Crappy horror movie review Thursday: The Undertow (2003)

The Undertow (2003)

Six friends enter the strange town of Old Mines for a weekend float trip. They quickly realize that the town is not friendly to strangers, and they are pressured to leave by the police. When the friends decide to continue their float trip anyway, terrifying secrets of the town surface. The town's mayor has an evil secret-- a 7' deformed son born out of incest, and kept under lock and key. Simply known as "The Boy", he is used as a weapon against unwanted visitors to the city, killing them off when needed. When "The Boy" turns on his father, and the town's people for the years of torment, he does what he knows best and heads for the woods to kill the interlopers.




The Undertow was a great homage to the 1980's backwoods slasher genre. The killer "The Boy" was in a way a carbon copy of Jason Voorhees in Friday The 13th Part 2, with a hint of Humongous. That I liked a lot. I have always thought the sack-headed killer was really creepy and very well done in Friday The 13th Part 2, The Town That Dreaded Sundown and Malevolence. The blood and gore in the movie was great, and very well done for a Sub Rosa Studios movie. Lastly, other than his mask, the killer was very intimidating. Huge. That was a solid plus for the movie, and actually making the movie work.

With typical Sub Rosa Studios acting, and bad dialogue. The long drawn out scenes of screaming got old, and gave me a headache. The acting in some cases took a lot away from the movie, and made me want to fast forward. But, getting past that (which was pretty hard at times), the movie was still redeeming. Emily Haack again does a pretty good performance and has went on to be one of the most known actors from the Sub Rosa/Wicked Pixel crew. If anything the movie is worth a watch just for her.

I heard about this movie through another review (DeadPit.com) and figured it was a movie I would love to see. After popping it in and watching it, it slowly started off as a typical Sub Rosa movie, with the same ole' black Jeep Cherokee full of the same Sub Rosa actors, and I quietly sighed. The movie got going about 15 minutes in, and become really interesting. The location (the small town) was great, and very Friday The 13th-ish. I loved that, and then the killer. Another thing that helped the movie roll easily. Once the movie got going, it felt the remainder went by really fast. The movie had pretty much everything a 1980's slasher had, everything but the budget. I would really recommend any slasher fan to give this movie a try. It's really one you're going to either love or loathe, you have to at least give the makers credit for actually writing a unique story in a very over-saturated, no longer unique genre.

In the end Jeremy Wallace did a pretty good job with establishing a nice 1980's slasher vibe with this film.