The Reeds (2010)

Ever since its inception, I’ve been a fan of the After Dark horror film fests with their 8 films to die for. Every year I get excited about the new crop, and every year I’m usually disappointed. So far, it looks like this year is no different.

The Reeds is a British film  about a group of young people whom rent a boat for the weekend. They travel down the swampy channels of a river only to encounter disaster and mayhem after the boat hits bottom and leaves them stranded.

The Reeds sports some gorgeous cinematography, decent acting, and mediocre directing. The major problem here is the terrible script. What starts out as a by the numbers horror flick turns into a ghostly parallel universe plot  that was neither well thought out nor properly executed. The whole film felt like a rough draft of what would have been an impressive story. Instead the film is intolerably predictable, with the characters motivations and actions being questionable at best. The film is based on a short story and perhaps that was a stronger piece of work because in the end, The Reeds is a different kind of piece.  As a side note, the awesome original poster, which sold me on the film, is now nowhere to be found online, and is replace by this crappy red poster pictured above. Weird.

3/10

Gore: mild

Nudity: a fat guy’s butt.