The Reeds

Not so much a film as another painfully lacklustre reminder of the uninspired state in which the once-great UK horror scene is currently languishing. The first two failings of this excursion into lukewarm waters are casting a Craig David lookalike with the acting ability of a four year old, and casting an actor who is best known for his long standing roles in the cursed training grounds of Hollyoaks and Two Pints. Not a good move to miscast your lead roles with these two. The third is leaning way too heavily on location for effect, which quite clearly highlights the lack of effort put into the plot and script. The Fens are actually a very original and genuinely creepy setting for a horror film; just not this one. Acting talent from the female cast members doesn't offer much either, and britflick regular Geoff Bell hamming his part up to the hilt only adds to the comical side of things. Overall a vague mess of a movie. Triangle did more or less the same story, but a little better. My advice to budding UK horror writers is to aim for something different. Seriously people... Nobody cares anymore about photogenic city types getting into trouble in the countryside.

As usual some of these reviews seem placed by people attached to the project! There's a lot of Love or Hate hmmmm. This is often the case with these lower budget films but...

For what its worth, this is a solidly performed low budget horror with a less than solid conclusion. The journey is fun to watch and compelling although the cinematography is slightley dated.

For high-end scares / gore / violence (those things you expect from indie horror) you may find this lacking. But then so are most big budget Hollywood offerings.

If you like the genre, this is far from the worst flick out there. Worth a spin. ******

To be honest, the movie at first really doesn't seem like a bad one at all. The first few minutes are nothing too great but at least it makes you think that its going to head into something decent and watchable, if only a tad bit formulaic. But as it turned out in the end, the movie was just an incredibly bad one.

The movie is just very poorly done. It's an extremely bad handled horror-film, that tries to go into many different directions but none of them ever work out for one bit.

A problem already lies with its concept. Seriously, what is so scary about the reeds in this movie, even though all of the characters try to make it seem like it's one of the scariest places to be in and they constantly get a bad feeling about things, just by driving a boat, at clear day. The movie its 'horror' really relies on its concept and settings, which were already incredibly lacking to begin with.

But the biggest problem of the movie simply is the story itself. The movie is given a whole bunch of side-plots, which makes the movie as a whole all the more messy and confusing. And the movie already gets an incredibly messy and confusing one to begin with, during its second half. First of all, the movie is so incredibly dark that you can hardly tell what's going on, on screen and who's where and most importantly why. And second of all, lots of stuff just doesn't make sense. Like mentioned earlier, the movie combines lots of different horror elements, in an attempt to keep things interesting and also surprising but instead it makes things incredibly messy. You see people constantly running and looking scared, a ghostly figure appears, a strange sound can be heard but there is actually very little happening in the movie. It's not a boring one, the movie is too fast going for that but there is nevertheless not a whole lot happening in this movie.

No way that this movie will please any horror fans, despite the fact that it still has basically all of the right ingredient in it, to make a decent, watchable horror film out of. The execution of it all is however far too poor and lacking for any of the horror to ever work out. The atmosphere is too dark, since you can't even tell what is happening, there is no gore, no effective scare moments and no real originality to it all, though the movie tries really hard to be. horror fans should simply stay away from this, as should everybody else.

A failed attempt.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A horror that looks like high-grade 1980s output, which made it spooky and nostalgic in equal measure - the 16mm explains the nostalgic bit.

On the positive, the young main characters are attractive - I dug Laura (magazine girl Anna Brewster) and her Kate Moss delivery - very London - and the set up is nicely done, hinting at yikesy things to come, which they do.

On the negative side, I wasn't really sure about the movie's central message, but I did like the hook - yes, there is a comparison to Triangle definitely, but this is different again.

I'd say that this is not a wide theatrical release type movie but that it's pretty good and quite creepy watching it late at night within the comfort of your own home. Most of the acting makes it feel very natural, very real, and you can (if you shut your eyes and click your heels three times) almost imagine yourself there in amongst those razor-sharp greeny reeds wondering where everyone else is...

This movie could've been called enigma - in a positive way - a supernatural low-budget horror that takes thought to work out what's happening to who and why once past the half-way mark.

The story?

Five or six guys and gals from London go on a jaunt on the canals and watery inlets of Norfolk - think Everglades without the crocs - and slowly discover that as the movie straplines go, 'there's something in the reeds' and 'they can play tricks on you.'

Re what it is and why the guys & gals need to be worried we keep guessing, guessing some more, and the blood just keeps flowing.

Maybe there's too much guesswork for some but the lead girl pulls off the plot-moves passably well and the others make it a totally bearable experience, specially the first half of the movie.

My humble analysis is that 90% of people will like the first half of the movie, and only 50% will like the second: I liked it enough to comment and give a review but then I don't like movies with stars and nothing to say. This had something to say and even though it may have tied itself up in Gordian knots it's worth a 6 or 7.