The Undertow (Video 2003) Poster

(2003 Video)

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3/10
Tedious, low-budget, low-grade backwoods horror/gore flick.
capkronos14 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I'm a patient guy and have no problem with slow-moving horror films IF the slow-moving parts actually serve some kind of purpose, such as helping to define characters, setting up an interesting storyline, creating atmosphere or mood and/or helping to build suspense. However, when a simple shot-on-video slasher/gore film spends the first 45 minutes (!) completely gore or murder free you know you've got a problem. Aside from briefly establishing the back-story of the killer, the film spends the majority of the first two-thirds of its run-time showing a bunch of obnoxious "friends" screaming profanities at one another as they drive around in the boonies, visit a general store, go canoeing and set up their camp. Again, I have no problem with dialogue as long as the dialogue serves some purpose other than killing time. Here it doesn't. In fact, I have a strong suspicion that the majority of the dialogue in this film was just made up on the spot. Characters frequently and awkwardly talk over top one another like it's some kind of improv class from hell, and there's no attempt whatsoever at characterization. It's a real endurance test to even make it to the first murder scenes as the film the film doesn't even really hit any kind of stride until the final 20 minutes, when nearly the entire cast thankfully gets butchered.

In the small town of Old Mines, Missouri, the townspeople are hiding a deep dark secret. The religious fanatic mayor (Ed Belt) hates people from out of town visiting the area. He views them as being impure and thinks they are possessed by demons and wants no part of them. When tourists can't take the hint to high tail it out of there, the mayor unleashes his incest-bred mongoloid son on them. The son - named Dewey or just "The Boy" - is a big, hulking, mentally-retarded behemoth dressed in overalls and a pillow case over his head, who's kept locked up in a shed until he's needed to get to "work" killing off anyone dumb enough to refuse to leave the area. In come six people; Eli (Jason Christ), Carol Anne (Julie Farrar), Buster (Chris Grega), Mia (Emily Haack), Judy (Robin Garrels) and Tim (Todd Tevlin), who fumble through their awkward scenes seemingly in a contest to see who can throw out the "f bomb" the most times. The people in town, including the sheriff (Joseph Palermo) and the killer's sister (Trudy Bequette) try to scare them off, but they don't listen. "The Boy" is then set free and goes on a rampage, also killing some other people in town along the way. "The Boy" doesn't like to use weapons much of the time and uses his bare hands to rip open heads and chests. The movie does eventually provide some gore, but most of it is at the very end. For a 75-minute film, that's otherwise pretty worthless, to wait that long to start flinging around the red stuff, is pretty much unforgivable. If you've read this far, know the basic plot already and still feel like you must watch for whatever reason, I'd recommend fast forwarding until the first murder scene occurs. The rest is a waste of time.
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4/10
Underbelly
xposipx14 March 2017
Six friends enter the strange town of Old Mines for a weekend float trip. They quickly realize that the town is not friendly to strangers, and they are pressured to leave by the police. When the friends decide to continue their float trip anyway, terrifying secrets of the town surface. A seven-foot-tall deformed maniac, known by the townsfolk as The Boy is kept under lock and key by the town's mayor. The Boy's purpose is simple: kill outsiders. The Mayor of Old Mines releases The Boy and the maniac's hunt begins. One by one, the campers on their float trip are ripped to gory shreds by the enraged, deformed, hulking Boy.

Gore is the main focus of the film and there are only a few good kills in it. The first crushed head was amazing; other than that there's lots of severed limbs, eye gouging, stomach gouging, and a steak through the head. The gore effects were pretty cool, but there wasn't nearly enough.

The young director and crew show some promise, but they need to polish up on the basics first.

Camera: A lot of the film was incredibly shaky. I'm sure it was done on purpose, but it really didn't work for the best. There were some creative angles here and there though that were kind of neat.

Edit: On one side we have some really cool grainy effects, but other than that a few edits were off by a little bit.

Lighting: The picture was way too white in a ton of the scenes.

Music: The best part of the technical features. Really cool background music and effects here.

Acting: This is what I was expecting to cringe at. Fortunately it wasn't too bad at all. All of the main characters were on the same b-movie sub-par level. The town folk were unnatural and some of the lines were crappy, but the acting surprisingly didn't take away from anything. No one stood out as good or bad, so good job.

Final Thoughts: There wasn't a kill or scare of any kind until 46 minutes into it. There was way too much sappy pointless dialogue where there should of been pointless gore and killing. Some of the scene ran too long and at times the artsy type of editing was not working at all. For a sub-rosa movie...it was alright though. Next time focus on the gore because without real actors the dialogue and story won't work for you. Jeremy Wallace and Eric Stanze's efforts seem to be getting better and better...hopefully one of these days they can really put something nice together..I hope they keep it up and keep improving.
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4/10
fails in several ways
trashgang22 December 2009
As you all know I am a big supporter of the independent scene. Now and then a gem pops up and them I am glad to have it in my collection, mostly signed and personalized by the director. But sometimes the trailer is better than the movie itself. This flick have this problem. When you watch the trailer you have seen it all, and the teaser that Eric Stanze (Scrapbook) is involved only makes it worser. By involving Stanze geeks are really thinking that they will get gore from beginning until the end. It isn't, the movie fails in delivering a hillbilly gorefest, due the storyline and due the performances. The storyline can be told in a few sentences. Six friends go camping but at the wrong place at the wrong time. End of story. When they've been killed the acting fails. When one of the girls is seeing her friend dead,his head smashed by the killer, the way she reacts fails. The other problem with the movie is when you start watching it you can see immediately the low budget problems. When they walk into the sun, the iris of the camera isn't correct, they don't use ND filters. Wrong, and when they scream the sound goes into red. But you can see through this by saying, okay, no budget, but the car scene is too long, the cop scene, too long. In fact it takes the last 25 minutes before something really happens, before the slaying starts. But when it starts it's all done in a gory way. Intestines flying away, heads crushed by bricks. Girls smashed in their face with bare fists. And that's the only reason why I gave it a 4. Could have been much better.
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2/10
i wanted to like this movie
chexmix8 March 2005
I read the reviews and really wanted to like this little movie; however, a promising idea goes nowhere here, derailed by unbelievable (poorly-drawn) characters and god-awful dialogue. Believe me, I was _not_ expecting _Citizen Kane_, but if a film like this is going to work at all it can't just be thrown together to hang limp on a few showstopper gore effects. A lot of the dialogue (especially that of the ill-fated campers) seems improvised ... and poorly improvised, at that. Furthermore, there is simply no atmosphere. I'm guessing it was for lack of a budget, but the few interior scenes in this movie look like something from a Larry Buchanan effort. There's no sense of terror or dread: just miles of limp talk, then *smack* another head is cracked open.

