Beneath Still Waters

Brian Yuzna is a director who almost never has disappointed me. He's inventive and he knows what fans wants. The only ones that I haven't liked is "The Progeny" and "Tarzan: The Epic Adventures TV Movie". But after moving to Spain to join Filmax developed label Fantastic Factory things have begun to go downwards. I really liked "Beyond Re-Animator" but his "Rottweiler" was just terrible. I was very, very disappointed with that movie. And now we have "Beneath Still Waters".

The story is about a water filled ghost town with a dark past. Strange things are happening and people are showing up dead. A female reporter and a newly arrived photo journalist are teaming up to investigate the surroundings. Sounds pretty good to me.

First I must say I liked it a whole lot better than "Rottweiller" but it still left me very unsatisfied. Things aren't developed very good, the characters are not that interesting, the gore is there but it leaves much more to be desired, there's too little monster action, we've seen the ending hundreds of time before etc.

I'm not saying I didn't like it, I was just expecting more. Some good diving footage, one cool monster, some tension and atmosphere, a cool beginning, Diana Peñalver ("Braindead") in a small part. But overall a rather tame effort by Yuzna. You can do better.

I'd heard nothing but bad things about this film; but decided to track it down anyway simply because it has so much promise. For a start it was directed by Brian Yuzna' part of the creative genius behind Re-Animator and director of horror masterpieces Society and Return of the Living Dead 3; and secondly, the plot; which is based on a book by Matthew Costello, sounded like a great base for a horror movie. I figured that with these two elements in place, things couldn't possibly be as bad as I'd heard. Well...to say things went wrong would be an understatement. The plot focuses on a Spanish village named Marienbad; a place where the locals are gradually succumbing to a Satanic cult lead by a man named Mordecai Salas. Someone or other has hatched a plan involving building a dam to flood the town and it's inhabitants; but the plan fails when a couple of no good kids end up freeing the cult leader before the town is engulfed in water. Fast forward forty years and the village of Desbaria stands in its place; though the cult leader is waiting for his revenge.

The film gets off to a really good start as we watch a couple of kids traverse across a flooded town and into a brilliantly realised Satanic church where they are greeted by a group of bewitched locals. But once this is over and we move into the present day, things start to go downhill. The main problem with the film is that it's a mess. There are a handful of good ideas but they haven't been put together coherently which takes most of the credibility away from the film. The film also feels very cheap; the poor acting doesn't help in this respect, and neither does the turgid script which is littered with trite lines of dialogue. The film does feature some nice locations, which is nice, but that's really the only good thing I have to say about it. Anyone who has seen more than a few Brian Yuzna films will know that the director likes to let things descend into chaos so he can show a wave of graphic images; and that happens here, but it's not as good as it was in the likes of Society and really just caps off a very disappointing effort. I wouldn't hesitate to name this as Yuzna's worst alongside Faust: Love of the Damned, and only hardcore fans need apply.

After years producing and directing in the US, Brian Yuzna eventually left the States to set up shop in Spain; judging by the awful Beneath Still Waters, he's either been overdoing the Sangria or not taking enough siestas. Whatever the reason, it's hard to believe that this mess was directed by the same guy that gave us the twisted classic Society and the delightfully gory Return Of The Living Dead 3.

Yuzna's watery waste-of-time starts in the abandoned Spanish town of Marienbad, with two boys freeing Mordecai Salas, the leader of a Satanic cult, just as the area is about to be flooded by a new dam. Forty years later, as the locals prepare to mark the anniversary of Desbaria, the town that was built to replace Marienbad, a series of strange deaths occur which suggest that Salas, trapped deep beneath the water for so long, is about to surface. In order to save Desbaria, a photojournalist named Dan (Michael McKell), a TV news reporter, Teresa (Raquel Meroño), and her pretty daughter Clara (Charlotte Salt) must do battle with the supernatural forces that are intent on destroying the town.

Featuring a European cast who, with the exception of a couple of Brits, struggle with the English dialogue, Beneath Still Waters is a badly scripted, poorly acted and dreary piece of nonsense that is enlivened occasionally by some fairly decent gore and loads of nudity. Yuzna's direction is uninspired, there is far too much reliance on cheap digital effects during the many underwater scenes, and the story often makes little or no sense (eg. why does Salas wait for forty years under the lake before emerging?).

To be fair, Yuzna does manage one or two inspired moments—the best being the town's celebration, which turns into a debauched orgy—but with so much mundane drivel between the few high points, Beneath Still Waters deserves to sink without a trace.

The picture packs thrills, chills , terror and lots of blood and gore . Horror and fantasy based on a novel "Beneath Still Waters" by Matthew Costello with screenplay by Angel Sala , though partially inspired by the master H.P. Lovecraft . A forgotten legend lives again , half a century ago they thought they had buried this horror forever. But you can't kill what was never really alive . And the massive stone walls of the Dam must soon burst and what was an incredible myth, will become a deadly reality . Everyone's been evacuated - just the church, the homes, the abandoned shops remain . Only the eerie buildings...still hiding secrets that no one suspects . The two boys walk through the doomed ghost town . But the boys discover that the town isn't quite deserted . Time passes, and the whispered secrets of the town have been long forgotten. But now, fifty years after vanishing, the sunken town comes alive again. A boy vanishes swimming on a moonlit night while his girlfriend Susana (Pilar Soto) and their friend Clara (Charlotte Salt) looks on . Meanwhile , a cameraman diver Dan Quarry (Michael McKell) is shooting the submerged Marienbad and a TV reporter (Raquel Meroño) discovers ancient secrets .

