User reviews

A decent sequel, but does not pack the punch of the original. A murderous screenwriter(Judd Nelson)assumes new identities in order to direct his own novel CABIN BY THE LAKE. Still ruthless killing, but movie seems very tongue-in-cheek. Any humor is not of the funny kind. Total project seems to have the quality of a quickie and at times Nelson is way over the top. This movie is about a script being rewritten before going to the screen...this should have happened to this script.

**SPOILERS** Sequel to the previous "Cabin by the Lake" the movie is about the making of a movie of the psychotic but gifted mystery writer Stanley Caldwell,Judd Nelson, last an incomplete work before he disappeared under the waves of Lake Summit. It's no surprise at all that the murderous Cardwell survived when we see him in a number of very unconvincing disguises.Cardwell is seen early in the film killing a number of people who have to do with the making of the movie based on his unfinished masterpiece.

Meeting the co-director of the project CJ Reddick,JR Bourne,at the airport Cardwell disguised as the chauffeur sent by the movie studio. On the way to the set he murders CJ and takes over his identity. On the set as director's Mike Hetton, Brian Krause, assistant JC Reddick Cardwell continues his rampage that he stopped in the previous film "Cabin by the Lake". Cardwellgoes on murdering everyone on the set who tries to distorts or rewrite the script that only Cardwell can understand and put on the screen.

There's also a sub-plot in the movie with the brother of one of Cardwell's earlier victims, Kimberly, Paul Parsons (Andrew Moxham) trying to prevent the movie from being made at all. Since it capitalizes on his sisters death as well as Cardwell's other six victims in making a bundle off his crimes: At the end of the movie we see that the film made an astounding 36 million dollars in just the first weekend after it's release.

I couldn't understand, not having seen the original "Cabin by the Lake", why no one in the movie was able to recognize the crazed Stanley Cardwell. Since he wasn't at all hiding his identity and even acting out his earlier crimes in the movie he was directing with knowledge of those crimes that only the killer himself, Cardwell, would know!

For all his cleverness Cardwell for some strange and unexplained reason allows the script writer Alison Gaddis, Dahila Salem, to not only live after she found out who he is but even after imprisoning Alison in his cabin letting her go to see the final scene of the movie that she wrote.This ridicules act on Cardwell's part results in Alison coming to the rescue of the actors in that final scene who Cardwell wanted to die by drowning to give it, in his sick mind, total realism!

On the run and being cornered, at his cabin, by Alison Cardwell accidentally slips into a water filled bathtub and is then electrocuted by Alison with a plugged-in hair-dryer. The ending shows that you just can't keep a good psycho down with Cardwell, looking like he needs a shave and shower, back again reading in the "Daily Variety" the headline story "Cabin Drowns all Competition". With a gleam in his eyes and smirk on his face a light-bulb lights up in his sick brain with plans for the next sequel with him of course being the one to direct and write it.

Not a bad effort for a TV production and better than some others (of the same ilk) that actually get a cinema release. A tongue in cheek look at the process, of low budget horror film making.

I watched Cabin By The Lake, and this sequel in a row. Whereas the first was fairly good, this was horrendously bad. Judd Nelson is an excellent actor. Unfortunately, the script, filming, other acting, etc. made this a bad follow up movie. Regardless of how long ago Stanley had killed those girls, someone in the town would remember what he looked like. Not to mention the fact that if they are making a movie ABOUT Stanley, someone doing the movie would know what he LOOKED like, as well. He too easily walked on the shoot and took over. Also, the storyline of the movie in the movie was not what actually happened in the first film. And, the filming, at times, looked like a video camera was used. All in all, the sequel was not a smidgeon close to as good as the first.

Ah, Channel 5 of local Mexican t.v. Everyday, at 2:00 a.m. they air Horror movies from the 70's to early 2000's. It was "Return To Cabin By The Lake" the movie that aired yesterday. I regret for watching it.

The original "Cabin By The Lake" was a regularly popular low budgeter and it was good accepted. The problem is that this sequel is horrible, not even unintentionally funny and tries to imitate the original. Ugh. The plot is really stupid in all the sense of the word.

The movie at some points looks like a soap-opera because of it's absurd dialogs, cinematography, and direction.

My advice is : avoid this one at all costs. It's a movie that it shouldn't be watched by anyone. Not even for lovers of mediocre film-making.

You have been warned.

Obsessive script writer Stanley Caldwell returns to finish what he started in this made-for-TV sequel to 'Cabin By The Lake'.

Two years after being presumed dead, Stanley (as Alan) is even more deranged than he was in the original. We see that he's feeling all sorts of anger over his original script for "Cabin By The Lake" being changed by a new writer named Alison. Alan decides to infiltrate the set of the movie, pretending to be a second unit director. At the same time, we meet the brother of one of the victims from the first film (Paul Parsons). Paul is determined to shut the film down.

