Prime Time: Black Water (2007)

"Based on a true story" is a phrase that I, and many other horror fans, got used to dismissing a long time ago. Because it's not any sign of quality. It's not even any sign of authenticity. Many film-makers, sadly, end up using it as some kind of excuse to make up for anything that they want to put onscreen, be it ridiculous or crushingly dull.

In the case of Black Water it ends up being the latter. Three people take a boat ride into the mangrove swamp, which leads to them encountering a dangerous and hungry crocodile. There's Grace (Diana Glenn), her husband, Adam (Andy Rodoreda), and Grace's sister, Lee (Maeve Dermody). Grace is pregnant, which makes her survival here all the more important because you also have to think of the unborn child. And if you start to forget, don't worry, the film will remind you.

Written and directed by David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki, Black Water is a potentially interesting premise that doesn't do enough to keep it tense and entertaining for the runtime. The film-makers obviously think that "based on a true story" will make up for any other failings, which includes a weak script, poor selection of main characters (but you're not supposed to dislike them because they band together around a pregnant woman, in order to protect her and her unborn child), and a third act that weaves between the ridiculous and the surprisingly boring.

The thing to bear in mind is that anything that really happened can also be ridiculous or boring, so perhaps Nerlich and Traucki are sticking closely to the truth that they've based the story on. But that doesn't make the movie itself more satisfying.

Dermody is the best of the leads, giving you someone actually likeable and worth rooting for. Glenn is stuck with the thankless task of just trying to emotionally manipulate viewers by occasionally rubbing her belly, and Rodoreda is sidelined at times for moments that allow the sisters to be sisterly and have sisterly conversations. None of the conversations are particularly revealing or interesting, which means the time spent with the leads, when the crocodile isn't onscreen, isn't all that  enjoyable.

Don't worry though, because most of the crocodile footage is real. Very little CGI was used. So that should help you to appreciate the movie as it plods from one moment to the next. It doesn't. Of course it doesn't. It's just a gimmick, used in conjunction with the "based on a true story" line, that people again mistakenly throw out there as some kind of critic-proof value added to the film. I've seen a number of killer croc movies from the past couple of decades and I can safely say that Black Water is the worst of the lot. I am sure that some will enjoy it more than I did, and there are fleeting moments of decent tension when the croc remains underwater and you sense the characters being stalked, but it really didn't work for me. Part of that comes from the elements that feel cynically incorporated as pre-emptive defence moves, part of it stems from the end result just not being good enough.

Bonus points for how good the croc footage is though.

4/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: The Tunnel (2011)

A found footage horror movie that follows a journalist (Natasha Warner, played by Bel Deliá) and her crew as they investigate a large area of tunnels underneath Sydney, The Tunnel is a decent film that does well with limited means, although there were aspects of the movie that bothered me more than it will bother some other people. I'll get to those soon enough.

Basically, Natasha wants to base a story around these tunnels, knowing that they are possibly about to be put to another use, which will lead to the relocation of many homeless individuals who live down there (a claim denied by those who want nothing interfering with their plans). Four people, including Natasha, head into the tunnels. Not all of them will make it back to the surface.

What The Tunnel does really well is, thanks to the script, by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey, and the performances, get you on edge from the earliest scenes. The whole film is framed as some kind of documentary, or TV special, that will reveal the events of a mysterious tragedy. And the whole look and feel of that framing style is spot on.

Deliá is good in the main role, someone who decides to venture into unknown territory with her small team, despite numerous obstacles and rejections making it obvious that it could be a bad idea. That's often what journalists do, I guess, so it's a believable starting point for everything starting to go wrong, especially when it comes to light that she has not been honest with her co-workers. Andy Rodoreda is Peter, Steve Davis is Steve, and Luke Arnold is Jim AKA 'Tangles', and the three do just as well as Deliá at portraying confusion and fear without just repeating themselves over and over again, as can happen so often with movies done in this style.

There's only one main problem with The Tunnel, but it's a problem big enough to have frustrated me for most of the second half. Basically, the characters have to move to night vision far too soon. Look, if you've seen enough found footage movies then you know to expect the night vision to be turned on in time for the finale. It makes things even more tense, gives everything an unnatural look, and can cover up a multitude of sins. Sadly, it kicks in here after the opening third. It's not permanent, thankfully, but is used far more than any other horror movie I can think of, and makes it very difficult to see what could be some very scary imagery.

I understand that the imagery may seem even scarier because of that black/green night vision look, don't get me wrong, but I can't help resenting something that makes me squint for so much of the runtime as I try to make out shapes, shadows, and just what exactly is coming into frame. That resentment increases when it turns out that I'm watching a creature feature that seems to not want to show a potentially impressive creature.

But I'm still glad I watched this, and I definitely enjoyed it, overall. So I encourage others to give it a watch. Oh, and don't make the same mistake I did, avoiding it for a number of years because I kept confusing it with the much worse Death Tunnel.

6/10

Here's the film on disc.