"Beneath Still Waters¨ tells an incredible story of terror , monster killers and including fantastic touches . B-entertainment with a fairly suspenseful and horrifying story about an old fanatic cult , an evil being and his followers . As it packs horror , suspense , plot-twists , tension , chills , guts , thrills with sensationalistic scenes . This tale about a journalist mother and daughter of the builder of the dam played by Raquel Meroño , her daughter performed by Charlotte Salt and a diver acted by Michael McKell , all of them are involved into a twisted as well as terrifying intrigue begins well and grows more and more until a downbeat finale . Spanish secondary cast is pretty good but frankly wasted playing ridiculous roles , there appears notorious actors , such as Manuel Manquiña , Jose Maria Pou and Diana Peñalver who starred the Peter Jackson classic titled ¨Braindead¨. The film contains tension , thriller , drama , mystery , twists and shocks , including decent scares with tense sequences especially in its final part , in a unexpected denouement . There is a homage to Jacinto Molina when in the city of Marienbad before it floods , the boys throw rocks at posters for ¨Creature from the Black Lagoon¨ or ¨La Mujer y Monstruo¨ and "El Rostro de la Bestia," which has credits for Paul Naschy and Brian Yuzna ; there is no such movie, but Yuzna did direct Naschy in 'Rottweiler (2004)'. The flick was finely produced by the chairman of Filmax and Castelao Productions , Julio Fernandez who along with his brother Carlos Fernandez are two successful producers and experts on Horror genre , producers of hits as ¨The machinist¨ ,¨ Fragiles¨, ¨Darkness¨, ¨Rec 1¨, ¨Rec 2¨ , ¨Rec 3¨ and many others . Good makeup on the freakish half-human creatures . Passable images about the sunk village and dam explosion , both of them are made by means of computer generator . Colorful cinematography by Johnny Yebra filmed on location in Boadilla del Monte, Navas del Rey and Pelayos De la Presa, Madrid, Spain .

The motion picture was regularly directed by Brian Yuzna ,a gore and guts expert director (Faust, Dentist 1,2 , Society, Bride Reanimator). Often uses harsh, bright lighting and soft blue hues in his movies . Brian Yuzna along with Stuart Gordon are important American filmmakers expert on terror cinema , both of whom working for Castelao , Fantastic Factory or Filmax . Rating : Average but some moment entertaining.

Brian Yuzna was already responsible for some really crazy and unusual horror projects in the past; some of them refreshing and original ("Society", "The Dentist") and other ones unspeakably terrible ("Rottweiler"), but "Beneath Still Waters" is undoubtedly the most discouraging effort he was ever involved in. This film certainly doesn't look as if it were directed by someone with over twenty years of experience in the genre, because the wholesome simply feels amateurish and unfinished. How can a concept holding so much horrific potential result in such a boring and incoherent mess? How can one film feature so many exquisite filming locations, nauseating make-up effects and thoroughly depraved themes and still turn out a complete failure? I love macabre tales handling about sunken villages and the dark secrets that drowned with them. There are way too few films like this in the horror genre and of the two I encountered during the past year, one is obscure as hell and remains unreleased on DVD to this date (the modest Swiss production entitled "Marmorera") and the other one - this particular film - is a missed opportunity. There are a lot of things going on in "Beneath Still Waters", but only very little of them make sense and it seems as if Yuzna doesn't want you to care about any of the characters and the grim ordeals they are facing. The events take place in a remote Spanish village, days before the great 40th anniversary celebration of the dam that prevented the area from flooding and the subsequent foundation of a brand new town called Desbaria. Few people know, however, the dam initially served to deliberately drown the entire town of Marienbad, because all the inhabitants were gradually joining the satanic cult led by Mordecai Salas. Two ruthless boys accidentally saved Salas from a watery death right before the town sunk entirely, and he has been waiting forty years now to seek revenge on the descendants of the previous mayor. So … what we have here is, without exaggerating, one of the most promising horror premises of the past two decades AND you can also add several dynamite sub themes like nudity, child-kill, underwater zombies and even a totally gratuitous orgy complete with nuns and chickens! Can someone please tell me where exactly this idea went wrong? Yuzna leaps from one subject to another without paying attention to continuity and for some reason he also inserts numerous tedious elements. All the main characters are bland and of course the really wooden acting performances of the ensemble cast don't help. Most of the players appear to be dead long before their characters drown in the lake or become "consumed" by the living mucus & seaweed. Such a dam(n) shame, because the Spanish filming locations are genuinely ominous! For the proper grim use of picturesque Spanish villages, please check out "Dagon" and "The Nun", which are both films Yuzna produced but not directed himself.