NOTE: The Film Corner's Star Ratings will now appear at the end of the review.
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| As you can clearly see, perfectly normal receptacles for water can mean death to babes in The Drownsman. Sadly, none of the babes is sucked into a toilet. |
Dir. Chad Archibald
Script. Archibald & Cody Calahan
Starring: Michelle Mylett, Caroline Korycki, Gemma Bird Matheson, Sydney Kondruss, Clare Bastable, Ry Barrett, JoAnn Nordstrom, Breanne TeBoekhorst
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Canadians are generally more polite than our American neighbours to the South. In spite of the perverse tradition of our cinema (Cronenberg, Maddin, The Soskas, anyone?), the latest production from the Canucks who brought us last year's low budget horror hit Antisocial, proves that Canadians are twisted as always, but they are ever-so considerate, almost to a fault. Hacking, maiming and/or raping nubile babes is not in the purview of those politically-mindful content-delivery specialists Breakthrough Entertainment and Black Fawn Films. Having created The Drownsman, they've managed to deliver an all new evil cinematic psychopath devoted to the art of, I kid you the hell not, drowning his hot vixen honey-pie targets. It's kind of like that old adage from the UK, "No sex, please, we're British." Or in this case: No bloodletting, please, we're Canadian.
Isn't that special?
Indeed, the opening minutes of the film are as sickening and harrowing as you're likely to see in any recent picture. In a deep, dark, dank pit of filth, a fetching babe is dragged by a tall, powerful and greasily bedraggled scumbag into a metal tub wherein he proceeds to shove her under the cold, dirty water. It is, however, the psycho's lucky day. The babe, desperate to survive, proposes that he make love to her instead. Sneaky vixen that she is, the lithe lassie allows him to penetrate her loins and expunge his unholy seed within her and then, as he shudders in post-orgasmic bliss, she plunges him into the water and drowns the sicko bugger, drowns him GOOD AND DEAD!!!
CUE: OPENING TITLE - THE DROWNSMAN.
Though, the titles don't suggest anything of the kind, we quickly assume that we've jumped forward to the present. A party rages inside a Christmas-light adorned country house overlooking a deep, dark winter lake. We know a party is raging because we hear muffled music coming from inside and a handful of babes are hanging on the porch, doing what babes do naturally - giggling and boozing. Hannah (Caroline Korycki) hustles her hot BFF Madison (burgeoning Canuck Scream Queen Michelle Mylett from Antisocial) over to a Noma-lit dock near the deep, dark water of the winter lake. Though it's Canada, the lake is not frozen. El Nino must be about. Hannah and Madison look deeply into each other's eyes and we briefly suspect there's going to be some lesbo action, but alas, it's a genuine "bestie" hug that occurs. Hannah's getting married, presumably to one of the fellows at the party in the house. She wants Madison to be her Maid of Honour. She then excuses herself to go take a piss. Madison clumsily slips, falls, whacks her (presumably not-too-empty) noggin on the dock and rolls into the water. Here she meets a rotting version of the drowning fetishist from the opening, but luckily, she awakes to a gaggle of babes round her on the dock.
She's safe.
For now.
CUE: TITLE CARD - ONE YEAR LATER.
It's the night of Hannah's wedding. It's raining cats and dogs. Seeing as this is Canada and it's one-year-later from the aforementioned party adorned in Christmas lights, one again assumes El Nino is prowling about since the torrent outside should actually be snow, but is, in fact, not unlike some Third World Locale during Monsoon Season. Hannah bursts into Madison's bedroom. Our troubled lassie has completely skipped her Maid of Honour duties and the blushing bride is crimson with anger.
It seems Madison has been a basket case for a whole year. She's become terrified of water, so much so she can't even drink it, but requires a constant IV to keep her full of fluids. One assumes her fear of water keeps her out of showers and bathtubs, so why Hannah would want a foul, rank, unwashed Maid of Honour is somewhat beyond me. Why Madison always looks freshly scrubbed and gorgeous since she's not even dipped her tiniest tootsie in H2O is, perhaps, the film's greatest mystery.
