Quicksand

Let's put aside the absurdity of confronting someone breaking into your vehicle in the middle of the woods. Then also put aside the absurdity of your fight or flight instincts kicking in, but they tell you to take Flight after you've already gained the upper hand through Fight. Then put aside the ridiculousness of a thief wildly shooting into the woods because....if you can't see the person you're trying to shoot, the trees will suffice? The foundation for this movie is ridiculous is what I'm getting at.

The internet has been telling us for the last decade that it's actually near impossible to get fully submerged or even die in quicksand if you're a human being with intelligence greater than a 6 year old. This movie asks the question "what's the internet?"

Sophia and Josh are a couple in the middle of a divorce traveling to Colombia for a work conference. On their free day they decide to do a hiking trip to 'El sendero la chorrera' in the Natural Reserve Park La Chorrera. They're warned about 'las arenas', a dangerous part of the trail made of quicksand and infested by poisonous snakes. But they end up being forced to cross the area and both end trapped in quicksand. With no help, a storm approaching, and snakes surrounding the place Sophia and Josh will have to push their differences aside if they want to survive.

Quicksand follows the well known formula of survival films making it predictable from the start. The story is short, simple to follow and understand without any shocking moment or plot twist. The side plot doesn't add any groundbreaking aspect to the narrative making it unnecessary. The concept of quicksand and snakes is a good and interesting one with the potential of bringing a more emotional story but it turns just decent. Both Carolina Gaitán and Allan Hawco as Sophia and Josh did as much as the direction and scrip allowed them. Portraying a couple in the middle of a divorce with a lot of resentment for each other is the most believable and part of the film. Gaitán and Hawco are able to make their hateful feeling for each other look and feel real and while this is a positive aspect for their initial situation they're supposed to have a moment of reconciliation and that feeling of love and affection never truly arrives. At the end Quicksand turns into another decent horror triller with missed opportunities and wasted potential.

I'd say this sunk fast, but even at only 86 minutes, it felt like it was four hours.

All I know about quicksand, I learned from movies and TV shows, mostly during the 70s. It's hardly ever brought up anymore. I mean, I guess if you count Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And no one really counts that.

This was just plain dumb with LARGE melodramatic chunks, unnecessary slo-mo, poorly paced, really odd choices in acting and life-threatening twists that abruptly end without conclusion. Admittedly, there were tense moments, but again, they fizzle fast and back to more Hallmark/Lifetime scenes.

A really annoying couple are breaking up since this had to keep with the standard Man v Nature Movie Tropes. After what feels like an eternity, they land right into the Title Card and if you've seen Open Water, that's how this mostly plays out. Only...this had a much different ending. A hard one to believe, but they had a budget and had to end the movie as the money ran out.

When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of quicksand because of what I saw on the tele. I've been told, it's nothing like what you see on TV or in movies. So, I just YouTubed how to survive quicksand and...okay, I'll give this movie some realism. But, JUST A LITTLE BIT.

Kinda hard to make an entire movie based on Quicksand and yet, they've done more with less. Open Water and 127 Hours just to name a couple. I WANTED to like this more, especially with my phobia. Nope.

I'm never ever going to the jungle; I vow and I'm gonna let that sink in.

***

Final Thoughts: Funny, the quicksand scene I remember most from any media was The Incredibly Hulk when David got stuck and was sinking until a blind chick tried to save him. Not before he freaked/hulked out, naturally. It's been an eternity since I saw that clip, but I suspect Hulk's anger would've made him sink even faster. Spoiler, he lives. Imagine if THAT'S what ultimately brought the Hulk down. So to speak.

Quicksand, a movie directed by Andres Beltran and written by Matt Pitts, claims to be an intense survival drama set in the captivating rainforests of Colombia. However, this trainwreck of a film falls flat on its face, leaving viewers grappling for any redeeming qualities amidst the terrible acting, lackluster dialogue, absence of character connection, and the overwhelming sensation that it was created by a group of high school kids.

