Based on a true story, Black Water is a low budget animal attack
horror story set in the Australian Outback concerning a crocodile attack. Grace
(Diana Glenn), her husband Adam (Andy Rodoreda) and her sister Lee (Maeve Dermody)
have spent their Christmas holiday at the girls’ mother’s house and are all
leaving for a two week road trip back home. They plan on making it a sightseeing
trip, stopping off here and there at various tourist traps, including a
crocodile farm. They also make plans to take a boat tour along one of the rivers,
but arrive too late--just missing the tour by minutes. When Jim, a dock worker
at the bout tour company, offers to take them out himself, Grace, Adam and Lee
readily agree. But they really should have stayed on dry land.
It isn’t long before Jim finds them a nice spot to go fishing--which is also the
very same spot where a large croc chooses to hunt for food. The boat is capsized
when it’s rammed by the croc, and Jim winds up being his very first meal. Out of
reach of the overturned boat, and with no guide to help them, Grace, Adam and
Lee find themselves trapped up a tree in a flooded mangrove forest with a
relentless croc literally nipping at their heels. Black Water is tautly directed
by David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki with the same sort of riveting intensity that
worked so well for such films like Open Water, where
we rarely see the menace--yet are always reminded of its deadly presence. And
the crocodile in Black Water is a truly frightening threat.
Unlike the big-budget (and also well-done) Rogue, Black
Water mainly plays on the psychological element, as the characters
spend the bulk of the film’s running time stuck in the forest of submerged trees,
desperately looking for a way out--while always keeping a wary eye on the water
below. The actors are all superb, making it very easy for you to care for each
of their characters as they fight to survive a seemingly insurmountable situation.
The DVD comes with a commentary, plus a well-made ‘making of’ documentary that
shows just how low budget this film was, yet a low budget film doesn’t always
necessarily mean that it’s bad. Sometimes a lack of money can stir the creative
juices, which was what obviously happened here, since Black Water’s unnerving
intensity makes it one of the new horror classics to come out of Australia.
--SF
