|
Trent (Howard Walker) undergoes a few slight changes in the demonic horror tale “The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond.” |
If you crossed Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” with Joe Johnston’s “Jumanji,” you’d sure have a much better movie than Gabriel Bologna’s “The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond.”
All the necessary exploitative elements of a sleazy horror opus are present and accounted for here: gratuitous shower nudity, gallons of splashing blood, possessed souls, cheap shocks and hideous creatures.
But forget about carefully constructed suspense or any degree of empathy with the nasty young people who become trapped on a Maine island before being heinously executed by an icky Greek god and their own dark vices.
“Black Waters” is a horror film that gets the superficial clichés correct (including the done-to-death “it was only a dream” device) but has no understanding of how to connect an audience with its characters so they can freeze the viewers’ collective marrow.
During this part of the review, we’d normally identify the various characters and the actors who play them. But since the partyers here are all a loathsome band of shallow, amoral dunderheads, we’re going to skip right to the plot. (Read more…)