Hoping the next indie movie I watch has more heart than this one.
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2/10
bad bad bad but keep trying'
bruce_files_312 May 2006
I just watched the movie and to be direct, it was a waste of time. I sensed it after the first 20 mins or so, but I guess I had plenty of time to waste so I kept on till the end.

Not a fan of the genre anyway, but I tell you this movie ain't gonna be fun for anyone else but those who cant stand their day without some gore before their eyes. Cause thats what it was after all.

First half of the movie was a boring trip and a lil introduction to the boring "heroes", while the second one was about running, hiding and guess what.....killing/dying.

Still its always nice to see few ppl trying to make a movie. I cant blame them for trying to make the new "Blair Witch..." but..... guys next time better try with a whole idea of your own.

The movie's been out for 3 years, so if you needed to see it you would have already. If not, take my word, don't bother.
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I'm impressed
movieman_kev7 April 2004
A group of friends go camping, but they're soon to find out that the locals don't take too kindly to city folk. Ok, it's far from an original concept, but I'm always delighted when I find an independent film that exceeds my expectations. Especially an indy of the horror genre, which is abundant and for the most part all crap. But this is one of those rare birds that stands head & shoulders with the "big boys". Taking me back to the glory days of '70's-type horror films. It lacks action for a good half of the film, but the characterization more then compensates. And when the gore DOES arrive, it does in spade! In many (if not all) ways better then the same year's "Wrong Turn"

My Horror Grade: B+

DVD Extras: Behind-the-scenes; Blooper Reel; Deleted scenes; Stills gallery; two versions of the theatrical trailer; Trailers for "Christmas Season Massacre", "China White Serpentine", "I spit on your corpse, I piss on your grave", "Insaniac", "Savage Harvest", "Ice from the Sun", and "Scrapbook" PLUS 3 Easter Eggs for you to find "River Hound" (short clip of a dog); "On Location" and "Bonk/ Stanze"
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6/10
Not Bad for Low Budget
hip_school_preppie16 May 2005
For an extremely low budget movie, this flick was pretty good. The sound is shoddy in spots (a boom Mic could have been the answer)and the night (dark) scenes appear a little grainy. The acting wasn't terrible(not saying it's good either), but the actors themselves were pretty ugly. There's some effects that made no sense to me during dialog, like when Billy visit's the campers and tells them of what's going on in the town. During her story they kept cutting to the campfire with an annoying high pitched noise. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with this. However, I like the story, as it has that classic early 80's babes in the woods getting stalked by maniac that has an obvious deformity type of plot. The killer is very reminiscent of Jason in Friday the 13th Part 2. It's kind of like a Jason and Leatherface character mixed together. There's plenty of gore in this one too.
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10/10
Thank you!!!! A good horror flick!!!!
mizziah747 January 2004
I wasn't really expecting much from this one, especially since everyone's been coming out with backwoods homicidal hillbilly flicks these days (Wrong Turn, House of 1000 Corpses, TCM Remake, etc), and it's a direct-to-video release (so you never know what you're going to get), but I can honestly say that this was one of the best independent horror films that I've seen in a long time!!!!

The story's nothing really groundbreaking, but it's the way director Jeremy Wallace and crew pulls this movie off that's so refreshing. What I appreciate the most about the movie is that it's very straight forward and serious in its handling of the horror elements of the story (unlike that crappy Cabin Fever flick), which is something you rarely see in horror films these days. The film is very much in the vain of the great 70's horror flicks like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Like those films, the story is simple in nature, and yet it delivers a wonderful sense of dread and tension with a brutal dose of well-executed gore!!!

I've seen Wallace's first flick, The Christmas Season Massacre, and while I thought that movie was good for what it was (horror spoof), he really took a major step forward as a director with this flick (he even wrote the simple, yet extremely effective score for the film). Wallace's confident direction is aided by some fantastic editing and cinematography by Eric Stanze (director of Ice From The Sun and Scrapbook) and a cast that's way above average for a movie of this budget level, who all turn in great performances (especially Trudy Bequette and Julie Farrar).

Horror fans should definitely check this baby out! Like I said, it's nothing original, but it definitely delivers what it promises, which is more than I can say for most of the stuff coming out of Hollywood these days!
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7/10
Not bad at all
pumaye26 April 2004
This is a very good variation of the usual (can I say more than usual) friends in the woods that get stalked by a masked crazy, made with a very low budget, but generous on gore and with a couple of good chills. Six guys and girls go in a solitary wood where they find death by the hands of a brute - born through consanguine union. Shot on video, the movie is better that several of its clone (even the more expensive ones). Sure, it is not a masterpiece of terror, but the tension is good, the acting better than you may thought and even if the quality of the images is fair at best and some of the gore really ludicrous, you may watch it and have fun with your friends.
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