What the Waters Left Behind – Los olvidados (2017)

Directed by: Luciano Onetti, Nicolas Onetti | 94 minutes | horror | Actors: Paula Brasca, Mirta Busnelli, Victorio D’Alessandro, Damián Dreizik, Chucho Fernandez, Tamara Garzón, Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Victoria Maurette, Agustín Pardella, Paula Sartor

Writing a promotional text for the back cover of a B-movie is an art in itself. An Oscar film will sell itself, but marketing an obscure Argentine horror film is another story. The lyricist who is responsible for the promo talk on the cover of ‘What The Waters Left Behind’ does his best, but sentences like “you must see this” and “the horror film of this fall” show that he has not watched this production himself. …

In ‘What The Waters Left Behind’ a film crew travels to Epecuén. This is a tourist village in Argentina that was hit by a flood and has since been declared uninhabitable. The crew wants to make a documentary about this place and has persuaded an old resident to travel to the disaster site and tell about her experiences. What the team does not know is that there is indeed life on Epecuén.

According to press information, ‘What The Waters Left Behind’ won first prize at the Fantasy Film Competition organized by INCAA in Argentina. In addition, the trailer for this film is apparently listed on YouTube as one of the most watched movie trailers in the world. The directing brothers Nicolás and Luciano Onetti can rightly be proud of this. Unfortunately their film is not very good and that hurts. This horror film does a few things really well. The setting, an apocalyptic no man’s land that has been devastated by a flood, is beautifully portrayed. The film uses warm, bright colors and you don’t expect that from a brutal slasher.

In addition to the beautiful visual language, the special effects also stand out. The violence is portrayed brutally and uncompromisingly. In terms of gore, this film is also good. The villains’ costumes are also terrifying. Especially an immense deer skull that serves as a mask is downright creepy. Unfortunately, a very bad editing, a broken script and a boring plot twist ensure that this film never sticks.

Nicolás and Luciano Onetti go wrong during the editing. This slasher is downright muddled and seems to be missing a few crucial scenes. For example, you suddenly see people running away from a villain who was nowhere to be seen in a scene before. At a certain point, alienating stills are also used that suddenly turn the screen red. These image tricks appear as suddenly as they end. This has an alienating effect and suggests that several people have worked on the editing of this film. The narrative pace is off and the way characters are written out of the film is rather abrupt.

Despite the strong gore and the beautiful decor, this film can be called downright boring at times. The characters never transcend the predicate caricature. The plot twist at the end is seen coming from miles away and rather easily copies an iconic horror film that introduced the chainsaw as a murder weapon. A shame, because a great horror film is hidden between the badly put together scenes. Unfortunately it doesn’t come out.