Beneath Still Waters (2005)

Sorry, this movie sucks

People are voting emotionally.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

What starts out as simple exploration of underwater ruins quickly turns into the release of an evil once thought sealed nearly forty years before. One woman is haunted by visions of being the daughter of a child molester, in addition to her mother that is always away on location for work. Not much is given to the opening introduction of two boys playing knights, until much later in the film. All havoc breaks loose once the evil comes back to haunt everyone. The movie is unusually hard to follow and it feels fragmented between scenes; if there is a lot going on here, there seems to be more emphasis placed on action than actual plot – the plot is just that, a plot device and nothing more. I do not recommend this movie.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/?p=4977).

I do have a love/hate addiction with Brian Yuzna. The Re-animator flicks, From Beyond, I loved them, Dagon wasn't my thing. Beneath Still Waters isn't available over here so I had to pick it up in the States. It's so strange being made in Spain and the UK that it never was released in Europe. Again, I have mixed feelings with this flick. The story is typical Yuzna but the first half was really boring. It's at the final that gory shots (the policeman cutting of his own legs and arms) and horror comes in. Before that it's more about ghosts and legends. What tears this flick down is the amount of CGI. The scene at the woods did remind me of the evil possession and rape scene in Evil Dead and the flower going open did remind me, in fact a pure rip-off of Alien's eggs containing Facehuggers. The acting itself couldn't convince me and it lays in the fact that Spanish actors had to talk English and it shows. They had to put more energy into that then into the acting. Maybe the best acting was done by Charlotte Salt (Clara) and it shows moving further to major productions like Beowolf as Estrith.There's quite a amount of unexpected nudity in it, the first one you can see coming when you see her face, and yes, the blond one goes full frontal naked but it's again towards the end, the horror part, that a celebration turns out into a gang bang. Of course only juggs are shown. The effects were also departed into two camps, one the CGI for the water scene's and the real effects into the second part of the flick. You could easily see the CGI in for example the scene in the woods. There's also use of a miniature underwater city and that shows too. So okay at the end, cheap in the beginning. If it was played by English actors or Spanish actors it would worked out better and less use of CGI would have made it like Re-animator, sadly it didn't. Still one to see if you are into Yuzna flicksGore 2/5 Nudity 2/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Brian Yuzna was already responsible for some really crazy and unusual horror projects in the past; some of them refreshing and original ("Society", "The Dentist") and other ones unspeakably terrible ("Rottweiler"), but "Beneath Still Waters" is undoubtedly the most discouraging effort he was ever involved in. This film certainly doesn't look as if it were directed by someone with over twenty years of experience in the genre, because the wholesome simply feels amateurish and unfinished. How can a concept holding so much horrific potential result in such a boring and incoherent mess? How can one film feature so many exquisite filming locations, nauseating make-up effects and thoroughly depraved themes and still turn out a complete failure? I love macabre tales handling about sunken villages and the dark secrets that drowned with them. There are way too few films like this in the horror genre and of the two I encountered during the past year, one is obscure as hell and remains unreleased on DVD to this date (the modest Swiss production entitled "Marmorera") and the other one - this particular film - is a missed opportunity. There are a lot of things going on in "Beneath Still Waters", but only very little of them make sense and it seems as if Yuzna doesn't want you to care about any of the characters and the grim ordeals they are facing. The events take place in a remote Spanish village, days before the great 40th anniversary celebration of the dam that prevented the area from flooding and the subsequent foundation of a brand new town called Desbaria. Few people know, however, the dam initially served to deliberately drown the entire town of Marienbad, because all the inhabitants were gradually joining the satanic cult led by Mordecai Salas. Two ruthless boys accidentally saved Salas from a watery death right before the town sunk entirely, and he has been waiting forty years now to seek revenge on the descendants of the previous mayor. So … what we have here is, without exaggerating, one of the most promising horror premises of the past two decades AND you can also add several dynamite sub themes like nudity, child-kill, underwater zombies and even a totally gratuitous orgy complete with nuns and chickens! Can someone please tell me where exactly this idea went wrong? Yuzna leaps from one subject to another without paying attention to continuity and for some reason he also inserts numerous tedious elements. All the main characters are bland and of course the really wooden acting performances of the ensemble cast don't help. Most of the players appear to be dead long before their characters drown in the lake or become "consumed" by the living mucus & seaweed. Such a dam(n) shame, because the Spanish filming locations are genuinely ominous! For the proper grim use of picturesque Spanish villages, please check out "Dagon" and "The Nun", which are both films Yuzna produced but not directed himself.

BENEATH STILL WATERS suffers from a soggy script, poorly developed characters, situations that make no sense, and a story that becomes increasingly boring after a wonderfully creepy start.PATRICK GORDON is the restless demon at the bottom of a dam, seeking vengeance on the townspeople after decades of silence and the death of a small boy who was curious enough to free his binds. The story jumps from that '65 incident to the present, with another death in the water prompting a diver/journalist by the name of Quarry (MICHAEL McKELL) to start an investigation of his own.Located in Spain, the film uses a mostly Spanish cast with lackluster results. Between segments of story exposition there are a few graphic horror moments, but none of it really jells as a whole--in other words, the total effect is not as gripping as it ought to be in a tale of this sort. The make-up for some of the loathsome creatures are gruesome and malevolent enough, but there's a lack of real tension and no real build-up of suspense after an excellent start.The overall impression is simply a horror film that never lives up to its potential and provides only a few really chilling moments.