Black Water: Abyss

I enjoyed the start, withe couple lost and arguing, and for some strange reason switching to argue in English, but as soon as the four main thrill seekers appear on screen, it all goes downhill.

I can't remember the last time I watched a good monster in a cave film, there seem to have been quite a few. You watch for ages before anything happens, it literally takes about fifty minutes for anything to happen.

I was genuinely glad when that crocodile got what it wanted. The good looking blonde dude was such a smug character.

Toothless, 4/10.

The film is long, generic and absolutely uninteresting.

I mean, a group of mostly inexperienced people decided to delve into a random cave and also bring a pregnant woman with them. You can't write characters that are more stupid that these, really.

It was mostly fine on a technical level, but there's just nothing interesting about the characters or the story, no interesting locations, visuals, anything.

I understand that maybe the creators wanted to make it look realistic and dry, but you have to have something in your film that will capture the viewer's attention, just having stupid people in it doesn't help, nor does help having a love triangle subplot in a crisis situation. And yeah, the ending is just ridiculously bad.

As I scanned through the reviews it become clear that this is a sequel to a popular film I haven't seen (which is much better), so I'll guess I'll check it out as well.

Surprisingly enough, this was a very weak attempt at a croc film provided that Australians have some really good films in the sub-genre, like Rogue (2007).

This is very skippable. There's absolutely nothing in this that will horrify or entertain you in any way.

Andrew Traucki, director of the somewhat acclaimed creatures features "Black Water" and "The Reef", brings a sequel (only in name) to his first killer croc hooray. I remember watching "Black Water" way back when, and it worked on suspense, the limited location, the one woman's show, though still lacking some necessary sauce. This next part seems to be also relying a lot on suspense and fear of a force that's lurking unseen - the movie largely does so with lackluster energy, and a newcomer filler is a fair amount of melodrama, which didn't feel very welcome to me.

Like many similar movies, "Abyss" kicks off with a pair of unfortunate tourists falling prey to the croc of the caves, it will be in his home we're going to spend most of the screentime. A home too plain, too evenly lit, barely succeeding to feel claustrophobic, consequently struggling to establish an atmosphere. Our protagonists are 5 rather stereotypical movie friends with typical plot problems and arches - one has to be prepared for soapy notes throughout. Story's simple and slow, ending does not hit any nails on the head, and all in all there's a predictable story riddled with minor bugs. While all this may be so, a good portion of people are probably most excited about the action and croc himself. Well, he hides. A lot. There's some cgi and some practical effects, and I'm not entirely sure about the partial usage of real crocodiles as it's known about the first "Black Water" flick. "Abyss" is a low budget feature, and action describes that, not the worst, but mostly heavily edited with close-ups, shaky cam, all kinds of cheaper substitute techniques. It's a killer reptile movie that's above the syfy-type, but below the better examples like "Rogue" or "Crawl", though I'll admit the latter is not a lot about that realism. The cast consists of little known names who do a decent job, but little of anything manages to impress as the growingly tedious nature of "Black Water: Abyss" marches on for 90 minutes.

I felt a certain disappointment for an anticipated movie coming from a guy who's biggest love and mission seems to be animal/nature/creature horror genre. If you have a lot of patience and are looking for utter realism in this genre movies, it might be worth giving "Abyss" a spin. My rating: 4/10.

If your bored and have nothing else to watch then by all means go and watch this film, you could do worse but if you have other things to watch and miss this little title then don't panic your not missing much. I was hoping this would be much more edge of your seat tension but there was none. That's right no tension at all, in fact the last thirty minute I was praying the film to end. Now don't get me wrong, the cast and the story did nothing wrong but the film itself became boring quickly, nothing happened and that my dear reader is where the film falters. A basic adventure film, not a horror. Just about four stars.

This is not too bad and the crocodiles look real. It's your standard crocodile thriller about a group of friends going spelunking and get trapped in a cave with a hungry crocodile but it's quite well done and the crocodile is shown just enough and it's not an exaggerated monster movie. There's some silly friendship melodrama but overall it was an enjoyable creature feature.