Savage Water (1979)

User Rating:

3.4/10   

Director:

Paul Kener

Writer:

Kipp Boden (writer)

Release Date:

1979 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Horror

Plot Keywords:

Slasher | Colorado River | Murder | Independent Film

Cast

Bridget Agnew
Ron Berger
Pat Comer
Dewa DeAnne
Gene Eubanks
Rashad Javeri
Doug Jones
Paul Kener
Clayton King
Valerie Kittel
So Mickelson
Mike Wackor
Gil Van Waggoner

Runtime:

99 min | UK:95 min (video release)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Colorado, USA

Company:

Talking Pictures

A slasher so bad it almost needs to be seen to be believed

I watched this film right after reading the cutting reviews on this site (and the perhaps misguided fellow who suggested this is better than Deliverance) and relaxed, wondering if a slasher could really be as bad as all that. See, I love slasher films, I truly do, and I can find good even in the most obscure, forgotten pieces of junky trash. Watching this film was almost enough to make me rethink my quest to see every single Eighties slasher film. Not quite enough though, for I'm planning on checking out Blood Lake quite soon and that one gets a real pounding on this site too. Fortunately I'm a glutton for punishment. Anyhoo, back to this great opus, one of only two films directed by a certain Paul Kener. It rather fails as a slasher, on account of lacking gore, nudity or any notable suspense. It also has too many characters and too little focus to sufficiently engage the attention. I ended up watching this film in four different installments over the course of a day and usually I am loath to break a film up into more than one sitting. The biggest problem is that hardly anything happens. It takes over forty minutes before the first kill and spends the bulk of its time with nice scenery shots and talking. The location and photography are one of the very few pluses in this film, since it does look quite good throughout. As for the dialogue, well I chuckled a few times and it was sorta interesting to see a film like this try to develop a set of characters and have a sense of personality, but none of the actors were interesting and more importantly, this was supposed to be some kind of a horror film dagnabbit, not a sedate meditation on a bunch of folk taking a camping holiday on a river. When the film does get down to business, there is still very little of interest the kills are not gory, feature hardly any blood and mostly lack intensity. In the last ten minutes or so there are one or too bits of fleeting excitement, but the phrase too little too late springs to mind. In fact its a freakin' understatement. I really didn't get long with this film, though I am glad to have watched it. It is fortunate that the film is not actually 108 or so minutes long as is suggested by IMDb but 95, because any longer and it might have drained me of all vitality, leaving me a dry, lifeless husk. If there really is a 108 minute version out there, then Jebus have mercy on us all. I can't recommend this film in any way really, but buried in it is a small amount of interest. The fact that someone managed to get this a distribution deal in Europe despite it never having a release in any format in America, its country of origin is pretty cool and the quality of the films location contrasts oddly with its mountains of inconsequential dialogue and utterly threadbare nature. I guess ultimately films like this remind me that no matter how bland and homogenised the world may seem, it is a much stranger place than most give it credit for, which is something good at least. And I'd rather watch this again than Children of the Corn, or any balderdash like that.