Water Rites, 2025.
Directed by Dean Jacobs.
Starring Katy Bentz, Dean Jacobs, Dee Wallace, Lynn Lowry, Michael Berryman, Evan Sloan, and Denis Record.
SYNOPSIS:
A couple take a break from their work-a-day lives by spending the summer at a secluded lakefront community. After uncovering the locals’ secrets, the couple’s idyllic retreat quickly turns into something neither of them can return from.
Taking cues from the sub-genre of urbania, or a city dweller’s fear of small towns and out-of-the-way places, Water Rites aims to take a look at what goes on behind closed doors in a place that seems at first glance like the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle. The movie sets its sights high from the outset, with an overhead shot riffing on The Shining as our leads James and Katie make their way across the highway to the little lakeside town where they are set to spend the next weeks and months painting, working on the place, and drinking rather a lot of wine.
The oddness of the place is nicely hinted at in the slow-paced opening parts. Very slow in some places, I would say, particularly when the couple enjoy an after-dinner dance to a song by a local performer. Nothing wrong with the song, but the scene did feel wrung out for its own sake.
Still, in some ways the ultra-slow movements work well, with the weird nods and winks from the creepy waiter (Denis Record) or Michael Berryman’s boatman gradually building up to a pressurised knowledge that all is certainly not what it seems.
There is always some fun to be had with local weirdness, and the first half of the film handles this well enough, with director and lead Dean Jacobs encountering plenty of oddness. His character is glad for the break from the city, but finds that there are a lot of differences in many ways, and some decidedly unpleasant. He spends much of his time in the local bar, run by another outsider, Chris (Evan Sloan), who becomes, with his partner, a new friend and ally for James and Katie.
From then on, the great and the not-so-good of the town, including more horror luminaries such as Dee Wallace and Llyn Lowry, continue to make life rough for anyone who doesn’t go along with their particular way of doing things. For me, while I appreciated the small-town weirdness of the piece, and how it took its time to build up the pressure, I felt that when the reveal came, it felt like not enough had been invested beforehand.
There are some moments of true horror in the last third, but after such a long wait it has the effect of appearing a bit tacked on. Still, the modern feeling of wanting to get some authenticity into modern lives by living closer to nature is interesting, but at times it sits a little uneasily with the main plot, leaving the whole thing a bit of a clash of styles.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
