Synopsis: A weekend boating party turns into a nightmare for a group of young Londoners when they stumble upon a terrifying secret hidden in the reeds.Sometimes I like a horror movie that's a bit convoluted and tough to figure out what the hell is going on. But by the end, I do like there to be a good payoff with explanations and everything falls into place. Sadly with The Reeds you get neither a good payoff or everything falling into place. I thought it did a little bit, but then there's another ending tacked on after a few credits roll that put it right back in the WTF territory. And it wasn't even that good a payoff to begin.
It's just so full of stupid plot points, hallucinations and visions that are never really explained worth a flip. At the end I tried to go back through the film in my mind and explain some things and it really only made them worse. I think the director just didn't know where he was going with it quite honestly and thought if he made it ridiculously confusing enough that it might be seen as deep. Well it's not.
The good? Well it's got a terrific eerie atmosphere and setting as the location out among the reeds is great. It's set in the Norfolk Broads, a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English countryside. It starts out with a whole lot of promise as the set-up of an isolated location with what I assumed was some "evil kids" is a pretty tried-and-true formula for crazy goings-on. It feels like something bad is about to happen as the tension builds, and it does with a couple of big slices of horrific gore... then the downhill plunge begins, and unfortunately never ends. My hopes were getting built up only to be leave me scratching my head and wishing for so much more, starting with explanations.
Decent premise, poor execution.
4/10
