No.189 : The Drownsman (2014)

The Drownsman at the IMDb

These cheap films that you find on The Horror Channel, with made up words for titles, don’t have to be dreadful - we recently enjoyed ‘The Hexecutioners’ - but this one certainly was.

We open in a ‘Saw’ type basement with a  shadowy figure abusing a bunch of women who he has in water filled tanks. We later learn that he gets his kicks from listening to their heartbeats as they drown. This was due to him being an 18 lb baby that gestated for 19 months - I bet that made Mommy Drownsman’s eyes water!

One lady fights back and manages to stab the bad guy with a sliver of broken fish tank. Movie done? Alas no - there is no body and it looks like we are dealing with something from the supernatural.

We then meet Madison, a sort of blander Anne Hathaway, who on being made maid of honour for her friend’s wedding celebrates by slipping on a beer bottle and falling into the lake. As she flounders she has visions of a shadowy man, similar to the chap in the preamble. Hope it’s the same one, or we have two of these guys to sort out. Madison is pulled from the water but is changed by the incident, developing a pathological fear of water, so much so that she has to inject all her fluids. Her bathing and toilet habits are not disclosed.

A year passes and she misses her friend’s wedding due it having rained. Her friends are pissed off at her hydrophobia and stage an intervention with a psychic, who is wise in all things water demonic. The intervention goes as expected with the shadowy chap, now officially called ‘The Drownsman’ showing up, although not seen by all. This alerts The Drownsman to the girls’ presence and he starts to pick them off in a variety of aquatic ways - often through the medium of puddle.

Knowing their time is running out, Madison starts to research The Drownsman (wish I hadn’t) and learns things about her own family and possibly a way to get back at her tormentor. Who will survive? And will this soggy Freddie Kruger be defeated?

First a word on that poster - didn’t happen. For a film all about water based murders there were strangely none in a bath or shower. Plenty of sinks and a couple of spillages but nothing that required any undressing. Very coy for a supposed horror, the domain of the late night pervert viewer - and me!

At one point Madison heads to The Craven Hospital which was an obvious nod to Wes Craven whose works this film totally ripped off. Rather than Freddie’s domain of dreams, The Drownsman operates in water. Any time a tap leaks or a glass of water appears you know your man isn’t far away. This leads to daft scenes of people being pulled into sinks and the like, and into The Drownsman’s other worldly lair.

To pad the film out the gals visit the nut house and a man who investigates The Drownsman and has a website asking for contact, but when you show up he basically says 'bugger off'. Time waster. The stuff about Madison’s family was plain daft, but I would like to be at her house for a family reunion.

The ‘rules’ were made up on the hoof and to be honest I had no idea what was happening towards the end. Well I did, but then there was a pointless twist that negated all that had gone before and suggested  that sequels may follow. Thankfully, none to date.

The whole premise gives rise to plenty of potential for smart arsed remarks and I for one wont stoop that low. I’ll just say that this was a damp squib, the cast were a bunch of drips and it was moistly terrible.

THE Tag Line - Dry Your Eyes - It’s Garbage 31%

No.183 : The Objective (2008)

The Objective at the IMDb

Box office Mojo gives this film’s domestic gross as $95. Having watched it, that seems about a hundred bucks more than it’s worth.

We open with a portentous voiceover which is never a good sign. CIA Agent Keynes tells us that 3 days after 9/11 mysterious signals were detected in the Afghan desert and he’s been sent to investigate. He meets up with the usual rag tag of soldiers who accompany him on the mission.

The briefing takes all of a couple of minutes as he explains they are going to get a statement from a holy man. The mission starts off OK as they visit some locals and hand out some candy. They gain a guide in the form of Abdul and head off to the mountains, where the holy man is hanging out.

Almost immediately they are attacked in an ambush and lose a soldier. They kill a few terrorists but their bodies mysteriously disappear. The fire fight takes out their jeep and most of their water supply and things predictably go downhill from here.

Keynes stays aloof from the men and is constantly peering at his thermal image camera. They witness some strange lights and before long their numbers are whittled down as men are vaporised by an invisible enemy.

Eventually Keynes comes clean to his rapidly depleting crew - they are trying to track an ancient and terrible force that took care of some British troops in the first Afghan war and which was documented by Alexander the Great. Unfortunately for us it’s not exciting aliens or monsters but some lights that form a triangle - excitement she wrote!

With further loses to dehydration and desertion, Keynes is on his own but he finds an oasis in the desert. Just as he has hope of recovery, his camera picks up a new image - will this be death or salvation?

I didn’t enjoy much about this film apart from the great Moroccan locations that doubled for the slightly more hostile Afghanistan. The acting was uniformly terrible with the lead being the most wooden turn since Pinocchio. The voice over was pretentious with philosophical gubbins being trotted out at every turn. The usual men on a mission clichés were all present and correct as was the standard ‘unit depleting one at a time‘ narrative.

The end, and indeed the whole film, didn’t make a lick of sense and I was really none the wiser about what was going on as the credits rolled. It could have been interesting given the location and overarching ideas in play, but the execution was awful and compounded by a terrible script and lamentable acting.

The Tag Line : Your Objective : Give this a miss! 23%