Film #24 — 2/3 Wildcard Films
By C. Ramsay
Following four friends traveling deep into the Mojave Desert to make a music video, Robbie Banfitch’s The Outwaters combines elements from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Picnic at Hanging Rock to create a horrifying pastiche of back-country dread. Though a weighty share of its runtime feels painfully amateur—a negative reflection of Banfitch’s combined efforts in writing, directing, producing, starring in, doing the cinematography for, and editing the film—the latter half transitions to being evidence of what can be achieved through the confines of a small budget mixed with unbounded creativity. It never feels like there’s much effort put into the characterization of the group we follow, with nearly the first hour reflecting only their drab, predominantly mopey personalities. While this begins as a fault in the writing, it eventually becomes a testament to the gruesomeness presented and the degree to which it makes the characters as they exist sympathetic to the audience. Where every minute initially seems to drag under mediocrity, each later feels endlessly inescapable, with the characters reduced to sniveling, huffing, bestial renditions of their earlier selves who we can only hope are able to achieve some sort of salvation. The plot is structured fairly well and moves in completely unexpected ways, with the fear coming from a lack of formula and no forewarning to the audience of what might happen. Everything is panic, despair, and pitiful terror.
Using an experimental approach, many scenes from the first half of the film are effectively unsettling in how they’re framed and edited, and in the types of audio overlaid instead of relying mostly on musical score. The soundscape overall is fantastic, but sometimes goes a touch overboard, aiming for shock value rather than immersion. Relatedly, the greatest feature of the horror presented is its abstractness: only being able to see a fraction of what’s going on and having our brains fill in the rest, or having visual access to what’s happening but not being able to make sense of it. Where things falter slightly is in occasionally showing too much; if certain visuals were toned down and retained a status of being slightly off from making sense instead of turning into jumpscares, then every scene would be just as effective. For so much imagery in the last act being abstract, there’s also some specific, clear imagery that feels a bit too out of place to meld properly with everything else. Altogether though, the gore is designed well and conveys complete depravity, and the angles of certain shots and how they capture the people in them are nauseating.
There is evidence peppered throughout to support an array of theories about what on earth might be happening to the group, but none of it is a guarantee. Cosmic madness is dressed in a variety of richly contrasting whites, blues, tans, and reds as the four friends descend rapidly into animalistic hysteria, dragging us along even though we have no idea who to root for, who to be afraid of, or what’s happening at all. What begins as a Maynard Dixon painting shifts to Jackson Pollock before ending as Delaunay’s Ixion Précipité dans les Enfers. Any meaning, recognizability, and humanity in the film are fully stripped to reveal sequence after sequence of demented visuals meant to torment the protagonists and audience without distinction, something that is achieved with great success.
Star rating (/5): ★★★★½
Recommend?: Yes