Black Water is a survival story of 3 tourists who venture into the swamplands of Northern Australia expecting to have a good time. Well in good horror movie fashion things turn out rather differently, for a rather nasty and somewhat intelligent crocodile has other plans for the tourists and I’ll bet you can guess what they are…

The first thing that strikes me about Black Water is the sense of foreboding that pervades right from the beginning of the movie. You know that the main characters, of which there are 3, are in for a rough ride. Once they’ve found themselves a guide into the swamplands things get very bad, as a disgruntled croc decides to capsize their boat, leaving them marooned with their guide gone missing. What we see from here on is the young tourists fighting to outwit the croc and escape to safety outside the swampland.

Black Water manages to create suspense well, mostly achieved through solid cinematography and editing. It serves as a good example of how create a horror survival flick on a low budget, I personally found myself caring for the characters and what they were going through. The cast of relatively unknown actors (probably known inside Australia) carry dread and suspense well, and project a real sense of fear for their characters.

One thing that I find somewhat implausible was the intelligence that is shown in the croc. It doesn’t behave like a wild animal more like a serial killer from a slasher movie. At times we are shown the croc to be almost tormenting the characters taking a kind of joy from the emotional punishment which it is inflicting. This to me goes head on with the realistic style which the director has clearly chosen to take for the movie, and does kind of let it down somewhat.

It’s difficult not to be reminded of Open Water when watching this movie; it has a similar realistic depiction of folks in extreme situations. Also the pacing of Black Water is similar to Open Water, not necessarily a bad thing however. Another striking thing about this movie is the fact there is a very minimal soundtrack, hell I can’t remember any music at all in this movie, very odd, but works extremely well.

All in all though I'd say that Black Water is an enjoyable movie that has some real moments of tension and suspense, if you can forgive the implausibility’s, then this is well worth a look in folks.

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