Black Water (2007) Movie Review, Trailer and Poster

Australia 2007
Director: Andrew Traucki & David Nerlich
Cast: Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody, Andy Rodoreda, Ben Oxenbould, Fiona Press
Rating: R
Release Date: 24 April 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 26 minutes

The Movie Review

For the all the Crocs of America, you have got some freaking serious competition, I introduce you "Black Water" the crocodile of Australia. This movie strikes hard and it strikes good!

Now, let's meet our Australian Croc. Adam (Andy Rodoreda) takes his girlfriend Grace (Diana Glenn) and Grace's sister Lee (Maeve Dermody) on a river tour in northern Australia, with the tour guide Jim (Ben Oxenbould). They find a perfect and quiet spot among the mangrove tree to rest, suddenly while they're fishing, something bumps their small boat causing their boat to turned over. Adam pushes Grace to the mangrove tree nearby,


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they look for Lee, but Grace begs Adam to get on a tree as Grace sees a crocodile swimming close to Adam.

Lee is trapped under the capsized boat, she can get out but only manages to as far as lying on top of the capsized boat. Adam and Grace frantically try to get Lee to the tree, even though only a few meters apart, but they are being stalked by a croc that could be anywhere below the water surface. Even if they can save Lee, how do they suppose to turn their boat over and back to the civilized world when no one hardly ever goes to that flooded mangrove swamp.

The premise is simple, but the depth is anything but simple, it's a genuine horror movie, tells of a true story that could happen to any of us, it scares us with losing its logical sense. Black Water doesn't try to be smart, every terror and horror is highly believable. We are talking about a real animal crocodile, not the one with the over-sized body, or a mutant croc, that tells us that it's one very terrifying creatures. Adam, Grace, and Lee are not the type of college students who deliberately seeks for trouble and indulge in debauchery, they merely just want to enjoy their trip and catch some fish.

Most of good horror movies dedicate a quite amount of time at the beginning to let us know the characters, but since Black Water main cast are only 3 persons, we can get to know them better in the process of terror. The chemistry between the siblings Grace and Lee is praise-worthy, and how Grace, Adam and Lee switch their emotions between fear, courage and hope is the testimonial of the depth of their acting. It's amazing how this movie imparts the terror atmosphere to us, we could empathy on their horror, on how they are isolated from the civilized world, on how ordinary people will react without any hero abilities.

Black Water is an example of what a great horror film should be, minimum cast, great acting performance, (highly) believable terror, and it sets against a backdrop of a creepy but naturally creepy and isolated swamp.

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com