The Watermen

Having seen the trailer for this film, I thought it looked quite promising, I was pulled in by the fact that Jason Mewes was in it and am a fan of the Jay and Silent Bob films. What a disappointment throughout, hammy acting and a poorly thought out story line make for a long drawn out waste of an hour and a half. Jason Mewes tries his best to revive the Jay character that he is famous for, but fails dismally. It is almost embarrassing to watch as he does it. I wouldn't even recommend this film as a last resort, pure drivel! The only thing I found mildly enjoying was finding the story flaws, of which there are many.

Three guys and three girls charter a fishing cruise. The boat breaks down and they are distressed as they drift helplessly in the ocean. They are finally rescued by a passing fishing trawler which gives them water. They eagerly drink up and pass out from the tampered bottles. It's a brutal ocean cruise of horrors as the cannibal fishermen gleefully torture the young people.

This is simple torture porn. It's not that imaginative. The guys are too douchey. The girls are all T&A. The girls do end up with individual characters after escaping their bonds. This movie does certain things well but nothing great. The fishermen need to be more specific. I could never be certain how many they are exactly. There are some gruesome kills. This is only for fans of this type of torture porn horror who don't expect much.

This thriller starts in medias res, as a girl is being hunter at night in the swamp by a couple of hulking goons in fishermen's attire. After she meets her fate, we are introduced to six fine pieces of trash Americana leisuring in a posh villa. The 3 girls look right out of a bikini-happy euro-dance music video and the 3 guys, who use "Dude" at the beginning of each sentence, probably hit the gym 3 times a day. This fine group of clueless bourgeoisie get ready for a fishing trip (duh ?) in the middle of the sea.

Before they embark, they stop by some kind of store run by an old fisherman that sells them "special" bait. Turns out the bait if made of human flesh, as the 6 airheads will soon discover.

To its credit, this movie is slickly directed and photographed. Nocturnal swamp scenes could have easily turned into one giant black screen with dialogue in any other B-movie, but the director of photography knew what he was doing. It all looks quite professional.

It's all the more sorry that there's not a single novel idea in the movie that could save it from instant disposability. Clichés abound, and quite cringe-worthy ones, I'll tell you : one of the girls, who didn't know what she was getting into, is actually the lead's former girlfriend, of course they fall in love again, everybody gets drunk before the drama begins, the first ones to die are the hottest and dumbest but they still show their tits, the villains talk some kind of Russian, the main goon comes back from the dead so often that you feel like you're watching another "Friday the 13th" installment, the male lead drops his shirt for completely out-of-place action sequences, there's a baton-of-fire fight that looks more like capoeira than a real fight for survival, and I forget some.

This movie's been done before a hundred times (and the director must have seen all hundred) spanning the whole gamut of Hollywood genres : survival, action, romance, stoner comedy... Still, it's done professionally, and past the 1st 40 minutes, it moves fast enough that an undemanding audience will have its fun, as did I. And it doesn't hurt that the whole cast (male & female) is goddamn gorgeous and not shy of dropping their tops.

We got a signed copy of the movie from a local convention. I had heard about the behaviors and opinions of the people who live out in Guinea, and I was intrigued that they turned them into these psychopathic freaks. We definitely wanted to support local film makers and that's the extent of my interest in this film. I expected the campiness, bad acting, low budget, confusing plots, and excessive gore. The rape and torture was a little much for my taste. But if you like the wrong turns, the hills have eyes, and Texas chainsaw type movies, it will hit the spot but you have to be able to work past all the amateur aspects of it. It's pretty gorey. Like hostile. Like the saws. It's very disturbing. I won't watch it again. I just wanted to support the local film makers.

THE WATERMEN is one of the most terrible of slasher films: one of those films that's completely fake from beginning to end. The awful script was written by somebody with a tin ear who just has no feel for proper, realistic dialogue; what we get instead are insults traded between a group of jerks, the kind of characters who can't die quickly enough.

The storyline is predictable in the extreme and not dissimilar to the similar Icelandic flick, HARPOON. A group of annoying youths take a boat out into the water, only to find themselves subjected to sabotage. They're subsequently rescued by the crew of a fishing boat who turn out to have less than charitable intentions.

The appalling Jason Mewes unfortunately plays the horrid leading character, who gets way too much screen time. He's surrounded by fat, ageing guys playing the villains and various silicon-enhanced bimbos (who spend their entire time parading around in and out of bikinis) as his associates. The gore, when it comes, is entirely lacking and the film as a whole stinks to high heaven. You have been warned.