Movie Review: From Beneath (2012)

Directed by David Doucette
Starring Lauren Watson, Jamie Temple and Blake Retter
Run Time: 83 minutes

When Jason and his girlfriend Sam head out into the country on a road trip to visit her sister's family, they arrive at their farmhouse to find it deserted. While out on the property searching for the missing sister, her husband and their two daughters, they come across a swampy looking pond and for reasons unknown decide to go for a little swim. This turns out to be the first of about a thousand bad decisions the couple makes, as Jason is bitten by some type of mysterious parasite which quickly burrows under his skin and  disappears. Once back at the farmhouse, Jason’s bite quickly turns into a very nasty looking wound, and he begins to have strange  hallucinations. Not long after, they discover Sam’s sister's corpse in the basement, and she apparently looks to have been infected by something similar to what Jason is suffering from.

Now, logic would dictate that at this point it would be time to just get the fuck out of Dodge, but not for these two geniuses. They decide to sit tight, as they are afraid they might get lost, and besides, they have no cell phone reception (nevermind the fact that there is a perfectly good car sitting in the driveway).  Jason's condition continues to worsen, and he soon begins to show homicidal behavior towards his girlfriend. Time to get out? Uhhh... no. Let's just wait for daylight.

With her boyfriend quickly turning into something quite unpleasant, Sam discovers a camcorder with some disturbing footage on it and starts to finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. Unfortunately, it's too late, as Jason has finally gone over the edge and is now a bleeding-sore covered madman who is intent on killing her. This leads to a showdown at the edge of the pond where (SPOILER ALERT!) Jason is dragged into the depths by some type of CGI octopus.

What... The... Fuck?!?!

Okay, needless to say, this movie was pretty much a complete wash-out. And it wasn't the story itself that was the issue here, as the basic concept seems like it would be pretty fun, (kids find a family missing, something weird lurking in the pond, one of them gets infected and is slowly transforming into something sinister, in theory it sounds like it should be a good time). But what really sank this film was the execution, beginning with a horrible and uninspired script, coupled with painfully bad acting by the two main characters which resulted in endless dialog exchanges that just came across as mechanical and unrealistic. Added to that were the constant poorly executed camera angles the film was shot in, as it seemed most of the dialog exchange scenes were being shot over the shoulder of one of the actors which resulted in half of the screen being filled with the fuzzy, blurred out image of one of the actors. Many of the other scenes were needlessly out of focus as well. Maybe they did this on purpose, who’s to say, but the whole thing just came across as bush-league film making to me. This was just one of those movies where everything the film maker, camera man and actors did was annoying and illogical. It happens some times, lets just hope they pull it together in the next film they make.

Score it 3.5 out of 10

EXTRAS-
*Two Separate Trailers