Part 1: Formless horrors

The Thing in the Lake, in "The Raft"

It would be hard to follow up "Creepshow" which was an incredibly fun film and also had a highly stylized look.  "Creepshow 2" didn't even really try.  It went for a more conventional anthology feel and generally had subpar stories and production values.  "The Raft," based on a King short story, is a prime example.  Several expendable teens decide for one last end of summer swim and party at the isolated lake.  Having gone out to the floating raft they are now suddenly the prisoner of some .... thing.  Teens are slowly expended as we get to see who the final teen will be.

Now generally the creature here is disappointing.  King wrote of it as some sort of living oil slickery looking thing.  The film makers for the most part translated this to "Deflated rafted covered in oil and junk.  It's a big disappointment and really kills the mood for much of the piece.  However, they do rather successfully translate several of the kills of the story to the film fairly spectacularly intact.  This includes a rather horrific scene where a character gets sucked down through a knothole.  Definitely not a good way to go.

As things go, this is rather par for the slimy course, but it does get bonus points for being a hypnotic slimy monster.  "Look into my slime!"