MOVIE REVIEW: BLACK WATER: ABYSS

A sequel of sorts to the excellent Man vs Nature thriller Black Water, Black Water: Abyss carves out its own niche in the subgenre.

It’s always a good start for a horror film to show us the threat to come before establishing the main cast. This was done quite effectively in Jaws and many such films have followed suit sense. The menace is now a known factor to the audience as two hapless Japanese vacationers meet a grisly fate after falling into a cave system while trekking in the Australian outback. With the threat now realised by the audience the tension has been set as are free to learn about our characters who we know will somehow find their way to this dangerous local.

Much like cavern horror adventure The Descent the director sets up interpersonal conflict in the first moments of introducing the leads. As quartet of friends plan on an adventure vacation of exploring a new cave system we see that all is not well as Jennifer is secretly searching through her boyfriend, Eric’s, phone for something. Introduced shortly thereafter to their best friends, another couple, Yolanda and Viktor as well as their guide Cash. It turns out that Viktor has recently recovered from cancer and both he and Jennifer are far less adventurous than their companions. Additionally Yolanda is secretly pregnant, though Jennifer susses this out quickly. With these elements in play the film moves rapidly to begin the adventure.

A trope and staple of many horror films involve isolating the cast from help and safety. This is accomplished by having a large storm sweep in while our protagonists are underground with the rain created a flash flood in the area forcing water from a nearby river into the caves below. The quintet find themselves suddenly trapped but far worse is the fact that these caves are the den of a very large saltwater crocodile. Taking inspiration from Neil Marshall’s The Descent, the director uses only the lights carried by the hapless humans to light the caverns to create an atmosphere of claustrophobic dread throughout the film. Further director Andrew Traucki outdoes Jaws in my opinion by never giving us the crocodile’s pov. We only experience the croc as the character’s themselves do, as wakes, trails of bubbles and glimpses of the beast before getting a few clear looks at the reptile towards the end of the film. I personally think this added a great deal of tension to the scenes as it literally puts you in the same place mentally as the characters wondering, where is it? The film escalates the action with the floodwaters continuing to rise in the cave, forcing the victims to have to seek new ways out of their predicament as the rising tide brings the water and its terrors to them. I often found myself on the edge of my seat in fear for the characters, which is a somewhat rare feat to manage for a jaded old horrorphile like myself. Kudos to the director for this achievement.

The acting is solid and serviceable, not quite the caliber of the cast of The Descent, but still quite good. I could get behind each of the cast in terms of actions and motivations, from the thrillseekers to their wallflower partners to Cash’s desire to be as alpha male as his best friend Eric but never quite able to pull it off. It all seemed suitably believable and acceptable from a character and story standpoint to me. By and large I really enjoyed this suspenseful thrill ride and though similar to a few other films Black Water: Abyss holds its own quite well in my book. My biggest issue comes with the final scene which I honestly thought should have ended with the death a character, as they survive the croc’s final assault in an extremely improbable way if you were to ask me. It doesn’t ruin the film but it feels a bit unearned and honestly I think it would have made a greater impact and said more about this character if they had died in this final moment doing something truly selfless and heroic in spite of things that occurred in the movie.

SCORE: 4.5/5