Black Water: Abyss (2020)

Directed by: Andrew Traucki | 98 minutes | action, adventure, drama, horror, thriller | Actors: Jessica McNamee, Luke Mitchell, Amali Golden, Benjamin Hoetjes, Anthony J. Sharpe, Louis Toshio Okada, Rumi Kikuchi, Anna Kubat, Nicole Collett, Stu Kirk, Troy Black, Damien Blewett

Two couples and an adventurous freebooter head to an abandoned cave system in Northern Australia. The caves are still unknown territory and cannot be found in the travel guides. What starts as a thrilling outing quickly turns into a nightmare. The moment the adventurers have penetrated deep into the depths of the cave system, the water level rises terrifyingly fast due to the heavy storm and rain showers that dissolve their devils on the surface. And to make matters worse, the cave is also inhabited by an ancient, territorial and highly efficient aquatic predator…

Monster movies often have a high all-or-nothing content: they can be enormously entertaining, but also extremely boring or extremely stupid. This film, a sequel to ‘Black Water’ (2007), looks for it, probably partly for budgetary reasons, especially in simplicity. A simple story, a small cast and little change of scenery. In terms of atmosphere, ‘Black Water: Abyss’ mainly focuses on a combination of claustrophobia and the presence of a rarely visible, but always present crocodile in the water. A kind of cross-pollination of ‘The Descent’ and ‘Lake Placid’ or ‘Jaws’.

However, this plan is only partially successful. The crocodile may use its imposing jaws convincingly a few times, but it usually doesn’t get too frightening. The attacks are mainly limited to a combination of a lot of floundering and a pool of blood, where we only glimpse some parts (belly, tail, a piece of the head) of the crocodile. In a few nice scenes the bloodthirsty reptile can be seen in fuller regalia, but it all remains a bit meager.

Now ‘Jaws’ proves that it sometimes works better if you keep the monster on duty out of the picture as long as possible, but unfortunately that kite doesn’t work in ‘Black Water: Abyss’. The reason: the protagonists are one-dimensional, not very smart (come, we’re going to visit a cave surrounded by a river full of crocodiles, while we also know that two Japanese tourists have recently disappeared without a trace) and barely interesting. The ensemble consists of a reckless daredevil, a cheater and his girlfriend, a pregnant woman and an ex-cancer patient. Unfortunately, as the film progresses (and the cheater is unmasked), the backgrounds of the characters get bogged down in a cheap slice of melodrama and the characters are mostly bite-sized chunks of crocodile food. The somewhat implausible and clichéd ending robs the film of the few sharp edges it possesses.

What remains is a film that scores poorly in terms of lighting, camera work and atmosphere, but suffers from the mediocre storylines and not well-developed characters. Moreover, the film is too good for fans of serious horror. Despite some nice and exciting moments, this watery monster production is above all a film that belongs in the cinematographic wading pool.