The Black Water Vampire

This movie is exactly like The Blair Witch Project in the snow for about 9/10 of it. The acting is okay. The story is okay. Because it's literally TBWP. Then it takes a sharp turn into vampire territory. I wouldn't have minded that if it was a surprise. But, when the title of your movie has the word Vampire in it, it's hard to overlook. I kinda liked it. The vampire is creepy as hell and the ending nods to some other cult movies.

This is a snore fest. If you loved the Blair Witch (I didn't) then you'll probably be pretty mad that the guys who saw this said..."Say, let's remake the Blair Witch but rename it Blackwater Vampire or whatever the sodding title is. Chick decides to do a documentary about a murder she thinks is fishy, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then blah. The vampire was a pretty good design. The vampire screaming was okay but needed to be toned down a bit. The rest is rubbish. A slow, trek through a woodlands in search of an answer to something troubling the filmmaker...but this time with SNOW! The ending...oh my dear god...was just STUPID. There I said it. I'm sorry...but guys you gotta do better. Where's the originality?

This FF horror is made in a style that hundreds of other FF horrors were made , a group getting lost in the forest, hearing strange noises at night etc, it just feels like any other FF horror you have seen before.

While the one hour or so was cliched, the last 22 mins , was absolutely terrifying and insane with the last scene before ending being the most disturbing one highlighting a cult that exists in the Black Water area. There is one jump scare (related to Anthony where he got killed) as well near the end which was very well timed and really shot me off my bed.

Watch it in a cozy silent night and you will enjoy it although it feels a ripoff of many other FF horrors of this kind.

In the town of Black Water, WA, four women have been killed in the woods within the last forty years. Documentarian Danielle decides to make of movie about the events and brings a production crew of three to the town to investigate.

The women had been found mutilated and with bite marks. No blood was found at the crime scenes. A man is on death row for the murders and Danielle doesn't believe he is guilty.

They interview the convicted man, who seems crazy, and writes a symbol on the partition glass in blood, but doesn't give them much by the way of answers.

Next they go on a hike in the snowy woods to visit the crime scenes and gather what information they can. This is where the real action starts. The movie gets pretty interesting here as they are stalked in the woods.

People will draw comparisons to The Blair Witch Project here, fairly, since it does follow the same formula. The one review I skimmed said that it was wrong to show the creature, that what you don't see is scarier, a la Blair Witch. This is not true of course. Depending on what movie you are making and what you intend for the audience, both ways can be very effective, and it works here.

I had a lot of fun with this movie, especially the last two scenes, which pay homage to two very popular horror movies. 7/10.

The problem with this movie, for me, is that it's just not that compelling or original. The story follows a student documentary project about a series of murders. It starts well, with background on the murders and the man convicted for them, but then we see a lot of boring interviews and filler of the crew talking amongst themselves, then traveling to the scene of the murders in the woods, where of course they get lost and start bickering with each other. Who wants to watch that? It takes way too long for the movie to get going, but when it does, I was definitely more interested. But even then, nothing really shocked me and too much of it felt like a rip off of other movies that did it better.

I gotta give the cast and crew credit for throwing themselves into this. I thought the acting was above average, but not great. Still, it felt like they were doing everything they could to try to make this movie work. The makeup effects were great. It looked a bit like the vampire from Salem's Lot, and that's not a bad thing. Unfortunately, the story is too thin and cliche'd, and drags through most of the first half of the movie. The end doesn't feel satisfying, it feels like a mishmash of the endings from other movies.

I felt like this was a sincere effort from those involved, and I'm giving this a generous 5 out of 10. Reviews here are all over the place. It's honestly not that bad, but it's honestly not that good either. I like good found footage movies, and there aren't that many of them. The worst of them have amateurs who think they can just film themselves for an hour and a half and show something lame at the end. This was not that. This was a crew of talented amateurs who were really trying to do something good, and I could tell they put their hearts into this. I'd like to see what they do next. I hope they come up with a better script.