#outwaters

Hello, readers.  I’ve been gone for (quite) awhile, but I have returned to bless you with more movie reviews.  Today’s selection is “The Outwaters,” an entry into the found footage subgenre.  Certain people are raving about this, yet others call it hot trash.  Which is correct? I will render, once and for all, the objectively correct judgment.*

We start off with a 911 call, where the dispatcher listens to people yelling and screaming.  We then, I presume, jump back into the past, where we spend a good thirty-plus minutes setting up our characters.  (The conceit is that we’ve found the memory cards of some young folk who were lost in the desert a few years previously.)  We have Main Guy, who mostly holds the camera and mike, his brother, Singer Woman, and Ange.  They are heading into the desert to film Singer’s latest smash music video, which will brilliantly feature her walking around barefoot in the desert.  Everyone is mostly bland and forgettable, but at least they’re not assholes, as is far too common in these movies.

Anywho, the first day Main Guy sees an axe sticking out of the sand, which is sort of creepy.  That night they hear strange booming thunder.  Main Guy walks around, shining a tiny little light at things in the dark, which is annoying for the viewer because we’re not really seeing anything, just parts of things.  He ends up seeing some flashing lights in the sky.  Shit!  The next day Main Guy films Singer doing her singing thing.  His shots are very close in, almost no wide angles, which will be extremely annoying later on, because (again) we’re only seeing parts of things.  That night the booming thunder returns, and Main Guy walks off, except this time he sees the silhouette of a guy holding that same axe from earlier!  Main Guy turns to flee, but we hear footsteps and a thud and can only assume that he has been axed in the head, as he will spend the rest of the movie in a dazed and confused state.  He returns to the camp just in time to hear slashing around the girls’ tent and catch a glimpse of them running off into the desert.  He then spends three minutes hiding in some bushes as we listen to the ladies scream in pain and terror.  We don’t see anything at all, just a black screen, except at the end where he wanders off and encounters Ange, whom he promptly abandons.

The next day he’s all alone, except for the mounds of red flesh dotting the area.  Oh, and the red worm creatures.  There are red worm creatures that shriek and slither away from him.  Mind you, at this point there are about forty minutes left in the movie, and we spend that time with Main Guy as he repeats a loop of horror over the next few days.  That first day he encounters the worm monsters and loses his clothes.  That night ends with him in some kind of watery hell with a pulsing beat, and he’s spit out through a glowing slit…so I’m pretty sure he’s being reborn.  A lot happens the next day.  He sees himself and his friends walking through the desert and he chases a bloody version of Singer.  Highlights of that night include finding a bloody Ange, visiting his mom’s house, flying on a bloody plane, and encountering a monster!  Shit!  Well, I can only assume it’s a monster, since we’re only blessed with a tiny little beam of light, so we see bits and pieces of some sort of reptilian thing.  It certainly sounds monstrous, so there’s that.  He goes back to the tent, where he and Ange are attacked by tentacles, but, again, we have only a tiny little light.  He goes back outside, where he approaches the same bloody axe from earlier, but an ominous voice says, “SHOW THEM,” and he’s plunged back into the water.  We end up staring at something like a starfield while an angelic choir sings, but he’s shoved back through the slit of light into the dark desert.

Main Guy has landed at a sign stating, “Warning” and “Restricted,” and he sees an old gas mask.  He encounters himself holding an axe.  Daylight comes, and he sees the severed heads of his friends planted atop posts.  He wanders off and finds a fossilized shark tooth, which is neat!  Except that he uses the tooth to cut off his own penis and then disembowel himself.  He finally puts down the camera and walks away, lifting up his hands to a plane flying overhead.  THE END.

This was…fine.  It’s a bit above average when considering other found footage movies from the past few years.  I don’t think it’s as good as all the reviewers are ranting.  People go into the desert, encounter horrors.  This is either about some type of haunted location, or, give me a moment, the kids are suffering from some type of delusion or drug-induced episode and kill each other.  In any case, the main conceit of these films (i.e. found footage horror) is that we only know as much as the protagonist with the camera.  We, the audience, are fine with that because there’s an internal narrative logic.  This film, “The Outwaters,” breaks down along those lines because the night time scenes are mostly illuminated with a tiny little light with an extremely narrow beam, so we barely see anything.  However, sometimes the same flashlight is being used with a very wide beam, so we see everything!  This is extremely annoying because there’s no narrative reason to switch the beams of light, except to limit what the audience is seeing at that moment. This is breaking the contract between the film and the audience, where we accept the limited perspective of the narrator, so long as the limitation is consistent.  To make up for this, I suppose the sound design is good.

Currently streaming all over.

The Outwaters Film: Robbie Banfitch's Brand of Horror