOU make unboxing sex toys on Youtube!" he added, leanin' back in his lawn chair and scowling more at 'imself than at her.
"On the plus side, at the rate you're goin' you might get into Guinness for the number of consecutive nights spent on the couch," Sadie snapped as she consoled her missus.
Fortunately for Cleave, the worst he got outta that exchange was the beer volcano that erupted outta Roxanne's nose followin' Sadie's rebuttal, and after that he seemed to make an effort to cool down.
"Sorry, Sadie. Guess I'm bringin' the party down. I know nobody wants to listen to me bitch about my mediocrity. 'Least of all you beins we're in the same boat," he explained, whiffing his intended apology.
"Hey, Billy, know how I know Cleave forgot about Sadie's time on the javelin team?" I chuckled.
"Uh huh. Ah wheh fee remin'v 'im I ain' geh'n 'im down off 'uh woof," Billy vowed.
"You would take her side. Besides Duke, you're prolly the most memorable guy in town," Cleave sniped, coming dangerously close to derptitude.
"Pway fell, why 'iv 'ah?" Billy leaned in to see just how much of Cleave's survival instinct had been supplanted by alcohol.
"Gee, I dunno, maybe your..." Cleave paused, recovering his head the instant before it came to resemble a stewed prune.
"Your high score on the Centipede machine at the Gutter Bowl, of course. I mean, that's the kinda achievement that lives forever," he clarified.
"I *am* pwoud of 'at," Billy smiled, pleased to return to his burger without the need to mash Cleave's nose in.
"Well, go on. Let's have it - might as well make it a clean sweep!" Cleave pouted, throwin' his hands up and offering me the patio floor.
"Nothin' incredible here," I shrugged.
"Don't gimmie that. You've been at the center of every ruckus this town's experienced since 1985," he asserted.
"And not a damn bit of it mattered. Once the statute of limitations expires no one cares, and I see no point in strivin' for accomplishments to be remembered by people I'll never know years after I've been interred at the landfill," I replied.
"I have no reputation to uphold, no legacy to sully, and I live every day the way it suits me with the company I prefer to keep. I wake up every mornin' with a level of freedom most people can only dream of because poppin' a half-dozen cold ones with you chunkheads means more to me than a movie review column in the New York Times," I declared.
I hadda lock myself in the bathroom after that 'cause the next thing I knew all six of 'em were blubberin' like babies and tryna hug me, so let that be a lesson to ya - never pour your heart out to anyone who's had more than six beers in a single sitting.
As you can imagine, once everyone'd gotten 'hold of themselves I hadda restart the movie on account of how many critical plot points and frog attacks we'd missed even though when you get right down to it Bill was basically just rehashin' the old Creature from the Black Lagoon schtick. Still, I can't help but get emotionally invested anytime these guys with $12 and a vision hauled their campers out into the boonies on a quest to produce art, and even though Rana was purposely chosen as the B feature of our double feature for a reason, its place in regional lake monster history is ironclad.
Words really can't do it justice, but if you'll allow me a moment to prepare you for the wealth of Wisconsonian wisdom Bill's about to bestow, I'd like to share a few insights that I've deposited into my own memory bank for safe keepin' and smarter livin'.
First, warning shots are rarely reciprocated. Second, passin' out kisses to amphibians while in search of a prince sometimes ends with a honeymoon in Innsmouth. And third, you're gonna have a hard time convincin' people that no animals were harmed when someone has a goat tied up in their bedroom.