Hannah demands that Madison be available the next evening for a major intervention. The babes are planning to cure Madison of her hydrophobia once and for all. Given that Hannah has just gotten hitched, we assume her hubby is too cheap to take her on a honeymoon and/or is especially sensitive to give up his second night of wedded bliss so his new bride can get together with all her babe friends and dunk Madison in a bathtub full of water. Well, he's Canadian, I guess, and Canadians are known to be quite Liberal in all matters (unless they live in Alberta).
Does any of this sound, oh, I don't know, shall we say, remotely stupid? Phew! Good. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Some might say, "Chill, Klymkiw, it's a horror movie." To them I say, "Horror movies don't all have to be stupid."
This one sure is.
I applaud its makers for trying to create a new 80s-style horror psycho, but, uh, a killer who drowns his victims? And worse yet, gets drowned himself by one of the victims who let him ball her and then turns into a rotting ghost psycho who continues to drown babes? And, uh, for some reason, keeps terrorizing the living progeny of his final spurt of seed? And, even more stupidly, sucks babes into pretty much any receptacle that holds water so he can drown them, but never once does he think of using a toilet bowl or even a bidet? And isn't it egregious when you deliver a no-to-low-budget horror movie replete with babes and none of them are naked - or hell, even attired more aggressively in their undies? Oh, and get this nadir of stupidity, a psycho ghost who is so waterlogged that the only thing that he's afraid of is fire? Jesus, not only is the movie stupid, the psycho ghost is plenty stupid also.
You know, call me jaded, but this really doesn't seem like a good idea for a movie. In fact, it's so stupid, I'm shocked anyone bothered to green-light this film. Yes, stupid movies get made all the time, but this one really earns some kind of Oblation for Major Mental Deficiency.
The way I'm flaming this sucker, you might wonder if there's anything good at all about this movie. Well, it's decently shot, the design of the title psycho ghost is really first-rate, the musical score manages to rise above its stock origins and Michelle Mylett is clearly a decent actress and a major-camera-loves-her-babe who deserves a lot better than this. It's perhaps worthy to note that Mr. Archibald's direction, in spite of the loathsome screenplay he's cobbled together with Cody Calahan, suggests that he's quite the fan of Wes Craven and others of that 80s ilk and he acquits himself in the rip-off department with a passable degree of competence.
Competence, however, is kind of a dirty word in my books - especially in no-to-low-budget genre films. The movie is deadly serious, completely without humour (humour's a hallmark of Craven, Carpenter, et al) and finally, so stupid, it can't generate any real thrills. In fact, it's so stupid, it doesn't even qualify as unintentionally funny. (My 13-year-old daughter kept commenting, "God, this is soooooooo stupid, Dad," but when I asked her if she wanted to watch something else, she did, in fairness to the picture say, "I don't mind stuff that's stupid sometimes and it's kind of scary." High praise. The kid's got taste.)
Look, I love horror films and I'm generally excited by some of the cool shit going on in the genre within the low-budget realm these days, but the best work does what it does when it's actually about something and/or blessed with genuine originality (and not just coming up with something nobody's done before - like, uh, drowning). I'm personally looking for a unique voice - even if the subject matter is rooted in standard genre tropes. God knows, the whack-a-doodle Rasmussen Brothers managed to display something in that regard, in spite (or even because) of their slavish homage to the great John Carpenter in their directorial debut, the Foresight Features guys (whom Archibald's done some work with) have continually offered up original voices, Kaare Andrews attacked his gun-for-hire reboot of the Cabin Fever franchise with dazzling aplomb in spite of its less-than-stellar script and, though the list can go on, of course, lest we forget The Soska Twins, who might as well be called the most original new, young voices working in genre films today.
On the basis of this picture, though, I have no proof that Archibald has anything resembling a voice. Perhaps, he'll prove me wrong someday. Tell you what - I'll hold my breath and hope I don't drown in the meantime.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half-stars.
The Drownsman had its World Premiere at the 2014 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal.