Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is a 1975 horror film produced and directed by Bill Rebane (Blood Harvest; The Game; The Demons of Ludlow; The Capture of Bigfoot; The Giant Spider Invasion; Monster a Go-Go).
The movie stars Paul Callaway, Richard Lange, Glenn Scherer, Brad Ellingson, Karen McDiarmid, Alan Ross, Julie Wheaton, Jerry Gregoris, Jim Iaquinta and Bruno Alexander.
Rana seems to have had some US theatrical showings during the horror boom of 1981 though this hasn’t been confirmed. With the sleeve re-title Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell, the film was distributed on VHS by Troma Entertainment in 1982. In his book, All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, Troma president Lloyd Kaufman lists this film as one of the five worst Troma films ever released (along with The Capture of Bigfoot, also directed by Bill Rebane).
Plot:
Eleven-year-old Kelly Morgan had a terrifying encounter with Rana, a strange half-man/half-frog monster that lives in a lake. The creature killed his father and many other people before Kelly seemingly destroyed it. Now a young man he returns to the lake to search for the monster’s hidden treasure. Unfortunately, the creature is still alive…
Reviews:
“Rana is your typical ultra-low-budget Rebane offering filmed entirely in his home turf of Wisconsin. Like nearly everything else this guy made, it’s extremely cheap-looking, amateurishly acted and written, talky, slow-paced, mild on the exploitation elements (there’s hardly even any profanity) and poorly-made right across the board.” Bloody Pit of Horror
” … the frog-man looks exactly like a man dressed up like a frog. If it weren’t for some deep, guttural ribbiting (which is inexcusably underused) and the color of his skin, there wouldn’t be much about him that’s frog-like. There’s not too much more to say about our presumably web-footed nemesis, honestly. He shows up at random intervals, kills or scares someone, retreats to his underwater lair, and generally undermines the folklore and suspense the enterprise would rather be characterized by.” Not Coming to a Theater Near You
“Rebane’s story is fine; as with anything else, it’s all in how it’s told. The dark green mossy woods and murky, foreboding waters of Wisconsin set an appropriately eerie mood. The problem is that Rebane (as director) is ill-equipped to set up a shot so that it pays off. Even the shock scenes are undermined by the fact that there is either too long an establishing shot so as to ruin the suspense or too sudden a close-up on the payoff.” Mecha-Blog-Zilla
“There is truly Ed Wood-type dialogue in this flick – awful, unintentionally hilarious dialogue – in fact the THIRD line of the whole film is “We’re so isolated on this island” Yes – now THAT’S exposition! The performances are terrible, the guy playing the crazy Ol’ hermit gives a 110% and it is a horrible piece of mugging […] You never see the “creature” until WAY near the end and the costume is ridiculous.” Obscure Films
“This isn’t a great film by any means, but for a modest little film made for next to nothing in the middle of nowhere, it does manage to deliver its share of thrills and chills. You could do a lot worse for a midnight movie.” Rivets on the Poster
Buy Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell on Troma DVD from Amazon.com
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