The movie begins in the land of sky blue livers where a couple (Kelly and Chris) have rented a cabin to establish the mood necessary for our guy to open up about the details surrounding his father's untimely demise at the hands of a cryptozoological curiosity that's remained unchanged for millions of years like the old farts who hang around bait shops playin' dominoes all day. Kelly was just a kid at the time, but his discovery of a fossil thought to belong to the missing skink piqued the interest of a paleontologist (Elli) and her niece (Susan), who came to investigate the evidence of a previously unknown creature and hang around Robin Yount's hotel room. Unfortunately, they got more than they bargained for when the Creature from the Brack Lagoon started rammin' spears through the flannel vests of vacationing crappie fishermen while some old coot Indian who looked like Royal Dano in a Benny Hill sketch (Charlie) went runnin' around the woods shootin' at a group of loggers (Burley, Cal, and Mike) that were tryna locate a golden hoard of sunken cheese curds so they could afford to buy season tickets to Lambeau Field. This Charlie dude'd become pretty durn agitated ever since the loggers showed up and started treatin' his sacred lake like Amber Heard treats a bedspread, but his primary concern was gettin' 'em the heck outta there before they ran afoul of the guardian monster Rana, the Meth Lab Iguana, and got their timbers shivered. It was too late though, 'cause despite the Last of the Fauxhicans' bid to placate Rana with a coupla sacrificial fryers, it ended up runnin' into Mike while he was surveyin' the Milwaukee's Best cans on the lakebed and hadda teach 'im that there's only room enough for one frogman in these parts.
Then Kermit's Hermit went to spray some more wadcutters at the woodcutters until he took a round in the fuel pump, and when Kelly's pop (John) went to confront the lumberjerks about it they gave 'im the Spotted Owl treatment. Next thing, the logger dressed like the Brawny Paper Towel guy ordered his flunkie to keep an eye on John while he rode off to destroy John's CB radio, only the subordinate decided things're were gettin' a little too felonious for his liking and yarded 'imself outta there only to find Mike's body washed up on the shore lookin' like a truck stop meatloaf, 'cept before he could find his way back to the sweet smell of Sheboygan, hell came from Frogtown and mashed the guy's face into a birch tree till he looked like a Persian cat with a sinus infection. Then while Charlie was on his deathcot Elli went riflin' through his personal belongins and found a tiny amphibious skeleton and a gold nugget while John was out spikin' Brawny's trunk for breakin' into his house and doin' the Mexican Hat Dance on his radio. Ordinarily the skeleton in the safe deposit box wouldna made a lick of sense, but thankfully, just before he went to the happy huntin' ground, Charlie explained that in the days before the Indians discovered nickel slots, they used to pitch gold nuggets into the lake so Rana'd give 'em a +5 weapon enchantment on their bows and fishin' spears and then use the money to build his undersea Sleestack shack.
So basically, then as now, the Indians were in an abusive relationship with the ruling power on account of Rana runnin' some kinda Paleozoic protection racket, and because Charlie was behind on his payments, the Iguana-Don headed over to John's cabin to make 'im an offer he couldn't refuse and found 'imself on the wrong end of the hatchet. 'Course John knew that Rana the Benihanaed would be back for revenge, so the next mornin' he positioned a raft at the mouth of the reservoir's spillway and prepared to split, only while he was doin' that Elli snuck off and went all British Museum on Charlie's artifacts and earned 'erself a tour of Lizard Suit Larry's grotto. After that John tried to row Kelly and Susan to safety but their pursuer knew that river like the back of his fin and flipped their raft like a starter home in San Francisco and drowned John like a sack fulla ugly kittens. Kelly and Susan managed to find their way home in the dark, but Bogzilla tracked 'em down and kicked over a kerosene lantern to cover his tracks while carryin' Susan home to meet his merfolks, only he ended up leavin' his six exposed and allowed Kelly to sneak up on 'im with a cyanide-tipped Bayou Blaster shotgun slug that sent 'im rollin' in the deep with Adele. I know it sounds like I just spoiled the ending but that was only the *flashback* ending, so don't go firin' off angry emails or anything 'cause the real one happens in the present. Admittedly, when you do see it you might wish I had spoiled the ending considering what you hadda go through to get there, but I didn't force ya to stick around till the end so that's on you.
