Maré de Sangue

This thriller starts in medias res, as a girl is being hunter at night in the swamp by a couple of hulking goons in fishermen's attire. After she meets her fate, we are introduced to six fine pieces of trash Americana leisuring in a posh villa. The 3 girls look right out of a bikini-happy euro-dance music video and the 3 guys, who use "Dude" at the beginning of each sentence, probably hit the gym 3 times a day. This fine group of clueless bourgeoisie get ready for a fishing trip (duh ?) in the middle of the sea.

Before they embark, they stop by some kind of store run by an old fisherman that sells them "special" bait. Turns out the bait if made of human flesh, as the 6 airheads will soon discover.

To its credit, this movie is slickly directed and photographed. Nocturnal swamp scenes could have easily turned into one giant black screen with dialogue in any other B-movie, but the director of photography knew what he was doing. It all looks quite professional.

It's all the more sorry that there's not a single novel idea in the movie that could save it from instant disposability. Clichés abound, and quite cringe-worthy ones, I'll tell you : one of the girls, who didn't know what she was getting into, is actually the lead's former girlfriend, of course they fall in love again, everybody gets drunk before the drama begins, the first ones to die are the hottest and dumbest but they still show their tits, the villains talk some kind of Russian, the main goon comes back from the dead so often that you feel like you're watching another "Friday the 13th" installment, the male lead drops his shirt for completely out-of-place action sequences, there's a baton-of-fire fight that looks more like capoeira than a real fight for survival, and I forget some.

This movie's been done before a hundred times (and the director must have seen all hundred) spanning the whole gamut of Hollywood genres : survival, action, romance, stoner comedy... Still, it's done professionally, and past the 1st 40 minutes, it moves fast enough that an undemanding audience will have its fun, as did I. And it doesn't hurt that the whole cast (male & female) is goddamn gorgeous and not shy of dropping their tops.

If you're going to make a low budget slasher (as this is supposed to be) then it has to have an adequate amount of nudity and gore and this had neither. The nudity was nothing more than a few brief topless scenes and the gore was very mild. There is no point complaining about the acting as you don't expect much from a low budget 'horror' but this also was very wooden from beginning to end.

I can't think of a single redeeming feature that would make the movie worthwhile watching. All they really had to do was to make the violence more extreme, shorten the filler scenes by half and possibly throw in some good titillation and it could have been watched on fast forward.

Avoid the movie unless you're very easily shocked or have been watching grass grow for the past ten years.

While it's always weird saying that you enjoy a movie with torture in it (it's only a movie I know), this one easily can be called a torture itself. There are almost no redeeming factors at all. Even if you are a Jason Mewes fan, you will wish he goes back to Kevin Smith (or vice versa) and they start making movies together again. Let's just say his output alone has not really got me excited.

But it would be unfair to put this all on his shoulders. He is trying, though even he can't help but burst out sentences that not only make no sense, but are completely insane. Some nudity and some good (not that many though) blood effects will not cover the mess up that this movie leaves behind. And I don't think the end will surprise. It shouldn't

Having seen the trailer for this film, I thought it looked quite promising, I was pulled in by the fact that Jason Mewes was in it and am a fan of the Jay and Silent Bob films. What a disappointment throughout, hammy acting and a poorly thought out story line make for a long drawn out waste of an hour and a half. Jason Mewes tries his best to revive the Jay character that he is famous for, but fails dismally. It is almost embarrassing to watch as he does it. I wouldn't even recommend this film as a last resort, pure drivel! The only thing I found mildly enjoying was finding the story flaws, of which there are many.

must be something an intellectual challenge for a producer of a horror film to bring something new to the genre table . Imagine the screenplay of THE WATERMEN in development

" Hmmm . Horny teenagers in peril . How we going to bring a new angle to this premise ? "

" I know . Let's make it as unpleasant as possible and set it on a remote boat yard ? "

Hardly an original idea setting it in a boatyard but one thing the producers have done in way of qualified success is to make the film as unpleasant as possible .. I've seen a lot of horror films that more often than not have bored me rigid . Not so with THE WATERMEN . It's a slasher flick crossed with torture porn and while the torture is very graphic the operative word from the phrase " torture porn " isn't " torture " but " porn " . . By accident or design director Mark L Lockhart seems to linger a bit too long on the bodies of the female characters as they're physically abused by the watermen of the title . . The on screen violence is genuinely shocking and brutal so much so that I was tempted to switch off a few times . If the agenda of this film is to disturb and alienate the audience then it's mission accomplished but my own opinion is that even a horror film should have an element of morals and entertainment value and THE WATERMEN has none of these important things