| Cabin by the Lake | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Po-Chih Leong |
| Produced by | Neal H. Moritz |
| Written by | David Stephens |
| Starring | Judd Nelson Hedy Burress |
| Distributed by | USA Network |
| Release date(s) | February 1, 2000 |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Cabin by the Lake is a black comedy/horror TV movie released in 2000. It tells the story of Stanley, played by Judd Nelson, a script writer who begins killing girls for research for a movie he is writing, where the villain does the same thing.
The movie takes place in Summit Lake, where Stanley (Judd Nelson) is renting a cabin to write a script for a new movie where a killer drowns young ladies and keeps them underwater as a macabre garden. Incidentally, that is exactly what Stanley is doing, which he calls "doing the research".
The film opens with Stanley on his boat in the middle of Summit Lake and making his way back to the dock. After speaking with his agent, Regan (Susan Gibney) over the phone, he accesses a hidden room in his house where a young lady is chained to the floor by her ankle. He brings her a change of clothes and instructs her to dress, before gagging the woman with an orange and binding her hands behind her back. He then forcibly escorts her onto his boat, which stops in the middle of Summit Lake. Stanley then ties a cement block around her ankles. Curious as to how his captive feels in her predicament, he asks, "Knowing that you're going to die, how do you feel?" Upon hearing this question, the woman becomes paralyzed with fear and says nothing. Stanley then pushes her off his boat, but promptly grabs her by the hair and pulls her back up to study her expression before letting her sink once and for all. Later, Stanley returns home to resume working on his script using the details he had gleaned from his victim, before diving to the bottom of Summit Lake to tend his "garden", which consists of several women kidnapped and drowned in a similar fashion.
Seeking yet another victim, Stanley discovers Mallory (Hedy Buress), a young woman working at a movie theater. Intrigued by her self-confessed fear of water, Stanley follows Mallory after she leaves work and abruptly swerves in front of her, slamming the brakes on his van and forcing their vehicles to collide. After checking on Mallory, Stanley turns his attention to his dogs, which are heard barking from the van. Mallory follows him to the back of the van, but before she can react, Stanley throws the doors wide and pushes her into the van, which is completely empty save for the recording of barking dogs, and an ominous message written in yellow tape that reads, "I'm the person your mother warned you about."
Stanley locks his new victim away in his secret room, but Mallory is defiant and shows him no fear. Eventually, he lies to Mallory and tells her that he'll let her go free, but that she would have to face her fear and go for a ride on his boat. He then blindfolds her and drives around for a while to disorient her before they board the boat. Eventually, Stanley attempts to drown her, but fortunately she is rescued shortly thereafter, by local police officer Boone and a couple who own a movie special-effects shop nearby. After taking time to recuperate, Mallory then gives the idea to make a plaster-mold of herself, with a camera as an eye, to catch the killer when he returns to his garden. When Stanley returns to the bodies, he discovers the ploy and quickly escapes, his identity hidden by his scuba mask.
Mallory, assuming herself safe, stays at a hotel room for the night, but is soon discovered and recaptured by Stanley who immediately prepares to drown her again. However, complications arise when Stanley's agent Regan and the director to the film he is writing arrive at the cabin unexpectedly. He kills the director with a cleaver, then imprisons Regan with Mallory. He then takes them both to the lake to drown them, but Boone and the other police dive in and quickly release Mallory. Although Regan's body is recovered, Stanley is presumed dead, having snagged his leg on a rope in his own garden. Mallory tries to recover from the experience, though she continues to be haunted by visions of her former captor.
The last scene has a person pitching a movie to a new agent, in which a killer buries his victims alive. The agent asks them how the person feels as they're buried alive. The camera reveals the person to be Stanley with a new look, as he says "I'm still doing the research."