Alrighty, well, kind of a missed opportunity there leavin' the door open for a sequel like that and then not comin' back with Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell Comes to Frogtown II starring Rowdy Roddy Piper, and introducing Bill Barr as Rana. Wouldn't even need a costume - the man's a bullfrog in a business suit. Anyway, this is essentially Bill Rebane's tribute to Creature from the Black Lagoon shot in the style of The Legend of Boggy Creek, and we owe this one-of-a-kind viewing experience to Lloyd Kaufman who scooped up the rights and released it under the Troma banner despite believing it to be one of the five worst flicks in the Troma library, along with another Rebane classic - The Capture of Bigfoot.
Nobody seems to have any information on the production and that's not surprising given the final result, but it looks like Bill finished shootin' and realized he'd come in a little short on running time and decided to film a framing device to pad it out after the fact, or, was subsequently given permission to shoot inside the Crystal Cave tourist attraction in Spring Valley and decided to write the additional scenes in order to take advantage of the stunning location. It's impossible to say because anybody who makes a low-budget movie and tells you that the shooting process went according to plan (or that they had one) is full of it, but it wouldn't be unusual for a filmmaker to jump at an opportunity to include something guaranteed to boost their production values. Rebane actually used the same present-day bookend device that James Wasson used in Night of the Demon, wherein 90% of the film is a flashback with only the opening and closing sequences taking place in the present; though neither man drew inspiration from the other as both movies were shot concurrently and even released within three weeks of one another. That's not to imply that this was some revolution in cinematic presentation and, in fact, you can see the same device used in the "To Serve Man" Twilight Zone episode and many other classic films, but I mention it to illustrate some of the dated practices used to get the film in the can, as its audio/visuals sometimes inadvertently combine to create the look of a much older film.
Regardless, I'm a sucker for aquatic, rubber-suit monster movies on the basis that most filmmakers have more sense than to try something so difficult with so much working against them. Since Creature from the Black Lagoon came out in 1954, Barbara Peters (despite her misgivings about the finished product) was the only one to pull it off when she directed Humanoids from the Deep, while Dan Milner (The Phantom from 20,000 Leagues), Don Keeslar (Bog), Don Barton (Zaat), Stephen Traxler (Spawn of the Slithis), Edward Cahn (The She-Creature), Harry Essex (Octaman), William Grefe (Sting of Death), and Bernard Kowalski (Attack of the Giant Leeches) all wiped out. Nonetheless, it's still fun to keep searching, because no matter how far short of Barb's benchmark these flicks fall they seldom fail to deliver an entertaining experience and Rana is no exception.
In any event, it's about time to see if this frog has what it takes to clean up the swarm of flies gathered around the stench of his pad, so let's get to it.
The plot consists of three equally insipid subsections that come together as needed to provide action as the story stumbles from scene to scene with no real transitioning or build-up. Naturally, determining which specific thread is most preposterous is a matter of personal preference, but I think I've gotta go with the backstory about the Indians offering tribute to the lake god in exchange for its amphibious voodoo powers keepin' the stock of wild game both abundant and stupid in order to keep everybody stocked up on venison jerky; though I completely understand if you're of a mind that the rogue lumberjacks searchin' for treasure on the bottom of a Wisconsin lake bed is the more vapid. They probably coulda gotten away with a ridiculous plot *or* a complete lack of story flow, but when you've gotta contend with both it becomes impossible for even the most elastic suspensions of disbelief to withstand, and within about fifteen minutes it becomes clear that the filmmakers are goin' all-in on entertainment value and casting aside any pretense of making a serious film. Which technically means that they're goin' in with a plan, for what it's worth.
