Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Platypuschow I'm not a Troma fan, in fact I'd go as far as to say that my opinion of the average Troma film is somewhat derogative.This early Troma title is very different from the others and yet succeeds in somehow being worse. Allegedly a horror comedy I can assure you in contains minimal horror and absolutely no comedy, looking at the cover I know that's probably hard to believe.Rana: The Legend Of Shadow Lake otherwise known as Croaked : Frog Monster From Hell is not about a giant frog as the cover art would suggest and is more a Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) type, except despite being made in the 50's the monster looked better then.With very little actually happening, looking terrible when things do and with little to no redeeming features Rana is actually worse than the cover would suggest and that's really quite impressive.Nice to know Troma was awful from day one.The Good:Funny cover artThe Bad:Daft conceptWeak horror, poor comedyDishonest coverOddly boringThings I Learnt From This Movie:An actual giant frog would have been considerably more interestingThis makes the Toxic Avenger look intellectual

Bezenby If you know Bill Rebane, you'll know what to expect here: Low budget antics with local actors, z-grade effects, and yet an overall charming atmosphere. This is one of his better efforts as it actually has things happening during the plot.A guy and his gal end up on an isolated island and in between heavy petting, he recounts and incident from his childhood while growing up on the island with his father. When he was but a kid, some folks ended up on the island looking into some sort of legend (and of course the treasure implied by the legend). You've got some treasure hunters masquerading as loggers, and odds with local crazy hunter Charlie (they exchange pot shots at each other fairly regularly), two scientist chicks, and another scientist guy who very early on gets killed by some creature in the lagoon.Bottom line is: there's a crazy frog monster in the lake in the middle of the island and he's not too happy at being disturbed. The loggers are next on the menu (and the also clash with our narrator's dad several times), but when old Charlie gets plugged our frog guy goes mental and it's up to our survivors to get off the island before Rana gets them all, and who will survive (except the narrator, of course, but then we've got to find out why he came back).Much more exciting than Rebane's Alpha Incident and The Game, Rana is a more straightforward horror film which pleased me to no end as I'm a sucker for a regional film. The plot moves very fast (for a Rebane film) and there's even a smattering of gore here and there. The acting is what you'd expect if you know Rebane's films, and some of the music was downright funky. Rather high incidents of slow motion throughout, for some reason.To summarise: If you're curious about Bill Rebane, try this one, Demons of Ludlow and the Giant Spider invasion. Lesser works included the strange film The Game, the boring Alpha Incident, and the so-so comedy Twister's Revenge.

