Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit

At a German college, wealthy student graduates (of various nationalities) break into an upscale health resort for a final get-together little realizing it will be lights out for most of them when a masked killer with a machete crashes their party. The acting is uneven, the accents (British, Aussie, German, etc.) take some getting used to and the ending is awful, but this is still one of the best of the recent slasher movies. The setting is different, the director makes good work of his locations, there are a few creative death scenes (the best involving a water slide) and it's thankfully devoid of that annoying post-SCREAM sense of self-referential humor. I also enjoyed the performance of (and dialogue given to) Elena Uhlig.

Score: 5 out of 10

A little old school 80's slasher, a little post-Scream modern slasher, mix, add water and you get something like this killer-in-a-mask slasher. Very formula in a slightly different setting, lots of pretty teens, this time at a large indoor pool (hence the title) are being stalked. And this time an English language German movie filmed in the Czech Republic with an international cast of young pretty actors.

It was played straight, and built some nice tension which was nice like the slasher pics of old A good amount of blood, but light on the gore and only one very brief flash of nudity are the bad traits it has inherited from the post-Scream generation of slashers.

A sequel is coming up. I assume that will also be set at a pool (since it being called Pool 2), or perhaps the same pool. Add a little gore and T&A next time around folks.

If you enjoy competently made slasher films that don't stray too much from the formula then you should find this a pleasant 90 minute diversion.

If I could rate the killing-scenes alone, I would probably give an 8, they are really awesome, with an original and inventive use of constantly the same weapon. Unfortunately these scenes had to be patched together by some story, and here this movie fails utterly, the story is as flimsy as cardboard and full of improbabilities. They made it into a who-dunnit (which at least makes you sit the whole thing out), but if you expect a serious motivation from the at last revealed killer you'll be disappointed: the script provides him with a lame self-pitying whine that hardly explains his totally disproportional killing-spree (but I guess we can't expect a psychopath to be rational anyway!).

Another problem: the guys and girls are all equally unsympathetic, all wise-cracking party-animals, loudmouthed and wannabe cool (the guys) and lascivious (the girls), so you couldn't care less if any of them got to be killed anyway. The acting is over-all below par (even from nowadays famous James McAvoy, how he got involved is a mystery in itself!) and most of the actors talk English with heavy accents (apparently this is a German movie but for some reason shot in Prague). And for a movie about wild and hormone-driven teens that constantly talk about sex and are illegally partying in a desolated pool it's surprisingly prudish, with most girls wearing a one-pieced bathing-suit and all the guys colossal XXL-sized trunks.

In conclusion: just watchable for the awesome killings!

If it weren't so determined to copy Scream at every turn, this German slasher flick could've actually been better than it is. A little more polish and care with the script would've made the difference. As it is, it is merely okay. Competent-but nothing special. But at least it's better than crap like I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

PLOT: A group of seniors graduating from the INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL in Prague decide to break into a lavish indoor water complex to stage an after-hours party before they part ways. Everything is okay for awhile until a masked killer shows up and starts to make mincemeat out of most of the principal cast.

GOOD THINGS ABOUT THIS MOVIE:

Great productions values. The film looks handsome.

Some appealing stars: Kristen Miller (Sarah)as the American heroine, John Hopkins (Frank) as the British party animal/misfit (a James Van Der Beek lookalike), Elena Uhlig (Carmen--the most interesting character) as the cool, icy, and sexy best friend, and Isla Fisher as a doomed Australian goody two-shoes (she also sounds and looks eerily like Nicole Kidman)

Some cool sequences: the death of Svenja on the water slide is already a classic--you'll think twice before going down one again; the silent stalking of Mel through the locker room and stalls will make you wish for stalls that go all the way to down to the floor and don't leave your calves exposed; the chase scene through the vents with the killer turning the vent into swiss cheese with his machete--with the teens trapped in the narrow space inside. The final battle in the pool, with Sarah overcoming her fear of water.

NOT SO GOOD THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE:

Apart from those few cast members mentioned above, the rest of the actors are faceless and charmless. And annoying as hell. They do what they can, but they simply don't have much to do with their roles. The script should've been better developed. And the guy that plays Greg couldn't act his way out of a swimming pool. Hey, dude, it's not enought that you're good-looking...

Some truly lame lines. Sometimes it's glaringly obvious that this was not written by an American. A couple more rewrites should've been accomplished.

All the bald-faced references to Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer are a turn-off. And some of the character's actions border on the idiotic, even for a slasher movie.

VERDICT: A decent and welcome addition to the post-modern slasher genre. Could've been much, much better. See it anyway, if nothing more than to see how a water slide can kill you. Ouch.

This is one of those recent attempts of late to make an American-style movie with European funds; pictures like ANATOMY, DEEP IN THE WOODS and LEGION OF THE DEAD fall into this category. THE POOL does a poor job of it. Tedium sets in immediately, and since the one good murder episode appears rather early in the film, you can shut it off fairly quickly. There's no excuse for a dull movie about teenagers getting sliced and diced (even WITHOUT an apparent motive)!