I wonder what the US would be without cryptozoology? It seems every darn town have their monster to attract tourists with - or even better, get some reality show to come and investigate. It must be most of the income of the rednecks over there! I love Bigfoot as much as everyone else, it’s a great character to build a story around… and I’m sure we haven’t seen the end of it. But of course the filmmakers are looking for other, more unorthodox ideas.
Last year we saw The Frankenstein Theory, which dealt with - surprise - the monster of Frankenstein. Not bad, but not amazing either. A weak ending easily can the destroy a whole movie. So it feels logical the vampire is next in line in the found footage sub-genre of horror films, and The Black Water Vampire feels a lot like the above mentioned Frankenstein flick.
The Black Water killer is a newly arrested serial killer (played by Bill Oberst Jr, in a great cameo), but a young female documentary filmmaker is skeptical. There wasn’t any physical proof he did it, and the whole case was built around his confession. So she and her team goes up to Black Water to make a doc about the murders - and maybe find the real killer. But the people acts odd and soon they’re followed by something way more scary than a “normal”, human, madman…
The Black Water Vampire is far from the worst found footage film I’ve seen, but it’s also far from the best one. The basic set-up is a little bit too similar to The Blair Witch Project to feel fresh, and even if the actors aren’t bad at all, the story and execution feels a little bit too generic. Not engaging enough. By mixing vampire lore with the deep forrests of the US, this could have been a creepy and cool movie - now it’s just a decent horror-thriller, but that’s about it. The visuals look good - it has a professional look (which is excellent, we’re talking footage from a supposed documentary expedition here, and it wouldn’t look amateurish) and the editing is pretty sharp.
But it misses something. There’s something not right, like the filmmakers let the passion at home and focused on the business side of the film. There’s a lot of familiar ground here. It’s a good example of playing it safe.
I shouldn’t complain so much. It’s entertaining and the last half hour is especially good, especially when it comes to the nice and very classic monster make-up. It lacks the horror atmosphere, but at least it’s not boring. And Robin Steffen, playing the sound guy is very hot. Alright, enough about that. Actually, on his upcoming movies on IMDB there’s a film called Day of the Mummy. Sounds cool. And he’s hot in that intellectual way. Alrighty then.
The Black Water Vampire is not a bad found footage film. The effects are nice and the story works, but I wish they could have gone further into vampire territory, gone a bit more extreme. Maybe mixed it more into something resembling true crime AND fiction. But you can’t have it all. I know, I know…
"I wonder what the US would be without cryptozoology?"
Maybe a more boring country, I guess....but I love it......from the Skunk ape to the Thunderbird can be entertaining.
"By mixing vampire lore with the deep forrests of the US, this could have been a creepy and cool movie - now it’s just a decent horror-thriller, but that’s about it."
That´s too bad.....more vamps in fake footage, sounds ok to me.
"I shouldn’t complain so much. It’s entertaining and the last half hour is especially good, especially when it comes to the nice and very classic monster make-up. It lacks the horror atmosphere, but at least it’s not boring."
Not boring and with decent effects?
I could watch that....
"The Black Water Vampire is not a bad found footage film. The effects are nice and the story works, but I wish they could have gone further into vampire territory, gone a bit more extreme. Maybe mixed it more into something resembling true crime AND fiction. But you can’t have it all. I know, I know…"
Yeah, you can´t have it all.....good review and thanks.
Posted by: Megatron | April 12, 2014 at 01:05