THE OUTWATERS: I’m Going To Need A Minute

I went into The Outwaters knowing very little, they marketed it that way on purpose. So far the film has relied on a brilliant social media presence and word of mouth to get people hyped and it hooked me. Last night I finally got to see what all the hubbub was about (or if it was misplaced) and I’m happy to say this movie delivered in every way possible. From the beginning, a horrifying 911 call sets the tone before we are introduced to each of the characters who lost their lives.

Card One

The movie opens with a small group of people planning on going to the desert to shoot a music video. Michelle (Michelle May) is a singer with a song and a dream. She’s recently lost her mother and is constantly reminded that she looks and sounds just like her. The brothers, Robbie and Scott (Robbie Banfitch and Scott Schamell respectively), are the ones tasked with shooting the video, Robbie being the cameraman and Scott the sound guy. They grab their friend the makeup artist, Ange, played brilliantly by Angela Basolis, and head off.

Over the years found footage films have had a way of forgetting that they are supposed to be recovered home movies and instead end up coming off as just regular horror with cheap cameras. That isn’t the case here. Everything about the way this is shot, like the quick cuts and sudden scene changes, add to the idea that we are watching a record of the last few days in the lives of these four people. It makes it feel incredibly real so that by the time we get to the climax and the truly awful things that come later we are invested and completely terrified at what is happening. What I’m saying is, it works and this is found footage horror done right.

Card Two

After a stop to surprise their mom, Leslie (Leslie Ann Banfitch), and a nice dinner, the brothers and the rest of the group make their way to the Mojave desert. It’s absolutely beautiful and they spend the day just exploring and having an all-around good time. We like this group of people so by the time night falls, when the bumps and bangs and unexplainable noises start, we are actively rooting for them to get out of there. Strange lights and a vision of a man with a hatchet only add to the “oh, hell no,” of the moment but unfortunately for our friends here, this is only the beginning of the madness to come.

Another thing that this film does so well is knowing the limitations of the equipment being used. Often in other films, things will be lit because they are needed to be seen even if there are no possible sources of actual light. Here writer and director Robbie Banfitch chose to use the darkness as an advantage. It’s a brilliant idea that people could learn from, if it isn’t possible to actually see it with two flashlights in the middle of a moonless night then don’t show it to us. It was just another thing that added to the realism and terror of this movie. The unseen.

Card Three

It really is hard to tell how many days and nights our group spend with the terrors of the desert and whatever is happening to them. I joked right after I finished that all of this was the fault of the pack of wild donkeys we see throughout the movie. Whatever happened to our new friends, it was definitely their fault. All this is to say that by the end The Outwaters turns into an almost experimental exercise in terror. There are scenes that will make you feel like you are on acid and wondering what exactly it is that you are looking at and there are serene images where it seems we are floating calmly through the galaxy before being dropped right back into the middle of a blood-soaked desert.

This movie is a found footage horror juggernaut for sure but even so it found ways to give us really interesting shots and angles. It isn’t all shaky camera and dizzying turns that make you want to lose your lunch, it comes with a lot of simple and beautiful compositions. The majority of the horror and lets face it there is a ton of that, often comes from what we can’t see or what we almost see. It harkens back to a simpler time when movie makers knew the power of imagination and let our warped brains conjure the most horrific things we could think of. I’m not taking anything away from the scary and horrific things it does show us though because that last scene is going to be burned into my brain for a very long time, I’m just saying, there was balance.

Conclusion:

The Outwaters is a movie I won’t soon forget and I’m definitely now part of that rolling word-of-mouth marketing. It was an absolutely terrifying thrill ride from start to finish. I can see where some might say that it starts out slow but any good movie will get us into the characters before they start doing terrible things to them, otherwise, what’s the point? Who would care? The build-up is exactly what makes the third act of this movie so scary, we want them to be okay. We know from the beginning they won’t be but I’m a hopeful person. This is one of those movies you need to see in a theater with a large group of people so if this sways you at all, grab all the friends you know and some that you don’t and put them in a seat to see this. There haven’t been too many movies that make me uncomfortable, and I say this in the best possible way, but this is one of them. It had me squirming and holding my breath. They say to, “watch it in the dark,” as if there was any other way.

The Outwaters will be hitting theaters on February 9, 2023!

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