From the very start, the abysmal acting sets the tone for what is to come. The lead actors deliver performances so wooden and lifeless that it becomes impossible to empathize with their plight. Their portrayal of a married couple on the brink of divorce lacks any depth or emotional range, making it difficult to care about their survival in the unforgiving jungle. Throughout the film, their expressions remain monotonous, regardless of the perilous situations they find themselves in, making it nearly impossible to take the movie seriously.

To make matters worse, the dialogue in Quicksand is cringe-worthy at best. The writers seem to have a complete lack of understanding of how real people communicate and connect. The lines are forced, clichéd, and often unrealistic, leaving the audience with an awkward sense of detachment from the characters and their supposed emotional journey. The attempts at injecting tension and drama through conversation fall flat, leaving the viewer disinterested and uninvested in the couple's fate.

The lack of chemistry between the characters further exacerbates the movie's problems. Despite the premise of a couple on the verge of divorce being trapped together in a life-threatening situation, there is no genuine emotional connection established between them. Their interactions feel forced and unconvincing, rendering the central conflict of their failing marriage inconsequential to the overall plot. This glaring oversight hampers any potential for the audience to root for their survival or care about their reconciliation.

One of the most glaring issues with Quicksand is its production quality, which is reminiscent of a poorly executed student film. The camera work is shaky and amateurish, making it difficult to focus on the story and often leading to motion sickness for viewers. Furthermore, the special effects are laughably bad, taking away any semblance of realism and making the movie look like it was shot on a shoestring budget. The sound quality is equally subpar, with dialogue often being drowned out by background noise, further adding to the viewer's frustration.

The film's attempts at creating suspense and excitement are feeble at best. Rather than building tension organically through a well-crafted script and direction, Quicksand relies on predictable jump scares and cheap tactics to elicit reactions from the audience. These tactics only serve to highlight the movie's lack of originality and creativity, leaving viewers disappointed and disengaged.

Even the lush and beautiful backdrop of the Colombian rainforest fails to salvage this cinematic disaster. The potential for breathtaking scenery and natural beauty is squandered due to the movie's numerous flaws. Instead of immersing the audience in the awe-inspiring surroundings, the uninspired direction and poor cinematography only serve to reinforce the movie's overall lack of quality.

In conclusion, Quicksand is an utter disappointment from start to finish. With terrible acting, poor dialogue, a complete lack of character connection, and production values that belong in a high school AV club project, this movie misses the mark on all fronts. It fails to deliver on its promise of an enthralling survival drama and instead leaves viewers wondering how such a lackluster film ever made it to the big screen. Save yourself the trouble and steer clear of this forgettable and uninspired mess of a movie.

This is your quintessential isolated survivalist thriller in the same vein as Fall, Frozen, The Shallows and the like. Unfortunately, due to a few different things, I don't think it was quite as successful as its predecessors.

Right off the bat, I noticed two things... The picture quality was quite nice and the acting was a little... sus. There were some genuine, real to life moments and interactions with everyone involved while also having some clunky, robotic ones and that aspect persisted throughout the film. I think this was mainly due to some spotty acting and a not super refined script.

As far as the play-by-play goes, I would say these films are some of the hardest to retain your viewers engagement throughout as it is often just a single setting with not all that much to explore or come up with. I think the foundation of what they had as far as action within the "predicament" was there but the pacing slowed down at points throughout and the ending began to drag.

A pretty big issue I had with this one was that there was a lack of consistency within the variables in this world. Sometimes the quicksand and its viscosity looked easy to navigate and sometimes impossible, somethings seemed to effect one person and their health more than it effected the other, at one point an object may seem too far and unattainable and suddenly with a seemingly unhelpful alteration it is now within reach.

I am not a particularly picky reviewer, and am all for letting things go for the sake of entertainment. However, small things such as these and lapses in continuity provide for a heavy does of suspension of disbelief to be enjoyed.

This was by no means an unsuccessful film or entirely unentertaining, but I definitely think it had some major issues that squandered some of the its potential and were detrimental to its success. I think this landed just below average at a 4.5 rounding down to a 4. Would recommend, but not with any fervency.