The Tank

All of my life I've seen horror films. Along with science fiction and fantasy, these are my staple. I've seen more than three decades of movies and TV shows.

This film's premise is about a creature that has adapted to stalking its prey in absolute darkness. The creature has spawned and is expanding its territory. Ironically the creature's next prey are human beings, themselves invaders of the animal kingdom. This seems almost like a documentary, the way I've explained the creature and its habits.

The movie is about a family of three moving into the owner's parents house that was left abandoned for many years following an accident.

Soon they discover they are not alone, and something sinister is stalking them that lives under their house.

Verdict: average acting, above average real special effects not CGI, good sound-effects and photography. But the script and direction is questionable. Don't expect a solid climax to a film like this with a bad script. The movie's ending leads me to believe possibly a sequel is on the way, not that I'd be intrigued enough to see it.

More classic creature movies: The Silver Bullet(1985), The Monster Squad(1987), Killer Klowns From Outer Space(1988) and Tremors(1990).

Thank you for reading this review and as Mister Spock always says: live long and prosper.

There are some good things about this movie - I don't mind the creatures and there were some creepy bits, but this is overshadowed by the ridiculous bits. Like pouring your super irritating chemicals into the water of a massive tank as if they won't just dilute immediately. Or wandering around in the dark wondering if something is out there while something out in the forest makes prehistoric noises that would scare the hell out of anyone. The most puzzling bit is the disappearing windows of cars. These disappear to let beasties in but then reappear when the danger is over. It is amazingly lazy filmmaking. I'm prepared to suspend logic for a horror but the disappearing window glass took it that step too far.

The Tank (very original name) provides little in the way of new ideas to the creature feature genre. For everything the movie does right, there are so many things that it does wrong. In fact, let me make the same recommendation a character in the film does - run - as far away from this film as possible.

The film introduces us to Ben (Matt Whelan), his wife Jules (Luciane Buchanan) and daughter Reia (Zara Nausbaum). Apparently, they have fallen on hard times, though the film never shows them struggling financially, what with a lucrative pet store and all. But, luck is on their side and in walks Amos (Mark Mitchinson), who works on behalf of Ben's late mother's estate, who says that a long-lost property in her name is to be passed down to him. Well, it seems like the family set off that same afternoon to check out the residence. Now, when I travelled to China, I packed two suitcases. This family are planning on moving into a new dwelling, and they haven't even a single bag. Interesting. But, luck is on their side (again), and not only is the property fully-furnished, but generally well-maintained too! Funny, how a thirty-year-old property, untouched by man, has not been reclaimed by nature.

Now, a glaring issue right off the bat is the film does little to establish the family as a group of loving people. They never eat or cook together. They never go to the bathroom (not sure there even is one). Other than Jules reading a bedtime story to Reia, the trio could very well be a group of strangers that live together. The same issue is applied to the setting - characters talk about 'gas stations' and 'police departments' and ' towns', but never do we see any of these, the film using only four sets (pet shop, (a tiny section of) forest, house, tank), which makes it difficult to identify with the world or its characters. A further shame, is the house is set atop of a beautiful peninsula, bordered by forest, though never is this setting used to maximum benefit.

Returning to the new home, it's equipped with a near endless supply of fuel (we're told it's running on empty, but this is a non-issue), and a tank that connects to a natural spring (though never does the film explain how the water goes from the tank to their faucets). The tank in question seems to run the entire length of the property, and it does not take long for the family to find something in there - a seemingly rare species of, well, salamander, I guess - but with teeth. Of course, the family are unphased (there is a lot that unphased them to be honest). From their first evening at the house, the family begin experiencing strange occurrences, to which Jules says 'I saw a monster' and Ben says 'I see nothing'. Jules says 'I want to leave' and Ben literally says 'we can't' - the same cliche conversations that have been played out a billion times before are employed so characters make dumb decisions for the convenience of the plot.

It is here that the mystery of what happened to Ben's family becomes a main staple, and is actually one of the better aspects of the film. The missing pages of a journal fuel Jules to want to know more - and know more she will, when she, an hour into the film, opens a locked room to which she had the keys for. The. Entire. Time. This convenience is just another of the many that plague this movie, which is also not limited to; blocked roads that become magically passable in the next scene; police who need to be contacted in person, but are then contacted with a portable radio not five minutes later; characters who are told to shush, but then scream louder than the atomic bomb so the monster can hear them; characters who know the creature is amphibious, but only use this knowledge to their benefit when the story tells them to - the list goes on.

Speaking of, it is right after the film reaches the 60-minute mark, that we are fully introduced to the 'monster'. Director Scott Walker clearly thinks he has something that would make Godzilla blush with envy - the problem - he does not. This is one of those times where less is most certainly more. Don't get me wrong - if you squint, the creature could *almost* be mistaken for the alien in Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, while the inclusion of its breath against glass is a nice touch too. When it opens its mouth for the first time, the effect is...fine...at least until you realize that it's basically a gigantic anal sphincter (tell me I'm wrong?!) Moreover, it is all too obviously a person in a suit - and not even in a so-bad-its-good way - you really get the feeling the filmmakers are proud of these effects, and the question needs to be asked - what made them so confident? The same could be said for the glaring errors - example, a creature breaks through a car window, and one scene later, the window is fine. Did anyone check this and say 'hang on, I think we may need to change this.'

As the film drags towards its inevitable finish, Ben, who is originally shown to be a bit of a handy-man, becomes plainly useless, and Jules is revealed to be some kind of dragon slayer - where a bite from a monster badly wounds Ben, Jules shakes it off like Xena Warrior Princess and keeps going - unlikely (especially when you consider how other characters are torn limb from limb - on that note, kudos to the gore department). Too much of the finale is filmed in cramped quarters, like the filmmakers are deliberately trying to stop you from seeing the sound-stage, and between this and Jules' invulnerability, the film's tension is dialed down to minus eleven. I kept expecting the film to do more - maybe guide me into a false sense of security before pulling the rug out from under me - but that was giving the film way too much credit. The Tank is content being a D-grade, cliche, creature feature, and though that might have been fine fifty years ago, we have older monster movies that have aged so much better than this one ever will.

The news teased the viewers with an upcoming old school practical fx creature feature. Well, technically it is, but what we, monster movie fans, love about the genre is when you actually see the creature a lot. The Tank is terribly slow paced and only after one hour of dull conversations and flashbacks some limited action starts.

The monster: awfully generic and it's given a bit more screen time than in the trailers.

The writing: the plot is driven by dumb, absolutely illogical decisions of the characters.

True monster flicks fans will be disappointed.

If you're curious anyway, fast forward the first 60 min and don't expect much.

How are movies like this still being made? Movies that offer absolutely nothing new or creative in any way. I get that there are only a finite amount of ideas for a story out there, but even if you're doing something that has been done before you can at least put your own spin on it. 'The Tank' is as bad as films get.

I don't want to be too harsh on this film, so I'll just list a few of the things I didn't like without going into too much detail. I thought the creatures weren't very impressive visually and they conveniently only attacked when it was necessary to the story. Otherwise they would just sit there making gargling sounds. Also the film puts a child right in the middle of the story who is extremely annoying and also guarantees the safety of certain characters. There is nothing that kills the tension in a horror movie more than kids.

The dialogue is bland and completely lacking in creativity, the movie doesn't know how to build tension in a scene, the setting isn't scary and the acting is poor. I did not like this film. A generous 2.5/10.