REVIEW: 'Black Water' - Tense in the Swamps.

Andrew Traucki's Black Water is an effective monster thriller considering its budget. There's little of the "on-your-face" scares, so feeling the lackluster for such is completely inclusive of empathy. What the croc-pic really delivered were effective moments of suspense that luckily, firmly lingered.

The Aussie-set thriller will follow three tourist friends Lee, Grace and Adam (played by Maeve Dermody, Diana Glenn and Andy Rodoreda respectively) who are terrorized by an enormous saltwater crocodile. Suspended in the mangroves of the Northern Australian swamps, the three must find a way to escape the isolated setting while the croc is still waiting for his lunch to dip his/her feet in the water.

Black Water proprieties three characters that are too intricate that the puzzle seemed to have lost tracked of its pieces. There's dorky Lee, who will unevenly appear as either excessively cloying or feasibly profound. Couple Grace and Adam, however, displayed intricacy in their characters; caring for them as a result wasn't a hard task. You care for Lee still, but not equally.

Director Traucki and David Nerlich's croc-pic does not display the monster in plenty of scenes, with which decision actually paid-off. The minimalist approach works entirely well, building better tension than what audiences usually get with other monster pics. 

There's got to be some clever reason with the nursery rhyme insertions. "Three little monkeys, swinging on the tree, teasing Mr. Crocodile, 'cant catch me. Along comes Mr. Crocodile, as quiet as can be. Snap. Snap. Snap."

Of which tension's lingering, the scare in Black Water falls downhill with the ending, leaving the beginning promise trashed. Not completely, though, as the opening tensions were of great strength that it stays with you until the end. Crazy, right?

With the genre's suffocated state, Black Water is a pic that at least loosens the knot a little bit. It's not perfect, but hey, I'm told: monster pics should start to look something like this.

OWN IT NOW ON DVD!!! :)

GRADE: B+