Dead in the Water

While this film wasn't a bad little time waster..it was lacking the buoyancy to keep it afloat...I wanted to like it more as it started to show strength by the 2nd act...but couldn't hold it above water.. It was good to see an all female cast. Decent acting for the most part considering the C list factor.

But in reality when you try to storyboard a mixture of Alien..The Thing..into an X-File-ish type of made for TV movie on a boat at sea the results will be as murky as the waters you're trying to navigate.

As our 5 female protagonists are out to sea attempting to capture illegal fishing operators they come across a man in a life raft from somewhere and assumed to be dead. They bring him aboard only to realize he isn't.

After a confrontation he is killed and they realize he has been bitten or sucked on by something. An autopsy reveals a living entity inside him which has now escaped and looking for hosts. Well...look no further!!.

At this point you could insert any one of the xenomorph scenes from Alien or the Thing into the remainder of the film..with the same results. Call it a "professional pilfering" The flow of the film was good..film stock adequate. It had good moments of suspense and the CGI was used sparingly to good effect and complemented the makeup when required.

As predictable as it is Dead in the Water is still a decent watch at a 5 fishes out of 10..but you're in this liferaft alone...

The movie starts with a bunch of women in a boat in trouble. Why not start with how they came to be that way. We're not invested in who they are or what they're trying to do.

Will reiterate this once again, as there are people accused of bias all the time and questioned why they watch things in the first place, there is no personal bias against films made on a modest or less budget. Also have a high appreciation for the horror genre, have liked a fair share of creature films and that 'Dead in the Water' had an all female cast was another interest point (that is not uncommon but haven't seen that a lot).

Unfortunately, 'Dead in the Water' was exactly like its very apt title, "dead in the water", very early on, never recovered and actually got worse. It is not irredeemable and not a complete and utter abomination, but it could have made something much more interesting and original with a concept that was far from new but still semi-intriguing, because it fails to do either. All of this is not being said with malice, have never felt or talked that way about any film, regardless of how angry it made me feel, actually did want to like it because it was not as if it didn't have potential. The potential wasn't enormous as such but it was there somewhat.

There are a few good things. It does look reasonably good and atmospheric mostly, in particularly it is a long way from being amateurishly shot and the editing is at least coherent.

Music is ominous enough and does fit, not feeling discordant with the action while never enhancing it as such.

Not much going for 'Dead in the Water' otherwise. Not all of the film looks great, the water is so obviously CGI-rendered and it looks incredibly fake. As do the creature effects, that would have been slightly acceptable 50 plus years ago but when you see how far technology and visuals generally have advanced over-time it is sad that it looks like they were made as an afterthought with no effect. Just as bad is that the enemy is not interesting or menacing at all, more unintentionally if anything else. The complete lack of suspense and thrills also severely hurt the film, replaced instead by interminably sluggish pacing, unnecessary padding, no attempt to do anything fresh or interesting with the numerous cliches and the increasingly over-the-top ridiculousness. Found myself not caring at all, having long lost interest, for any explanations offered, even then they felt very vague and pretty silly.

'Dead in the Water's' script flows very awkwardly and has very little life, some of the lines are difficult to take seriously and one has to refrain from laughing at times. The characters have no development to them and their stereotypical and over-the-top behaviours and personalities grate fast, there is nothing to make one engage with them when they are so bored and irritated by them from the very start. The acting is a painful mix of overdone and robotic.

Summing up, not completely awful but fell dead in the water too early and never recovered. 3/10

This had a fair amount of atmosphere for the first hour and was well crafted with the budget. Reviews are very skewed and unfair these days with people rating this a 1 which means it is the worst movie you have ever seen...really?

No to be fair this is at least a 5/10 as I always try and base my reviews on the acting and budget as well as all the other things that make up a movie and to be fair the acting was not that bad and the atmosphere, model ship and wave effects were pretty convincing apart from when they were actually on the ship and it was obvious someone was spraying with a hose lol but that is something one should be used to with low budget horror films and unlike most Scifi channel productions this one comes out on top of the usual dross.

The only part where it was let down was with the creature itself although i did like the use of THE STRAIN wispy tendril effects used on many other movies like THE SAND and other horrors as it does have a rather sinister and scary vibe going on. It fails mostly on the lack of tension towards the last half of the film and like most low budgeters these days it seems to run out of steam mid way to the end.

All in all a decent nights viewing and much better than most of the nonsense I have watched lately so gets a fair slightly above average 5.5/10 from me!

Kill me. Kill yourselves. End this.

Although the opening scene with the "Amphitrite" (a kind of fishing boat) traveling across the ocean looked really cheap in terms of "special effects", the rest of the film wasn't so bad. The ocean scene really looked as if it was a toy boat filmed in a bathtub. But besides this, don't expect extraordinary things. The acting was sometimes disappointing and felt amateurish. And the story itself is sort of "Alien" on the ocean instead of somewhere on a planet in a galaxy far, far away. Especially the fact that it's a "SyFy Original" made me shudder a bit. I like low-budget and indie films, but "SyFy" films don't excel when it comes to originality. And even though it had a real low budget feeling at certain moments, there were also a number of positive things to be found.

The most striking thing about the film is that the crew only consists of women. Maybe this fits in with the "MeToo" atmosphere of today, but a little male support on this ship would have been welcome. Even if it was just to tighten a bolt here and there, or force a steel door. But I have to admit that this club of Greenpeace militants could stand their ground. Their determination is admirable. That was noticeable during the pursuit of a fishing boat, fishing illegally in these parts of the world. The brash way Gwen (Bianca Simone Mannie) whips the old sloop across the ocean, isn't only bad for Michelle's stomach (Amy Louise Wilson), but it's also not so good for the coughing engine. The result is a failing engine while a storm front is coming their way. And a ship without a motor in the center of a storm is doomed to disappear to the seabed. And as icing on the cake, Michelle thinks she has seen a drowning man. And that man appears to be a kind of Trojan horse. Because, before they fully realize it, there's a parasitic creature that slithers over the ship through all possible escape routes.

As I said before, the movie isn't really original and borrows a lot from other well-known films such as "The Thing" or "Life". But it's mainly the film "Alien" you think about while watching certain scenes. If you know the "facehugger" phenomenon, you understand what I mean. The main problem of this film is the quality fluctuations. There are excellent special effects and next, you'll see effects that are completely worthless. And it alternates regularly. For example, I found the autopsy scene extremely successful. And the next moment the organism looks like withered seaweed that glides around and sticks to windows. But fortunately, it wasn't of the same level as those ocean waves.

The same for the acting. The seven female crew members really convinced me at certain moments. At other times it came across as implausible. Maybe it was due to the limited freedom of movement. At a certain moment, it seemed as if they were constantly running from the control cabin to the engine room. On the other hand, this limitation makes it fairly claustrophobic. It's certainly exciting enough at certain times. Such a creepy atmosphere where people know that danger can strike from every corner. So if you like movies with murderous organisms, then you will like this SyFy movie. However, don't be fooled by the film poster. It is not a huge blubbery creature like I thought from the beginning. The illustration is cleverly put together.