The Horror Show
The Drownsman
by Chad Archibald
This always seems to be the thing with me: I watch a trailer, and I’m like, “ooh, this looks good!” And obviously, given my track record, I should stop watching trailers. 9 times out of 10, this leaves me with this empty feeling that I only get once a film has robbed me of my time.
That feeling was with me when I finished The Drownsman. Immediately the film starts off with a bang. Basement water torture, a creepy man, a woman fighting for her life and succeeding… and then things get, what’s the best word for it… lame? Yes. I’ll stick with lame.
We see our two main ladies, Madison and Hannah, outside of a party talking. Madison announced that she’s just said yes to a marriage proposal and rather than jumping for joy, Madison is like “oh cool, happy for you.” Not that your immediate reaction to news of your best friend’s engagement needs to be jumping around like a lunatic, but Madison immediately seems put off by this and almost jealous. The emotions, they were confusing. So then Madison slips on a beer bottle while her friend pees in public somewhere, and falls into the river.
Now suddenly we are seeing the creepy man from the beginning of the film. Somehow Madison has “crossed over” to another realm. She’s rescued from the river but freaked out, I mean, I would be too if I almost just drowned and saw visions of this awful serial killer.
We get the obligatory “One Year Later” and find Madison on a bed crying while rain pours down outside. We see that Hannah has called her like, 24 times, and Madison continues to ignore the phone calls. She just sits on her bed crying and being weird. Hannah bursts through the bedroom door and starts screaming, in a wedding dress, about how she’s sick of Madison’s shit! My first thought: Bridezilla!
Flash forward to a séance, now the girls and their friends have brought the creepy man over, and things start to go downhill… in more ways than one. Don’t take a drink of water or a shower, ladies, The Drownsman means business.
I really couldn’t, at any point, take this movie seriously. There were several reasons but I’ll list the main ones to break it down.
1. Hannah is not someone I want to be friends with. She’s bossy, she has a serious attitude problem, and at one point in the film, Madison makes a good point. When Hannah has gone into bitch mode, Madison looks at her and says “If you were really my best friend you’d at least entertain the fact that maybe this wasn’t all in my head.” You go, girl. But yeah, there was a whole lot of Hannah being a bitch that overshadowed what could have been decent scenes.
2. The “one year later” wasn’t necessary. Especially when you consider the fact that for an entire year Madison has been stalked and terrorized by this ghostly man who can only come near her or threaten her when water is around. Okay… so you mean to tell me for an entire year Madison has successfully avoided death and/or harm but within 24 hours of this little séance, you’re all suddenly dropping like flies? I think they only used the “one year later” to show that Madison’s experience of crossing over has turned her into a nut, and ultimately, a bad friend because she missed her best friend’s wedding.
3. This film was essentially a poor man’s Nightmare on Elm Street. The idea of a killer only able to hurt you via some medium like a dream, or water, is not new. But it was the execution that irritated me. For one half of the movie, if you stayed away from water you were fine. But then all of a sudden, water can come get you all on its own. Let me repeat that. Water can, after a year, now appear out of nowhere all on its own. So now, this killer can control the medium in which he can attack his victims.
4. There is a point where the ladies visit a mental hospital in hopes of speaking to the only known survivor of The Drownsman attacks. This would have been fine if they hadn’t gone in the direction they did. I knew it was coming, the “big reveal” was hinted at earlier in the film. But it’s not that it was easily predictable that irritated me, it’s the fact that they threw in a cheap plot device that added nothing to the film. Absolutely nothing.
All in all, this is not an original film, the acting is pretty B-rated, and there was nothing scary about it. There were some scenes that I found myself saying “Oh, look, they’re making him crawl around like the chick from The Ring.” But even then, not scary, not original. There are far better movies out right now that you could be spending your time on.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.