Black Water is a movie that came out 2007 and is now being released on DVD by the fine folks at Fabulous Films. I never saw the movie before, but from other peoples opinions on it, they all seemed to agree it was a good time. After popping in the DVD last night, I can easily agree with everyone else. Black Water is a low budget, straight to the point croc flick and one that effectively delivers a simple story of man vs beast, or in this case, woman vs beast and does so realistically.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 1
RUN-TIME: 112 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1
RESOLUTION: 480i
AUDIO: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: English
REGION: B
RATING: 15
PRODUCTION DATE: 2007
RELEASE DATE: May 4th, 2015
PLOT SUMMARY
Grace, her boyfriend Adam and younger sister Lee decide to take a river tour whilst holidaying in Northern Australia.
As they drift into a mangrove swamp their boat is suddenly capsized and Jim, their guide, disappears. Realising they’ve been attacked by a crocodile, Adam drags Grace to the safety of a tree whilst Lee clings on top of the overturned boat. Adam and Grace frantically try to manoeuvre Lee and the boat to the tree, but it is firmly stuck.
Stranded in the flooded mangrove swamp, the three holiday makers must work out what to do to survive.
MOVIE
The story for Black Water is super simple. A man and two women go out on a boat road in the marshes of Australia and before you know it, they are up a tree with a giant crocodile swimming around, waiting to chomp on them. That’s pretty much the movie folks, but a simple plot does not a bad movie make. The movie wisely keeps the croc hidden for the most part and allows all three actors to really give it their all and I have to say, each one did wonderfully, with Maeve Dermody stealing the show with her badass, I ain’t letting no croc get me attitude character Lee. It took a bit for her to get to that stage, but when she does, it’s awesome. Diana Glenn, who to me looks like Katee Sackhoff, which is a very good thing in my opinion, does a great job as well, as the girl who starts out strong, but slowly deteriorates due to unfortunate events. Honestly, everyone is wonderful in this movie.
I really need to point out how amazing the effects in this movie looked. I watched the Making of and it showed you how they did it all and I have to applaud them on it. Very minimal use of CGI and plenty of real crocodiles is the way to go and the setting is splendid. It really evokes a feeling of isolation and claustrophobia. Bravo to everyone on a job well done.
I don’t have too many issues with this movie. I was a little annoyed with a few choices that were made and one part at the ending had me shaking my head (think dropping item and not picking it back up,) but thankfully the film-makers didn’t go the route I was afraid they were going to go, so it worked out in the end.
DVD
Fabulous Films has released Black Water for Region 2 areas and they have done a great job. The movie is looking great, with two audio choices of Stereo 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1. It’s a DVD, so don’t expect Blu-ray quality, but I’ll admit, I almost forgot I was watching a DVD, it looked that good. I was a little disappointed to see that the commentary of past releases was left off, but you do get a Making of, which runs about 22 minutes and is quite informative, especially on how they shot with real crocodiles (really, it amazes me on how they did it) and finally a couple deleted scenes, none of which would improve the overall movie if they were to be kept in.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
- Making of Black Water
- Deleted Scenes
VERDICT
I had a great time with Black Water and I am sad that I only checked it out now. It’s a wonderful little low budget Aussie croc movie, which goes the realistic route with the location, effects and story. Fabulous Films has done a great job with this new DVD release, although the lack of commentary is a little bit of a downer, but overall, this is one disc worth picking up.
RATING
