The Pond

Some stiff acting, that to me felt intentional. Great visuals and camera work. In my opinion, this story is a great concept that went beyond my expectations of "hallucinations" that are often done in these types of movies. Not a movie for the casual viewer, certainly worth the watch if you like strange films and the occult.

A man starts hallucinating sinister images involving his family and the locals.

I didn't like this movie. The acting is really bad but the visuals are good. It's a very aesthetically pleasing film. Although it does do things that so many other movies have done like the creepy animal masks, that trope has been done to death lately, I just saw this in another movie that came out this year. The story is mildly interesting, but by the end i didn't really care. Again the imagery is really nice. I don't want to say it's all style but no substance, I think that harsh, I just didn't like the story or how it was executed and the subpar acting didn't help either.

One star for the cinematography, another star for the overall production, the last but not least for the nice looking wife.

It's very possible that I missed certain nuance throughout this film that further expanded the actual story...but it just was not good and did not make sense. It is shot well, but the acting is subpar, the characters are not properly explained, the dialogue is clunky, and it uses an audio overlay instead of live audio...so you see their lips moving but it's clear you're hearing something different.

The plot is some guy testing a water source and interacting with hallucinations that aren't hallucinations? It's not explained. It's just people walking around with paper bags on their heads and the main character losing his mind but nothing is explained at all. They attempt an explanation between the main character and his University lead and it is just word salad with a doom dressing.

It's just not a good story line ultimately, and that's it's entire issue. It had the budget and film crew to do something really creative, the story could have been really interesting, but the director chose to be vague when it came to the plot so you simply don't care what happens by the end because you're so bored or confused.

The film can be vague, but it should be understandable by your audience. Also, you need to give enough interesting character dialogue and show progression not to lose your viewer. Following general horror cliches with creepy kids, occult imagery, scary faces, and frightening toilet doors are not enough.

The Pond contains a very hazy and muffled general idea about hell, God, religion, and humanity. This is not, however, well communicated in the film besides some random disconnected pseudophilosophical dialogue delivered through acting so stiff its density cannot be penetrated by any known material in the world.

So, if you are not willing to bleed your brain you will most likely just feel extremely bored and confused throughout the film. Most viewers will catch the obvious symbolism (and homages to the classic films and literature) like the seven deadly sins projected through the characters, seven days of creation, and the circles, oh man, the circles. But these details serve no real purpose but to make the last 5 minutes of the film almost understandable.

Confused viewers might think this movie is too deep and smart for them just because it makes no sense - but it's not.

They should've just stuck to something understandable and time-tested. Want to show a visual representation of hell - borrow more from Jacob's Ladder, 1408, whatever. Want to tell a creepy occult story with interesting ideas buffed with existential crisis? Copy True Detective Season 1. Oh, wait, they have already done that. Want to explore religion? Make a dialogue-based film like The Man From Earth in the cool location you have, why not.

Just not everything at once.

I can't recommend this. 3/10, 1 star for the looks and visuals, 1 for the soundtrack (which felt confused about what it was trying to follow), 1 for Paul Leonard Murray's acting.