Black Water

"Black Water" is one of the most tense films I have viewed in a long time. The story moves fast as it follows three tourists (all great actors) into a swamp on a tour with a butch tour guide on a small boat. Soon after dropping anchor in a remote area of the swamp, they are flipped over by something huge in the water.

Hastily, the three manage to make it into a tall tree nearby as they realize that a crocodile has attacked them. Throughout the next two days, they have to desperately try to escape from the crocodile's evil watchful eye, and he doesn't seem to want to go away. The movie drags just a tad bit, but what can you expect from the setting and the limited budget? It's so much better than "Primeval" and other recent crocodile/ underwater predator thrillers. The tension is heavy, and all three leads give terrific performances. Truly chilling, this movie struck a deep chord of claustrophobic fear in me. Apparently based on true events.

So the positives for this are quite numerous, its a very realistically shot and gritty story which is scare not least of which because it could really happen. The feeling throughout the movie is pretty visceral and really puts you in the position of understanding the fear this situation would evoke.

The problem is with the character writing. The characters are pretty inconsistent, its like the script writer kept forgetting which characters were supposed to be reacting to this stress by getting panicked etc and kept jumping between one character reacting by thinking things through to suddenly being the one being negative about all the options and another character being the thoughtful one. At the start of the movie one of the women is constantly panicking (understandable) and the other is a forceful character and then half way through its like they switch personalities. This is pretty jarring every time it happens which spoils an otherwise very good movie. Still a pretty decent film though.

Gore hounds beware...this is not your movie. This little nail bitter has very little blood and guts. Its basically a version of Open Water that is effective and worthwhile. But what sets it apart is that we actually like the three leads (unlike Open Water) who find themselves up a tree when a crocodile flips their fishing boat and munches up their guide. We don't want any harm to come to any of them. SO when they start getting into dangerous situations...we actually care.

Now I like killer animal flicks but I haven't been too impressed with Lake Placid up to Primeval (although I'm still waiting to see Rogue and hoping it is somewhere as good as this one!) but this little bugger did the job and did the job well. It's scares are creative and it only lapses into the run of the mill frantic crying sobbing and arguing for brief stints of realism so I never got annoyed.

I remember reading the true story that inspired this where three guys went fishing and two ended up in a tree while their buddy was killed by the crocodile . But the thing that always impacted me that gets left out from the film was that the crocodile didn't eat up the buddy. No. For hours and hours he swam around the tree and shook the dead body still in his mouth at the friends in the tree. Seeming to stay, if you come down here this is what will happen to you.

While on vacation on Northern Australia, Gracie (Diana Glenn), her husband Adam (Andy Rodoreda) and her younger sister Lee (Maeve Dermody) decide to take the Blackwater Barry tour in the swamp for fishing. Their guide Jim (Ben Oxenbould) uses a small motor boat and takes the tourist along the river to a remote spot. When they stop, they are attacked by a huge crocodile that capsizes their boat and immediately kills Jim. The three survivors climb a tree and when they realize that help would never come to rescue them, they decide to try to find a way out of their sheltered location. However, in the muddy water, their boat is flipped and the crocodile stalks the trio under the water.

"Black Water" is a tense, realistic and dramatic low-budget movie and in accordance with the warning in the beginning, based on a true event. The acting of the unknown Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody and Andy Rodoreda is top-notch, giving credibility to this simple but scary story. There are many similarities between this movie and "Prey", but in different environments. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Medo Profundo" ("Deep Fear")

Black Water is not your typical creature slaughter fest where it's one victim after the other with plenty of blood and gore. It's a rather intimate psychological suspense with practically no gore and little blood. It's set in some mangrove swamps in Australia. A few tourists are stranded far from civilization and no hope of rescue on trees surrounded by water with an immersed crocodile lurking unseen . It's a movie from the school of the least you see of the monster, the scarier it is. I was first taken aback by the long period of waiting without much happening. Heck, I even found it a little boring and was afraid it was one of those no-budget films always teasing the monster but never really showing it, or when they did, it was lame.

On hindsight, I think that the creators clearly tried to slowly make you paranoid about where the crocodile was exactly and in that they were rather successful. There was a nice build-up of tension and the characters looked genuinely frightened. The movie did have a real life aspect to it and the unknown actors (at least in North America) really helped. The crocodile was well done and although sometimes I thought it was a prop (when only the head was showing), it was apparently a real croc composited in. Not CGI, not animatronics and yes the characters eventually seem to be in the same frame and not always filmed separately. My most memorable moment involved the crocodile jumping out of the water higher than you would expect... I also liked the night with the flashes of lightning, going from dark to anguished faces constantly. I didn't like seeing the mostly calm water so much but I understand the reasoning behind it. I didn't expect this kind of realistic claustrophobic siege by one crocodile when I rented it but it turned out reasonably entertaining. Like the stranded characters though, it's better to be patient...

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 (good)