Day 13: The Reeds (2010)

Can a once-prolific blogger who hasn't written 31 posts all year find it in his soul to review 31 previously unseen horror films in 31 days of October? Let's find out...

______________________________________________________________

Yet ANOTHER entry in the After Dark Horrorfest/8 Films to Die For series that is available through Amazon Prime. I've been enjoying the series thus far, even if I haven't found anything truly great or scary. Just some good indie horror flicks.

Nick Cohen directs this tale about a group of six friends who travel to the English wetlands outside of London (I'm assuming here). It's gotta be wetlands because there are lots of marshlands with...you guessed it...reeds. OK, geography clearly isn't my strong point. I have no idea where this is supposed to be, besides someplace in Great Britain. And even then I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, these six friends rent a boat for the weekend from some shady character. Of course the boat they wanted was...ahem...indisposed. So they had to settle for another boat. And when they find it, it's got a bunch of creepy silent kids hanging out on it. One of them was a redheaded girl that they almost ran over a bit earlier. After shushing them off, they head out into the reeds on their way to some pub on the water where they have a mooring for the night.

WAIT...I just got it. Cabin Crusier in the Reeds! Um...like Cabin in the Woods. It's a take on the classic horror film setting, but on a boat. Get it? No...only me? Moving on...

Things start to go bad when they can't find their way through the marsh in the daytime, and then they run aground of something at night. Something that drives a spike through the bottom of their boat in into the first guy we knew was gonna get killed. Because he was a jackass, ya see. Sorry for the spoiler, but if you made it this far then you deserve a prize. Not because the movie is that awful. It's just this fucking review. I guess 13 isn't a lucky number for a movie review this month, eh?  All I know is that this boat trip is looking like a bad fucking idea right about now. That marsh is like a crazy maze.

Lots of ways this one could go. Creepy kids channeling their inner Children of the Corn terrorize the boaters? Supernatural things that go bump in the night-time reeds? Wild and/or evil animals of some kind out on the prowl? You just don't know...until you watch the movie. And I have to admit, this one did a pretty good job of giving me the creeps, but it was also incredibly uneven. So many different plot angles were thrown in and it really resulted in a mixed bag. Wasn't really awful, but it wasn't really good either.

Verdant Dude rating: 2 out of 5 pumpkins