Paul Andrews Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is set on an isolated Wisconsin island called Rana which refers to a lake god worshipped by Indians, presumably a long time ago. We begin with a man named Kelly (Glenn Scherer), isn't that a woman's name?, telling a woman named Chris (Doreen Moze), isn't that a man's name?, about local legends & the way things used to be when he was 11 years old... Cut to that point in time & the young Kelly (Brad Ellingson) lives on the island with his Father John Morgan (Alan Ross) who happens to be the local Ranger, things were usually very quiet on the island with just Kelly his Father & an old hermit named Charlie (Jerry Gregoris who also has co-writing & co-producing credits) but ever since Kelly found a rare bone fragment that was 125 millions years old things had become busier on the island. A local university sent female paleontologist Dr. Elli Hatley to investigate & her niece Susan (Julie Wheaton) went along for the ride. Three men posing as loggers also turned up at about the same time, Burley (Jim Iaquinta), Cal (Bruno Alexander as Bruno Aclin) & Mike (Michael Skewes) while yet another paleontologist named Sorensen (Lorry Getz) was attacked & killed by something that lives in the lake... Kelly carries on to explain that in the legends that surround the island it is said that somewhere at the bottom of the lake there is huge amounts of gold, but the legend also states that a prehistoric frog creature known as Rana guards the gold & kills anyone foolish enough to attempt to locate it...Co-photographed under the pseudonym Ito (?!), co-produced & directed by Bill Rebane Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is a pretty dire film on all accounts. The script by Gregoris, Lyoma Denetz & Mike Landers is tediously slow, dull & boring to the extent that those 96 minutes felt considerably longer. The character's have no personality or likability, the dialogue is stiff, unnatural & really flat I mean people just don't talk like this do they? The basic story could have had potential if the flashbacks were used to unravel a mystery but here they are just used to pad the running time out & there really isn't any need for Kelly to be narrating the film apart from the fact it's an easy way for Rebane to cram a lot of dull exposition in with the least amount of effort. The whole film is just stupid & doesn't gel at all & what about Rana the frog creature himself? Well he makes an appearance at the end for about two minutes & that's it, the rest of the film we just get point-of-view shots & a rubber claw. The extremely predictable twist ending leaves the door open for a sequel which, thankfully, has yet to materialise.Director Rebane again shows his general incompetence here straight from the opening sequence featuring really jerky aerial shots of the island to the way everything looks to have been filmed in natural light so the brightness & colour levels appear to shift all over the place & it's not an easy film to watch. One more thing Bill, where does all that neon lighting come from in those underwater caverns? He fails to create any sort of tension, atmosphere or excitement & as a whole Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is a real chore to get through. Every other shot seems to be of a landscape, a tree, the surface of the lake or some local wildlife just to stretch it out even further & it reminded me of a really dull & dry wildlife documentary in terms of content, entertainment value & style, basically very little on all three accounts! There are a few gore scenes, someone has an arrow pushed through them, a body severed in half, someone has their face crushed against a tree & some severed fingers.With a budget that probably wouldn't buy a round of drinks in a pub these days Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is a shoddy production from beginning to end, terrible static cinematography, music that feels like it belongs in a different film & Rana himself when he eventually turns up is obviously just a guy in a rubber wetsuit painted green & a silly rubber mask. The acting is awful although there is a great scene when a goat tries to stand on a box in the background & falls off in spectacular style! Plus there is absolutely no reason for it whatsoever...Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake is a real chore to sit through & is of very little, if any, entertainment value. I'll give it two stars because one or two bits of gore & the bizarre but cool goat scene, although in themselves they are hardly recommendations to watch this. Apparently Troma released this under the alternate title 'Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell' which is a cool title for a crap film, one to avoid.

David Michael O'Rorey (retromaster2000) This film was a lot better then I thought. It was pretty much a throw back to "Creature From The Black Lagoon" except half man half frog & he had a weapon also guarded gold treasures. This is an excellent throwback tribute to Jack Arnold's Sci-Fi Classic the monster suit isn't as good as in Lagoon, but hey what the hell Rana was done a lot lower of a budget then Jack Arnold's Lagoon. I saw this movie finally when I bid & won on ebay. My mom purchased it was a VHS used in good condition got that during X-Mas 2005. I enjoyed pretty much every sec. down to the needle. It was pretty bloody is one reason I really liked it bloodier then Lagoon but not as scary almost though. If the suit would of been better but it's damn good for the budget. The Frog Man likes the younger girl the one that was swimming around in the lake in the sexy one piece pink swimsuit. Yeah Rana got her in the end after Kelly's father was killed. Kelly & the Female Palentologist's young niece were there & that is when Rana broke in & attacked them. He took her over his shoulder this is a lot like in Lagoon when The Gillman takes Julia Adams off the boat & dives back into the lagoon with her. Well I ain't telling much about Rana all u B & Z Graders should see it I loved it! By the way I will be getting the DVD release of it from Troma under it's a.k.a. title "Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell". Which I got & was very disappointed in cause it ran only 89 mins. I also have the old Burbank VHS as I stated & that one ran about 93 mins. Stupid because Troma originally distributed the film why they cut out 3 or 4 mins. for the DVD release makes no sense. Doubt there will ever be another more commercial DVD this being such an obscure 70's monster flick. Along with Rebane's other 70's Sci-Fi Efforts besides, "The Giant Spider Invasion" from 1975. That just got a 2009 2-Disc DVD Deluxe Treatment. That one seems to get the most attention. Which is a shame his 1977 Sci-Fi Effort "The Alpha Incident" was doubled billed with Star Wars at the theaters back in 1977. It was the second feature to Star Wars. Rebane stated in the commentary on the new Spider Invasion DVD, he didn't know if Alpha or his 1987 Horror Slasher Effort "Blood Harvest" got the bigger share of the pie. He never did get the money for Spider Invasion's theatrical gross. Neither it's enduring Cult Status as a mainstream Drive-Inn Sci-Fi Classic. Rana is one of my favorites of the 70's though. So I gave it a 6 but Octaman '72 & Zaat '72 are better they got an 8 for their type.