When you're writing about an independent, low-budget movie, it's important to keep things in perspective and lower expectations. Remember that unknown filmmakers can certainly make good, even great films, but that them majority of these efforts will be highly flawed by definition. Bearing that in mind, there is essentially nothing to recommend about The Taint, a purported horror movie with an incoherent plot, rigid acting, and (sadly) despicable gore that looks like it was shot on a Fisher-Price My First Movie Camera.
Even mainstream horror movies can be pretty simplistic in terms of story. People go into dark, isolated place and become terrorized by one or more deranged persons, masked or not. The key creativity in the most basic horror movies is in the various ways that characters meet their demise. Set the movie in a slaughterhouse, or maybe just a grocery store, then use the environment's objects to cause mayhem. But in The Taint, even this simplicity is completely derailed, with a storyline that is at times incomprehensible. And the worst part is that it just didn't need to be so.
The title refers to tainted water. Somehow (it's explained in the film) the water supply has been tainted so that the males who drink it become homicidal maniacs – but only toward women. Okay. It's plausible. Nothing wrong with the premise, but it's about the only not-wrong thing in the movie. Anyway, women are killed in various disgusting, gruesome ways, and I don't mean the typical Hollywood-overkill methods, either; these kills are so over the top that the guy behind Hostel thought it was too much. (Note: not really.) Heads are splattered with rocks and other objects or shotgunned, splitting the skull in twain.
Now, like I said, perspective is everything. It would be terribly unfair to compare this movie with full-fledged studio pictures. You have a fairly inexperienced cast with a fairly low budget. Directors Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson did do a lot with a little; the trouble is that they also did a little with a little. That is, the special effects aren't bad, and neither are the kick-ass soundtrack or the inventive opening credits. But perhaps they spent all their money on those areas and just plain didn't bother with such niceties as plot, character development, and so on. Oh, and acting lessons.
I suppose if you must see one people-driven-crazy-by-water movie, and The Crazies isn't available, you could give this a try. But be warned. It's visceral experience. There's hardly a bodily fluid spared. There's nudity, and it's never the good kind. In fact, there are more penises in this movie than any porno version of Rent could come up with. No, it's not a sex film. And somehow that makes it worse.
The Taint is never a pleasant movie to watch. There isn't really anyone to root for; the main character (Bolduc) is a guy, not a girl. And he just walks around looking puzzled most of the time. The death scenes lose their novelty quickly, mostly because they lack context. There's no setup, just killing and lots of it. It's almost a domesticated version of Cannibal Apocalypse, and if you recognize that title, this might be your movie. But overall, the movie is unintentionally funny more often than scary – much more often, in fact; it's almost as if the filmmakers forgot that even the goriest movies have to have something behind the bloody mayhem to really sell the scares. You need believable characters, even if they do wind up slaughtered. Give the audience a reason to care that these people are being killed – otherwise, they're nothing more than fodder. You may as well use cardboard standees. You also need suspense, and there just isn't any in The Taint. There's just shock for the pure sake of shock, and even that wears thin pretty quickly.
Again, it's a low-budget movie filmed guerrilla style. It could be a cult hit, but maybe only after a hundred years or more have passed and some film scholar "discovers" it; then they'll have midnight mind showings (you know, direct projection into the brain – are you listening, Netflix?) and build a phenomenon. "Look at the movies people were making in the 2000s!" they'll say. "Boy, how silly!" Only they'd use updated slang.
The Taint is a current version of Manos: Hands of Fate or even Eegah!, two movies now known for just being terrible efforts but that have enjoyed some sort of recognition for their own ineptitude. So at least it has that potential.
