Nobody puts baillee in the corner

I’m not sure if it’s because I watched both Cabin by the Lakes as part of my mom and I’s Syfy Sunday movie marathon tradition multiple times growing up or what, but both of them hold a soft spot in my heart. It’s almost Pavlovian, but whenever I start this movie, I immediately start drooling for pizza because that’s what we always paired with it. I can picture my mother and I curled up on the couch with blankets and a bottle of Ranch between us just watching movie after movie. 

It was a tradition that lasted all throughout high school. If SyFy (or, like it was back in my day, SciFi) wasn’t showing what we wanted, we’d go to BlockBuster where Sally, one of our favorite people on this planet, would always give us discounts, even when it was a day without promotions. My senior year of high school when I caught Swine Flu (yes, I actually had Swine Flu), Sally let my mother rent stacks upon stacks of horror movies for us to absorb, as I couldn’t return to school until my fever broke. 

If memory serves, Cabin by the Lake and its sequel came into my life by the way of SyFy. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this little gem, it’s a made-for-TV movie (thank God) from 2000 where Judd Nelson plays a screenwriting serial killer who sinks his women to the bottom of a lake to create a “garden” that looks like an ode to Barbie through the decades. Did I also mention Judd is not only best friends with the sheriff, but their entire friend group consists of horror movie prop makers who have bomb ass movie nights where they apparently watch all of the B movies Judd writes screenplays for? They sincerely don’t make them like this anymore. 

This movie is low on the gore but high on the cheese, in the best possible way. It tries to be meta, I think, but it’s more so just a parallel of life imitating art. It’s definitely a great choice for those movie nights where you have a mixed bag of horror fans, and I would absolutely recommend watching both back-to-back.

Cabin by the Lake isn’t, by any means, a cinematic masterpiece. It has a soundtrack consisting of generic Nine Inch Nails ripoffs, the screenwriting is nowhere near Oscar-worthy, and if you think about any of the logistics too deeply, your head will explode. However, imagining the call between Judd Nelson and his agent for this role is worth it alone. 

Cabin by the Lake and Return to Cabin by the Lake are both available for free on YouTube.