[Beneath Still Waters]
Plot:In 1965, in Northern Spain, a dam will be built to bring progress to the location of Desbaria and the town of Marienbad is near to be completely flooded. Two boys, Teo and Luis, cross the security boundary to play in the evacuated town and Teo listen to voices in the abandoned church. They find a group of strange people chained in the watered basement, Teo releases their leader Mordecai Salas and is killed by him.

Forty years later, in the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Debaria Dam, the teenager Antonio vanishes in the lake while swimming with his girlfriend Susana and their friend Clara Borgia. The police divers, with the support of the outsider cameraman journalist Dan Quarry that is filming the submerged Marienbad to write a matter about the town, try unsuccessfully to find the body. When eerie things happen in the spot, Dan and the local journalist and daughter of the builder of the dam Teresa Borgia disclose dark secrets about Marienbad, Salas and his evil cult of the power of the flame.

Cast: Omar Muñoz, Santiago Pasaglia, Eva Pont, Norberto Morán, Patrick Gordon, Charlotte Salt, Antonio Portillo, Pilar Soto, Damià Plensa, Michael McKell, Raquel Meroño, María Borrego, Ricardo Birnbaum, José María Pou, Carlos Castañón.

My Thoughts:Would've been okay if not americanized.

Review:The spanish horror pic "Beneath Still Waters" takes one of the few unique approaches to the supernatural horror genre I've seen in quite awhile. The film follows a spanish town which was drowned and it's residents left to die. Why? Well that's revealed later on in the movie, and it's quite an interesting explanation of events as well. It seems that a man who learned the black arts from Aliester Crowley, the notorious satanist had influenced the town to the point of where it had become a mini-version of hell so to speak. Er go, a woman's father decided to drown the town to kill off the man, his disciples, and keep the evil from spreading. Now 40 years later after the films opening scene which is quite creepy and unsettling, and takes place on the final day before the evil town is plunged underwater, the evil from below has risen to the surface. Normally Brian Yuzna makes some great films, "Rottweiler" being one of my favorites. This film however was just average, and mostly because it's a spanish film that clashes with american behavior, from a horror film standpoint.

As an american, I am very familiar with how "our version' of the genre flows. People are put into a really fucked up situation, and make immensely foolish mistakes which result in assured death. While "Beneath Still Waters" creates a very creative way of building up it's villain, and his backstory, once the villain escapes his watery grave and begins spreading his brand of evil once more, the film then goes down that "american" path where the victims of his wrath just make stupid decisions which end up getting them killed. There's nothing more annoying than watching a film where the characters actually seem to want to die. I'm serious about this, there's one scene where a man drinks a bottle of scotch that rises out of the water mysteriously, and has a string attached to it.

Upon drinking the scotch, a grotesque looking demon rises from the water and instead of running like hell, the guy stumbles over to a pipe, and hides behind it. It's things like this that become a nusiance throughout the film, and that's not even mentioning the fact that the guy drinks a bottle of scotch he pulled out of the freaking water! I mean it's a trick that even Wile E. Coyote wouldn't have fallen for. This is what I mean when I say the film is too "americanized" with it's script. The villain in the film is played very well by Patrick Gordon, who gives a very scary portrayal of a truly evil warlock type.

The guy also shows flashes of a younger version of "Phantasm"'s tallman. He even dresses similar to the tallman. "Beneath Still Waters" for a film involving the occult, certainly does manage to tackle the subject matter alot more vividly, realistically, and pretty much sticks with basics instead of sensationalizing it for outrageous purposes like some other films do. Watching this movie, you get the feeling that you're seeing evil personified in the villain, and real black arts used. Although it's a movie, the way things are set up give off a more realistic tone than some of the other more superficial supernatural horror films made where you right off the bat feel the writer went nuts thinking about how much cool "devil stuff" he could make the villain perform on screen.

The film really kicks into high gear in it's final act, but it's really hard to find many positives with this movie beyond what I mentioned due to the characters being so one-dimensional and written so poorly. To top it all off, just when one thinks the "scotch guy" scene couldn't be topped, there's another scene where a female character meets her untimely demise that actually manages to surpass the "scotch guy" scene in it's level of stupidity and utter lameness.

The film does offer up some very bloody death scenes though, and one very twisted one which comes near the end, but for the most part this picture relies more on supernaturally driven deaths instead of the visual approach of blood and limbs all over the place. Although it does blend some of that in with everything else. "Beneath Still Waters" does do some interesting new things with the supernatural elements inplemented into it's make up, but a lack of character development and most importantly common sense, really serve to hurt the film.

Positives:Great performance by Patrick Gordon, some good gruesome deaths, some very original spin put on the A-Typical supernatural horror film.

Negatives:A lack of character development and common sense which is too blatant and too obvious not to become a nusiance.

Overall:Decent supernatural horror film with a few new wrinkles here and there.





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