Late one night while at the studio, Alison is attacked by an unseen assailant, leading everyone to believe it was Paul Parsons trying to stop the film production in the honour of his dead sister. With Paul out of the way, Alan begins his devious plan to bring the film to life. He murders the director, taking over production himself with a sick scheme to actually murder the cast while it's being filmed. Not long after that, Alan begins to obsess over Alison the way he has over women in the past. Will it get in the way of his master plan?

'Return to Cabin By The Lake' was a marginally better film than the original. I enjoyed the dialogue in this one so much more than the first movie. It didn't take itself seriously at all, and the film was more fun for it. Judd Nelson led the way as the deranged Stanley/Alan, and he seemed to have a lot of fun in the role with a more comedic script than the original had. A standout was Dahlia Salem who played the final girl 'Alison'. She put in a very strong performance and was very root-able. The movie quality however and the way it looked was surprisingly worse than the original filmed a year prior.

Overall, 'Return to Cabin By The Lake' is a watchable made-for-TV thriller. The entire series as a whole never wowed me enough to recommend it. Some slow moving parts and frustrating decision making by the characters has always kept both films mediocre in my eyes.

5/10.

I thought the original Cabin by the Lake was pretty good for a TV movie; it was easy enough to get into the characters, and Judd Nelson played a psychopath very well. The change in the sequel that I liked the best was the strange interaction between Stanley and Alison, as the circumstances surrounding it make their mind games with each other seem more sensible than those between Stanley and Mallory in the original.

However, there is one little thing that nags at me throughout the whole movie: how in the world could someone on the set of a Hollywood movie not have recognized Stanley's face from somewhere? The extent of his disguise is a pair of glasses! Other than that annoyance, I was not disappointed by this sequel.

It has its moments, but per total it's just an unsuccessful attempt to make a second hit like the first. Film in film, interesting, but not as clever and inspiring. A new character, a screenwriter, Alison, actress Dahlia Salem looking a lot like Hedy Burress, the actress from the first film. All scenes are rushed, without the magical intensity of the original.

I don't know if I'm just weird, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Return to Cabin by the Lake is of course the sequel to another one of my favorite films Cabin by the Lake. In fact, I think that I enjoyed this movie even more than the first one. I also thought that the cast in this movie was great, Judd Nelson is always the best! I also enjoyed the plot as a whole. I liked the fact that this second movie focused on the filming of Stanley's screenplay Cabin by the Lake- it wasn't a completely redundant film of Stanley grabbing other girls and drowning them. - If you're looking for some deep meaning, then this film is probably not the one for you. However, if you're looking for a fun way to spend two hours, then go ahead and watch it. I've probably already killed at least ten hours watching this film. :)

as a sequel,this is not a bad movie.i actually liked it better than the 1st one.i found it more entertaining.it seemed like it was shot documentary style.at first this bothered me,as i thought it just looked too low budget.but it grew on me,and it made the movie seem more authentic.this movie has more dry one liners than the original,which is a good thing,in my opinion.i do think at times they went a bit over the top with some of the scenes and the characters.it almost becomes a parody of itself,which may be the point.this movie at least has some suspense,which the 1st one did not have,in my view.it has some of the same great music from the original,which is great.the acting again was pretty decent for the most part,though like i said,some of it seemed over the top.i also felt that the movie loses a lot of momentum towards the end and there are a few minutes which seem really slow and just don't seem to flow,like the rest of the movie.overall,though,i thought this was a pretty sequel.my rating for "Return to Cabin by the Lake" is 7/10*

This movie was made-for-TV, so taking that into account, I'm not going to rip into it as hard as I would a feature film. The script is sub-par, but it does succeed in being mildly humorous in spots, whether it means to be or not. The acting is mostly over-the-top, but that is true for many lower-budget movies.

The aspect of this movie that I really hated, though, was that 90-95% of it is shot on film, but in random places, there will be 5-10 seconds where the footage is shot on video. You can tell because there is less contrast, the colors are less vivid, and the footage is clearly 30 frames per second instead of film's 24 frames per second. I'm not sure if maybe these scenes had to be shot later and at that time they didn't have the money to shoot on film (I assume this is why, anyway), but it is disorienting and really makes the film look shoddier than it had to look.

Anyway, I've definitely seen worse movies, but I definitely wouldn't say that I enjoyed this movie and I can't recommend that anyone see it.

What a great bad movie! In this sequel to the story where a screenwriter enacts his own murderous screenplay (as he's writing it in the same mountain town where pre-production for the film is already going on), the now presumably dead and posthumously legendary writer-killer sneaks back on the set of the now-in-production movie (in 3 different clever disguises) and ever-so ironically discusses himself with everyone. Got it? The writing is sometimes fairly good, especially in the second half. The premise is interesting and despite loads of silliness, it's kinda kooky and fun. Judd Nelson just doesn't disturb me enough, though. I keep thinking of New Jack City and The Breakfast Club. Not to mention that damn Brooke Shields sitcom. However, one of the finest assets in the film is an incredibly overacted Brian Krause. Last time I saw him, he was the monster-hunk in Stephen King's "Sleepwalkers." That was around ten years ago, and it looks about 20. He plays the stereotypically abusive, ego-ridden, and sleazy director of the new picture who claims he was good friends with the killer/writer. Naturally Judd Nelson disabuses him of that notion.

