Review: Water rat (2018)

Director: Arjen Rooseboom | 14 minutes | short film, thriller | Actors: Beaudine Borggreve, Zippora Peters, Robert Scheepers, Wouter Vooys

Sisters Cindy (Beaudine Borggreve) and Rosa (Zippora Peters) go for a swim at the pool “Het Druppeltje”, where they are helped by a somewhat strange employee (Robert Scheepers). They still have half an hour before closing, but all of a sudden the lights go out and the door turns out to be locked. Then the sisters find out that there is a monster in the pool that can only be seen underwater.

Director Arjen Rooseboom made this short film in 2018, which lasts less than fifteen minutes. The premise is explained in a number of lines prior to the film: the government and military are experimenting with “portals” to another dimension and sometimes something from that other dimension comes our way. Cindy and Rosa are unlucky if they want to relax for a while.

The film was made for 700 euros and shot in one location. 95% of the plot takes place in and around the pool itself. The far-fetched, but quite amusingly devised scenario is wrung out as much as possible. The sisters in their salmon-colored bikinis barely get any way to escape and are forced to re-enter the water over and over again.

Even within the already quite stretched boundaries (including the dimensions) it does not really want to become credible. Then Rooseboom was in better shape with ‘Grimas’ from 2012. At the same time, he should also receive some credits: after all, what can you do with a budget of 700 euros? Still something, with inventive camera work and filming the swimming pool from all possible angles. The protagonists do not win prizes for their conversations at the beginning, but they know how to convey their fear and tension well. The “unexpected” ending gives the film an extra half star.