The Tank

All of my life I've seen horror films. Along with science fiction and fantasy, these are my staple. I've seen more than three decades of movies and TV shows.

This film's premise is about a creature that has adapted to stalking its prey in absolute darkness. The creature has spawned and is expanding its territory. Ironically the creature's next prey are human beings, themselves invaders of the animal kingdom. This seems almost like a documentary, the way I've explained the creature and its habits.

The movie is about a family of three moving into the owner's parents house that was left abandoned for many years following an accident.

Soon they discover they are not alone, and something sinister is stalking them that lives under their house.

Verdict: average acting, above average real special effects not CGI, good sound-effects and photography. But the script and direction is questionable. Don't expect a solid climax to a film like this with a bad script. The movie's ending leads me to believe possibly a sequel is on the way, not that I'd be intrigued enough to see it.

More classic creature movies: The Silver Bullet(1985), The Monster Squad(1987), Killer Klowns From Outer Space(1988) and Tremors(1990).

Thank you for reading this review and as Mister Spock always says: live long and prosper.

If you survive the first 40 minutes or so (of introduction) without falling into Morpheus's gentle and comforting arms, you get a pretty standard "horror" flick with some monsters, lots of stupid decisions, in the end I rooted for the beasts. The Tank tries to be something like The Descent but can't compete on any level - production, story, thrill, acting, everything is inferior to The Descent. The premise of The Tank is not that bad, maybe even interesting, but the execution is, well, just boring. Recommendation: if you want to really waste some time (like I did), maybe with the notion that you are immortal and you have a lot of time to waste, put The Tank on your menu, if not, watch something else.

There are some good things about this movie - I don't mind the creatures and there were some creepy bits, but this is overshadowed by the ridiculous bits. Like pouring your super irritating chemicals into the water of a massive tank as if they won't just dilute immediately. Or wandering around in the dark wondering if something is out there while something out in the forest makes prehistoric noises that would scare the hell out of anyone. The most puzzling bit is the disappearing windows of cars. These disappear to let beasties in but then reappear when the danger is over. It is amazingly lazy filmmaking. I'm prepared to suspend logic for a horror but the disappearing window glass took it that step too far.

I'm a huge Creature-Feature fan, so when I heard about this movie I was immediately intrigued but after seeing the first ratings my expectations were limited a bit, but I was still excited to watch the movie. The movie really takes its time before something significant happens. A couple drives to a secluded cabin in the woods, which the husband received after the death of his mother. As soon as they arrive they check the place out and after some time they hear noises from a nearby tank. Then the movie progresses with short and dark shots of the creature and lots of growling and crawling noises. This goes on for some time before the first off-screen kill happens. Towards the end however you get to see the creatures in their full beauty, which are made with practical effects and that's always good. In general I think the creature design was good and made me curious about their origin. Some characters definitely had severe plot armor which is always an annoyance and there are several stupid decisions throughout the movie but these things are nothing new in most horror movies and since I'm a sucker for Creature-Features, I definitely had a good time with this movie. If you manage to survive the rather boring first half of the movie I think you are going to enjoy the third act even though this movie is definitely no masterpiece. Watch out for the mid credit scene. [5,9/10]

How are movies like this still being made? Movies that offer absolutely nothing new or creative in any way. I get that there are only a finite amount of ideas for a story out there, but even if you're doing something that has been done before you can at least put your own spin on it. 'The Tank' is as bad as films get.

I don't want to be too harsh on this film, so I'll just list a few of the things I didn't like without going into too much detail. I thought the creatures weren't very impressive visually and they conveniently only attacked when it was necessary to the story. Otherwise they would just sit there making gargling sounds. Also the film puts a child right in the middle of the story who is extremely annoying and also guarantees the safety of certain characters. There is nothing that kills the tension in a horror movie more than kids.

The dialogue is bland and completely lacking in creativity, the movie doesn't know how to build tension in a scene, the setting isn't scary and the acting is poor. I did not like this film. A generous 2.5/10.