Bear Lake Monster

Bear Lake Monster is ninth episode of the second season of the thriller horror docudrama found-footage television series Lost Tapes. It originally aired on Animal Planet on November 17, 2009.

Plot
On June 21, 2008, Erica Jameson celebrated her twenty-second birthday with friends Jan Hollis, Rose Peters, and Sally Rudolph at Bear Lake, Utah, by planning an overnight camping trip. They set up their campsite and begin chatting, wondering if their other friend Mary Allen Stewart will be arriving or not. Rose leads them in a toast to Erica, poking fun at her in the process.

Just then, they hear a strange, growl-like sound coming from the lake. As they try to find the source of the noise, a car horn suddenly honks: Mary Allen has arrived, and they attribute the sound from before to her car. Jan uses her cell phone to take a video recording, but the others mistake it for her making a call which they had previously agreed not to do during the camping trip and start playing keep-away with it. They accidentally throw the phone into the lake; while contemplating what to do, the waterproof phone captures an image of a lizard-like form, obscured by the murk. As they search for the phone, Erica feels something brush against her leg twice; the others dismiss this as a fish, but she returns to shore, convinced that it was something much bigger.

Rose, who is floating nearby on a pool toy, dives underwater to find the phone. When she doesn't immediately resurface, the others begin to worry, but she suddenly reappears--victorious--with Jan's phone in hand. Jan asks for the phone back, but Rose decides to return to the inflatable and keeps the phone with her, continuing to record with the still-working device. At 8:07 that night, everyone but Rose is sitting around a campfire while Rose continues floating in the water. She hears a splash nearby, and screams as she is suddenly pulled underwater by an unseen creature.

The others immediately jump up, trying to find Rose. Sally tries calling for help as Jan goes into the water, but her phone isn't getting any service. Jan searches underwater with a flashlight, but the other girls suddenly see a shape moving towards her and yell for their friend to return to shore. They are helpless as the phone's camera on the inflatable capture an image of Jan being pulled away from shore and underwater. Sally drives away to the nearest location where she could call for help while Erica and Mary Allen mourn the loss of their friends.

They hear strange sounds coming from the direction of their campfire and ask aloud if it is Sally. They see something moving near their tents and standing lanterns, and suddenly hear a screech as one of the lanterns is violently knocked over. As they flee in terror towards Mary Allen's car, Erica stumbles and falls to the sand, then screams as she sees the creature approaching: the lake monster can move on land, too. They run into Mary Allen's car and try to escape, but Mary Allen breaks down in hysterics as she realizes a huge mistake: she left her car keys back at the campsite. Essentially trapped in the car, they try to locate the creature by sight, but are unsuccessful.

Suddenly, the monster slams into the vehicle, causing the car alarm to go off, and they conclude that it's been attracted to the car lights, and that their friends were attacked because they had flashlights with them, now in night vision mode as they continue panicking, Erica proclaims that she is not going to die on her birthday just as they hear Sally honking her car's horn, signalling her return. Erica devises a plan: they will try to distract the creature with the headlights and then make a break for the other car.

Just as they are about to turn on the lights, the monster suddenly attacks them again; their camera captures an image of the creature's tail in front of the car as the lights go on. They run and see Sally's car ahead of them, its lights blaring, but the monster has already caught up to them. They yell at Sally to turn off the car's lights as the lake monster begins attacking her car, causing it to rock back and forth. Sally finally turns the lights off and yells for them to get in; they run to the car, but the creature suddenly attacks and kills Mary Allen.

Miraculously, Erica and Sally escape to safety and told police about what had happened; though the lake was dredged, the bodies of Jan, Rose, and Mary Allen were never recovered. Tourism to Bear Lake continues in spite of the rumors of the creature and the grisly footage from that night.