Bloodtype Online

    This movie revolves around a submerged town and some of it’s less savory inhabitants.  The action starts off in 1965 as two boys are playing in the abandoned and soon to be submerged town.  They see a strange red glow and hear voices coming from the church.  When they go to investigate they discover a strange group of people chained up in the basement, which is slowly filling with water.  When they free the leader of the group he attacks and kills one of the boys while the other flees.  Then the action shifts forward to the present day.  The local town is getting prepared to celebrate the dam’s fortieth anniversary and a freelance journalist named Dan is in town to do a story.  While diving on the submerged town he sees a strange glow and hears the same voices that the boys heard.  He is nearly trapped while investigating and decides to move onto the damn, where he discovers several very large cracks.  While this is going on a group of teenagers are attacked while swimming and one of them disappears.  The police come to investigate and while doing so Dan emerges from the lake.  Suspicious the chief inspector takes Dan’s camera and runs him off of their crime scene.  Here Dan meets Teresa and her daughter Clara (who was one of the teenagers).  Teresa offers Dan a ride back to his car and along the way they decide to investigate the dam and the cracks that Dan noticed while diving.  Before long it becomes apparent that something from the submerged town is back to take it’s revenge and that Teresa’s family has some sort of connection to it.  As Dan and Teresa begin to piece together what is happening they come up against a very powerful and evil force.   

    This is a pretty cool movie.  The plot is interesting and very reminiscent of an H.P. Lovecraft story, which I really enjoy.  The movie takes a while to get to the action, but when it does it is a blast.  The main characters are fleshed out fairly well, though many of the supporting characters aren’t developed much.  The acting is adequate for the movie, but not great.  To be honest Beneath Still Waters is more of a creature feature with an interesting plot that doesn’t get bogged down.  Acting and character development would be nice, but isn’t a deal breaker for me.  The effects are pretty well done with a nice mix of CGI and practical effects.  It is apparent that they were on a budget, so the underwater scenes are very ambitious and all CGI.  Most of them turn out pretty well, but there are a few that look pretty bad.  The practical effects are nicely done, but not ground breaking.  This is basically a monster movie and when the creatures do finally appear they are nicely done and effective.   

    What we have here is an old school monster (in this case monsters) movie that is really worth checking out.  I really recommend this as an excellent way to spend ninety minutes. 

Rating - ***

-John "El Juan" Shatzer