David Roggenkamp What starts out as simple exploration of underwater ruins quickly turns into the release of an evil once thought sealed nearly forty years before. One woman is haunted by visions of being the daughter of a child molester, in addition to her mother that is always away on location for work. Not much is given to the opening introduction of two boys playing knights, until much later in the film. All havoc breaks loose once the evil comes back to haunt everyone. The movie is unusually hard to follow and it feels fragmented between scenes; if there is a lot going on here, there seems to be more emphasis placed on action than actual plot – the plot is just that, a plot device and nothing more. I do not recommend this movie.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/?p=4977).

bababear The concept for this is total greatness, and pretty much original (it's based on a novel that I'll be looking for in used book stores). Forty years ago a town in Spain was abandoned so that a dam could be built to create a lake. Evil things are happening under the water as the 40th anniversary of the dam's construction approaches. There is evidence that the dam itself is unsafe, but the mayor insists the festivities must go on (I'll be generous and call this a tribute to JAWS and not copying).Good idea. Nice photography on locations in Spain.Limp direction. Uninspired writing. And, worst of all, terrible actors. For some reason it was decided that actors whose native language was Spanish could deliver dialog in English. Oh, no, they couldn't.The story goes from one predictable crisis to another. An warlock returns to the town to take control, only to be sort of thwarted by the granddaughter of the town's former mayor.Meanwhile, down in the town, the celebration is turning into an orgy.The warlock is vanquished. The granddaughter is saved and it looks like things will be all right. Then a little boy the granddaughter was babysitting gets a crazy look and tells her he hates her as strange lights shine on his face, thus setting up a sequel......if anyone should ever want to make a sequel to this. If, however, Michael Bay should ever decide to spend several million bucks remaking this through Platinum Dune's I'll be there for the 7 PM show opening weekend. It's a good story. But telling it takes talent on both sides of the camera, something very much lacking here.

Master Cultist Two young boys go to pay one last visit to a town before it is sank beneath water so a dam can be built, but they stumble across a strange ritual and one of them is killed. Blast forward to the present, and a photo journalist arrives in town to take some snaps and he, together with a female companion, start to uncover what really happened all those years ago. You see, a Crowley-esquire cult was using the place for worship, and their legacy still lives on. Some decent underwater photography, some good effects - the cop hacking his own legs off is particularly entertaining - and OK performances make this more than watchable. The usual Yuzna themes of cultism and nasty, rotting things are present, and Yuzna never really fails to deliver the horror goods.A decent horror film.

Coventry Brian Yuzna was already responsible for some really crazy and unusual horror projects in the past; some of them refreshing and original ("Society", "The Dentist") and other ones unspeakably terrible ("Rottweiler"), but "Beneath Still Waters" is undoubtedly the most discouraging effort he was ever involved in. This film certainly doesn't look as if it were directed by someone with over twenty years of experience in the genre, because the wholesome simply feels amateurish and unfinished. How can a concept holding so much horrific potential result in such a boring and incoherent mess? How can one film feature so many exquisite filming locations, nauseating make-up effects and thoroughly depraved themes and still turn out a complete failure? I love macabre tales handling about sunken villages and the dark secrets that drowned with them. There are way too few films like this in the horror genre and of the two I encountered during the past year, one is obscure as hell and remains unreleased on DVD to this date (the modest Swiss production entitled "Marmorera") and the other one - this particular film - is a missed opportunity. There are a lot of things going on in "Beneath Still Waters", but only very little of them make sense and it seems as if Yuzna doesn't want you to care about any of the characters and the grim ordeals they are facing. The events take place in a remote Spanish village, days before the great 40th anniversary celebration of the dam that prevented the area from flooding and the subsequent foundation of a brand new town called Desbaria. Few people know, however, the dam initially served to deliberately drown the entire town of Marienbad, because all the inhabitants were gradually joining the satanic cult led by Mordecai Salas. Two ruthless boys accidentally saved Salas from a watery death right before the town sunk entirely, and he has been waiting forty years now to seek revenge on the descendants of the previous mayor. So … what we have here is, without exaggerating, one of the most promising horror premises of the past two decades AND you can also add several dynamite sub themes like nudity, child-kill, underwater zombies and even a totally gratuitous orgy complete with nuns and chickens! Can someone please tell me where exactly this idea went wrong? Yuzna leaps from one subject to another without paying attention to continuity and for some reason he also inserts numerous tedious elements. All the main characters are bland and of course the really wooden acting performances of the ensemble cast don't help. Most of the players appear to be dead long before their characters drown in the lake or become "consumed" by the living mucus & seaweed. Such a dam(n) shame, because the Spanish filming locations are genuinely ominous! For the proper grim use of picturesque Spanish villages, please check out "Dagon" and "The Nun", which are both films Yuzna produced but not directed himself.