The Outwaters Review
The Outwaters Review. Definitely an “experience”.
A throwback to the early days of the found footage genre, The Outwaters will open in theaters on February 9th 2023 from Cinedigm followed by an exclusive streaming launch on Screambox.
Written, directed and starring Robbie Banfitch the film takes viewers off the beaten path and into their own nightmares.
Co starring Angela Basolis, Michelle May, Scott Schamell as well, Angela, Michelle and Scott this found footage film takes us on a fairly unique journey for the genre, blending in psychological and cosmic horror elements. This for me, is where the film stumbles over the cracked desert sands.
The trailer, which you can watch below, played with Terrifier 2 in cinemas and the buzz began to grow around it. If you watch the trailer you will get a good idea of the film, lots of black screen and weird noises.
Bloody Disgusting called the film “one of the scariest films of the year”, a quote which usually signs a films critical death warrant, but with this one I suppose it’s only February and we’ve not had many horror films released. I’d change this to “Your most challenging watch of the year”.
Daily Dead called it “a terrifying, suffocating viewing experience.” a quote I more agree with, but terrifying isn’t my adjective of choice. Confusing, dark and long would be my choices.
The film begins in time honoured found footage fashion with a pseudo explanation that there are four missing people and this is footage found on three memory cards and the raw footage has been pieced together in chronological order, unedited by the Mojave police for evidence review.
The beginning is intriguing, unfortunately it also shackles the narrative and makes what is to come thoroughly confusing. It’s also nearly 2 hours long, quite the length for a film in this genre.
Four friends set out to the Mojave Desert to camp out and make a music video. The initial footage is them trying out the equipment, planning the shoot, making costume and make up choices etc. This all makes for a nice reason for the footage which is often where a found footage film can collapse if you’re asking “Why would they be filming that?” it pulls you out of the films reality. This somewhat holds your attention and helps cement us in some realism.
Once we get to the desert with them, the film starts to go a little awry for me. The characters hear strange noises, see strange things and it gives the feeling that there is some level of psychological break happening. Unfortunately this doesn’t work for a found footage film, the soundtrack is noises heard and when added to the strange things seen (remember the chronological order thing) a lot of it is impossible for the equipment to have picked up. Once everything kicks off the viewer is left in the dark, both in terms of figuring out what’s happening and the fact that the screen is pretty much black for about half an hour of the films slightly swollen runtime adds to the uneasy confusion.
As I mentioned earlier, this is going to be a challenging watch, for me it was overly confusing with the cosmic horror elements not helping matters. I struggled massively to bother getting to the end.
The last 30 minutes gets completely cosmic body horror crazy and is where the meat of the film lies, figuratively and literally. Visceral viewing.
This film will divide its audience, for some it will be a classic, for others it will be absolutely the worst experience they have in a cinema ( I fall towards the latter).
I’ve purposely left this review somewhat vague and spoiler free as I think it’s definitely an experience you should try. It’s certainly “experience” cinema.
The films creator Robbie Banfitch says “My whole life I’ve dreamed of making a ‘scary movie. Thanks to friends, family, and years of hard work, the daydreams were made tangible. We filmed in the dark and dust and along the sand-swept highways of the Mojave. We screamed and laughed and ran under dim desert moons with rattlesnakes, wild burros, bats, and fire ants. That I will have the opportunity to share our work with filmgoers is a gift, and I hope everyone watches with the lights off.”
The Outwaters took home the Jury Prize for Best Feature at the Unnamed Footage Festival. It received rave reviews out of Panic Fest, Chattanooga Film Festival, New Jersey Film Festival, and Dead of Night Film Festival, placing it at the top of horror fans’ must-watch lists.
“This is one of the scariest films I have ever seen,” praises Bloody Disgusting Managing Director Brad Miska. “It’s rare you find something so haunting and raw as The Outwaters. It will make you think twice about going outside again after watching it.”
Quite.
Following it’s Cinema release on February 9th The Outwaters will join Screambox’s growing library of unique horror content, which also features Pennywise: The Story of IT, Masters of Horror, 13 Nights of Elvira, PussyCake, When the Screaming Starts, Toxic Crusaders, and Terrifier 2.
View the trailer below –
