The Boat

Seriously. How many rooms are you going to keep walking into before you start disabling the door locks first. Well produced but ultimately frustrating.

This is a Twilight Zone movie. Just missing Rod Serling at the start and end. But maybe he would say something like "A boat can be your best friend or your worst nightmare." Great entertainment.

I didn't expect much and it turned out to be quite alright. Makes you want to keep watching and maybe this is the effect of the current lockdown in 2021 but felt like it was intense and mysterious till the end. Always liked a sea film and this doesn't disappoint despite a one man, one place scenario.

Slow paced, but couldn't take my eyes off his struggles. Claustrophobic. The gaze up through the water, heart beat... Is he drowning? Is the boat ferrying him to hell or being resuscitated back to life, punishing him?

I can't tell you the joy I found in coming across this movie, hidden away in a cosy corner of Amazon Prime where light doesn't often reach.

Of course I've seen horror movies I've liked, or else I wouldn't watch any now. But this movie...it just gets it. It makes no foolish rookie mistakes (just name one thing horror movies do too much; it doesn't do it). It is that simple, quiet, leisurely, atmospheric, minimalist horror movie that you've been looking for. Unless you haven't been looking for it.

I haven't read the other reviews and I can anticipate that at least one person will say "it's not a horror movie" or "nothing happens" or "left me with questions". But this isn't that kind of horror movie. It's not an objectively better style but we see so little of it.

I have been hoping and hoping to see something like this for so long. I won't say it's a masterpiece but in a world where even the horror fans go on and on about how this genre has not yet quite found its way, we get something that is solid. I can take it seriously, it's never trashy or heavy handed; it takes its time, it lets you feel the moment, it doesn't take you for a ride, you're just along for it. It cuts into you with a quite, mysterious power. It does not compromise in its structure and narrative.

I know a lot of people will find this as affecting as an episode of a Michael Portillo Documentary but I was captivated.