The Outwaters

The Outwaters is a relatively ambitious but ultimately boring and self-indulgent Found Footage film. Despite the clear effort, and some truly excellent sequences- the majority of this film is very boring and lacks a clear direction. There is almost no characterization, very little plot, and very annoying sound design. Considering the circumstances around this movie (the budget, and the fact that this is basically a one man mission) - You can't help but be impressed at this ambitious mess at times. I hope that this director continues to improve, being a fellow New-Jerseyan, but I will never be re-visiting this one.

Before I start my review, let me state categorically that the editing is absolutely awful; what might have easily been a 90-minute (or less) feature has been stretched to nearly a 2-hour duration, for reasons I cannot comprehend.

Returning to the main course, as a follower of Found-Footage, I had high hopes for it, but it let me down big time. First and foremost, there is no visible urgency, and the incidents that take place have no clear explanation. Everything has been shrouded in vague, almost pretentious hallucinogenic images that makes little sense without context.

Yes, there's a lot of blood and elements of bodily mutilation, so gore fans may rejoice, but my point is, does having blood all over make it vile? That definitely makes for uneasy viewing, but does it truly intimidate? Especially in this day and age when people are so accustomed to seeing gore and brutality onscreen?

To summarise, it's a massive disappointment; it may placate a particular segment of the audience, and if you're one of them, I'm happy for you, but it didn't work for me at all! I admire the effort and ambition, but not the final product.

P. S. Terrific work with the Sound but alas! It had all gone to waste.

You won't know what's going on. But not in a "over your head" artistic kind if way. More of a "not going to explain it because I don't know how" bad filmmaker kind of way.

The story is non-existent and won't ever be explained so don't hold your breath. And again, not explaining your story isn't artistic, it's lazy. High concepts are confusing. But confusion isn't high concept.

The acting is good and the poor cast shines early when the movie is setting up for its terrible 2nd and 3rd acts.

Look I'm an expert in found footage. I've seen them all. I love the genre and I can even find beauty and meaning in the Bad Ben series of films.

But THIS? Skip it. It's just a mish mash of gore and severely limited views. What an overrated mess. Omg.

So I don't understand, was it just the same sequence over and over again? I have no idea. It seemed like it could be really scary but instead it felt like ground hog day of strange sounds and a couple images... did I miss something? Was my stream stuck on repeat or was it actually repeating the same footage over and over for 2 hours. Did anything change? Maybe I didn't really watch the entire movie, maybe I just think I did? I honestly have no idea what happened other than something with sounds and blood. Someone please explain so I know if I actually watched a movie or am I trapped in my own imaginary nightmare!!!! The only thing I understood was the beginning words on the screen and the end photos. Everything else was... I have no idea.

This movie is somehow very comparable to Skinamarink and that's not a good thing at all. You have absolutely no idea what's going on the entire runtime and it's full of horrible filmmaking with extremely dark shots with a flashlight every once in a while. If the darkness bothers you, don't worry because you'll end up getting screams and running with no context. If that doesn't bother you then you'll just be treated to random footage thrown together going from night to day and so on and so on. I really don't know what the heck was going on in this movie. If it's this easy to make a movie then maybe I need to pick up my iPhone and just start shooting random footage and ask a studio to buy my horribly shot movie and release it theatrically to piss everyone off. Apparently it's that's easy in 2023.