Something in the Water
Something in the Water
‘Something In The Water’ – the name is an instant nostalgia trigger for anyone who would spend hours looking at boxes of unknown horror VHS tapes in their local video store. That is the premise of the film, a struggling teenage finds solace in watching odd horror movies. If there’s one thing that can be considered as a negative aspect, it would be that for some people, this movie would seem like any of those Saturday night low rent films.
That is something that first time feature film director Hayley Easton Street has to deal with in power of what is really just another shark thriller. These types of movies are cut and paste designs to get laughs. You know, One of those escapist, unrealistic scenarios where you go out into the deep and end up fighting off a bunch of blood thristy sugar bears. Great concept, however, you cannot say the same for how they pulled off ‘Something in the Water’. Street at least tries to add some subplot. However, poor character arcs and childish interactions make all attempts unappreciated.
The action takes place in the Caribbean, where five friends travel to attend their friend’s wedding at a luxurious beach resort. Meg (Hiftu Quasem) meets the lively Cam (Nicole Rieko Setsuko), the sensible Ruth (Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart), and her ex-lover Kayla (Natalie Mitson) who joins in with their friend and bride-to-be Lizzie (Lauren Lyle) to party. The film tries to individualize each of them, but there is really nothing to make them distinctive. The only genuine tension is between Meg and Kayla, who have not communicated since the accident that separated them a year ago.
One day, Cam’s bright idea to rent a shabby boat and take the women to an island far from the main land where they can have a nice day on the beach, fails miserably when a shark bites off a chunk out of Ruth’s leg as she frolicks in the water. The girls, frightened by the blood loss, rush to sea to bring their friend to safety. Unfortunately, in their attempt to return to shore, their boat runs into a reef. And just like that, the five friends are stranded in the great expanse of the ocean devoid of any land. And, of course, it is only a matter of time before the shark shows up again.
That’s brutal viewing and Street builds some decent tension for a while. But as it goes further the film fails to create any atmosphere in which real terror or suspense can thrive. And it starts to run out of fuel fairly quickly even if it is less than 90 minutes long. There are some quite good emotional character moments that justify the emotion they are going for. But besides this the movie gears up onto an absurd anti climatic ending which it should not have had in the first place.
Street is a first time feature director who knows how to get the job done with an average story and an average budget. “Something in the Water” is beautifully shot, the locations are great and the cast carry their roles well. But the script (by Cat Clarke) is off the curves in terms of its ability to generate drama, suspense or self-reflectiveness to be any of the various films it can easily be. It’s amusing at best but suffers from the same flaws of cliched characters, a standard plot and a relunctant chip to drive it past the finish line.
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- Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller
- Country: United States, France, United Kingdom
- Director: Hayley Easton Street
- Cast: Hiftu Quasem, Natalie Mitson, Tashani Bent
