The Reeds

A weekend boating party turns into a nightmare for a group of young Londoners when they stumble upon a terrifying secret hidden in the reeds.

This film is troubled for one reason: it makes absolutely no sense. Burned dog, bloody make-out parties, caged remains underwater... even as we find out more about the story, it makes no sense. I cannot get into any real depth without revealing too much, but I will say if you are waiting for answers, you will not find many.

That major caveat being said, the film itself is a fine piece of work -- good acting, good cinematography, good music and lighting. All that can go into a film to make it good has been done here, but the story just was not done right.

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.

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

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I stumbled across this recently on Lovefilm and it seemed an interesting idea. The cast is pretty natural and includes the always watchable Will Mellor. The characters are thankfully quite likable which is rare for a horror movie and makes you care more about what happens to them.

The setting on the Norfolk broads is stunning and quite eerie which is of a huge benefit to the film. It's certainly not a place you'd want to be stranded.

This isn't an out and out horror more of a ghost story but there is a nice air of tension built up throughout and some creepy scenes. You will probably guess what's going on from a long way out but it's handled so well it doesn't really matter.

For a film with a very modest budget this is an impressive effort and I found it very enjoyable.

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.