Krause is pure B-movie dynamite. He acts like a starving bum eats..with incredible gusto and absolutely no attention to the results.

Of more amusement yet is the wacky directing and cinematography. The director like to emulate Oliver Stone in the worst possible way.switching film stock all over the place. I'm no film student, but I know 8mm film and hand -held video camera results when I see them. So a lot of the crucial scenes look like they were filmed in part by the camera crew from COPS. And it's totally inappropriate to the 'scary' feel. There is a scene that has got to be Sam Raimi homage, with the camera spiraling up from Judd Nelson's face after he wakes up. At least he got that right. So check this out on USA. I was lucky (?) enough to catch the first one for the 1rst time the night before, so of course I just had to watch this premiere. And what a super experience it was.

IF you are planning to see this movie, please reconsider. I don't usually post my comments about something I've seen on television, but this one was such a waste of my life that I needed to do something productive to get that bad taste out of my mouth. Critiquing this movie would take far too long as there are so many things wrong with it. I will just simply say, please do not ever see this movie. It was a complete waste of my time and it WILL be a waste of yours. Anyone that wrote a positive review of this movie is one of two things; utterly inept, or working for the company that produced it. Again, I guarantee that you will indeed regret seeing this movie!

A supposedly dead psycho called Stanley starts killing people on the set of a movie sequel about him. Or something like that! This starts off as a horror/"comedy" but about midway through drops the attempts at humour in favour of trying to be scary. Well let me tell you that this film is dire, I couldn't wait for the end credits and several times felt my eyes beginning to close. The attempts at comedy are pitiful, the murders are mainly Stanley drowning his victims (I don't recall seeing a single drop of blood) and the acting is generally terrible. To its credit it does boast some nice Canadian mountain scenery and there are some eerie looking underwater scenes. I don't believe that I have seen the first movie but in a weird way I feel compelled to seek it out, surely it can't be any worse!? At one point the madman spouts "There's a little bit of Stanley in all of us!", err no! A completely inept film

Return to Cabin by the Lake does not, in any way, stand up to the original. With only one main character (Stanley) returning for the sequal, the film is not even worth the 2 hours of your time. I am a huge fan of the first film, the story line and acting was really good, but this is one movie that I will never again watch. It is basically equal to what the sequals to Urban Legends and Blair Witch were like, but with much worse acting. I've personally seen better acting in soap operas, it is so pitiful that you just have to laugh. I, in no way, recommend this movie to anyone, watching it will just detract from the first.

I thought it was one of the best sequels I have seen in a while. Sometimes I felt as though I would just want someone to die, Stanley's killing off of the annoying characters was brilliant. It was such a well done movie that you were happy when so and so died. My only problem was in some scenes it looked like someone with a home camera was filming it and it was weird. Judd Nelson is cute, at least in my opinion and he was excellent in the role as Stanley Caldwell. Brilliant movie.

Well, even for a Made-for-TV movie, this was just junk! Judd Nelson reprises his role as demented Stanley Caldwell; Badly! This just goes to show that sequels suck, for the most part. Ridiculous, absurd and trite. The plot offered nothing new, or original. The whole, Movie about the events from the first film, thing was just inane, and has been done to death. The killings were formulaic and dull. The beginning sequence with the first female victim. Come on; Who leaves a potted "fake" plant like that on a boat. In a pot that, looked to wieght a hundred pounds. And, what did it crawl its way up to that lady. That is what they made it appear. Then the cocaine addict. COCAINE DOESN'T MAKE YOU GIDDY!!! IT IS A DOWNER! That guy acted, overacted, like he was on laughing gas, instead. Overall a very disappointing effort, and of course a useless, open-ended ending that will hopefully not breed another Cabin by the Lake. What would they call it: The Return of the Return of the Cabin by the Lake! Or "Hell, you apparently liked the first and the 2nd, so let's do it again"

0 out of 10

Return to Cabin by the Lake is Perhaps one of The Few Sequels that Can Live up to The Original. It Had Black Humor, Good Suspense, Nice Looking Girls, and Of Course, a Psycho Killer. What are We Missing? I Think Nothing. Except we Are Left with a Small Amount of Gore and Nudity because It Was Made for Television. Besides Being one Of The Best Sequels, it is one of The Best Thrillers to Watch as a Family. Recommended for Everyone.

actually... that "video camera" effect, is just that, it's an effect, a rather good one.. (u don't know much about directing a film do you?) this film is in fact BETTER than the original, it's great fun to watch, made for TV, doesn't need to follow any rules. I find it hard to watch number 1 because of how he kills the first girl, its disturbing. and all the time we are routing for Judd Nelson to get away with it, we as the viewers are on his side. i hope one day we will see a 3rd cabin by the lake but i doubt it. Watching this film you can understand how real movies are made, as this is sort of like a film within a film. Judd is one of the scariest villains ever, and he's more realistic, he doesn't just mindlessly chop people up like in other horrors.