The acting is uneven even when examining individual performances, with the best thespery coming from the two actors cast specifically for a framing device that amounts to roughly ten minutes of screen time. As for the core film, there're times when it looks as though Karen McDiarmid is reading lines off of cue cards and others where it's plain that her dialogue is being dubbed in due to challenges involved in recording dialogue in situations where you could never hide a boom mic, and while you cannot blame her for the latter issue, it should be pointed out just how unnatural that dialogue is and how stiffly it's being read in a sound booth. Glenn Scherer (Kelly Sr.) and Jim Iaquinta (Burley) probably give the best performances although that's kinda like choosin' the cleanest porta-john at a Sex Pistols concert, while Michael Skewes (likely selected for his willingness to don a wetsuit) and Julie Wheaton (likely selected for her willingness to don a bathing suit) are among the weakest. Jerry Gregoris is the only one worth payin' any attention to in his over-the-top portrayal of Charlie the alleged half-Indian who runs around the forest firin' warning shots at loggers and pitchin' chickens into the lake to buy 'imself a little time to come up with the money owed to his briny benefactor. Pretty weak stuff, but if you're readin' this you've probably seen worse.
Here's who matters and why: Richard Lange (The Demons of Ludlow), Glenn Scherer (Cocoon: The Return), Alan Ross (The Demons of Ludlow, The Demonsville Terror), Jim Iaquinta (The Game), Bruno Alexander (Hangman), Angailica Rebane (The Demonsville Terror, The Demons of Ludlow).
The special effects are budgetarily limited both in terms of quality and quantity and consist of woefully bad construction and costuming. What little bit is shown comes across as passble due to the poor quality of the film print and the two blood squibs are fine, but the severed torso bears a strong resemblance to the trunk of a deer decoy wearin' a jacket that's been slathered in strawberry preserves. Furthermore, the plastic skull with intact eyeballs is as pitiful as it is confusing, and the monster suit appears to be constructed of the highest quality cheese that Wisconsin had to offer. Credit where it's due though - the senseless house explosion is phenomenal.
The shooting locations are the high point and include a few decent shots of Allen Lake despite the questionable approach to cinematography taken by Rebane and his co-DP; though the location scouting is solid, with most of the lake and river sequences filmed from land painting a lovely portrait of a pristine environment even if some of the campsites and wooded areas are a bit thick. Admittedly, these thicker areas are authentic in appearance and not atypical of certain parts of the country - they're just not especially photogenic. The cabin interiors, however, are superb, and do a nice job of setting up the premise of the film until it becomes apparent what that premise actually entails. As expected, the most memorable location is the Crystal Cave in Spring Valley which became a tourist attraction in 1942 and is large enough on the interior (one mile long) to do it justice while taking certain liberties with lighting to make it appear even more colorful and impressive than it would appear under normal conditions. One thing I'll give Rebane is that his locations are always well chosen even if his cinematography sometimes fails to fully take advantage of them.
The soundtrack is all over the place and includes its share of '70s Funk, dated brass/woodwind compositions that sound as though they were pulled from a 1960s nature adventure film, sappy acoustic guitar/piano contributions akin to something out of a Wonderful World of Disney movie of the week, and some of that "mischief is afoot" stuff that'd be perfectly at home in a cartoon. In other words - the bulk of the score is much too light in tone for the content (at least in the context of how it was *intended* to be taken) and feels completely at odds with the "monster on a rampage" theme against which it is set. That's before the ranger kills a guy on the shores of Lake Allen to a modified version of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and you begin to wonder if the whole flick is one giant troll by Rebane, or whether it was done for purely comedic reasons to cover his butt in the event the movie couldn't be taken seriously in its finished form. Either way, by that point there's nothin' to ruin, so I salute the music editor and their decision to go full-throttle silly.
Overall, Rana doesn't measure up to your upper-middle tier rubber suit monster flicks like Slithis or Octaman, but is mildly more entertaining than the likes of Bog and Sting of Death. Ranking these movies is really an exercise in splitting hairs anyway, as there's very little that stands out among most of them, and for that reason, if you enjoy one it's almost a certainty that you'll enjoy all of them. The thing to do would be to rack 'em up and shotgun 'em marathon style, as you'll be given an opportunity to compare and contrast each one while simultaneously discovering whether your relationship is equipped for the long haul.
Rating: 35%