Today, we review THE POOL
Genre:Horror
Directed by: Boris von Sychowski
Starring: Kristen Miller, Elena Uhlig, Isla Fisher and James McAvoy
Released: September 24, 2002 (DTV North America)
THE GENERAL IDEA In Prague, a group of international friends who are celebrating high school graduation want to have one last blast before they part ways. They break into a new, yet to open indoor water park and proceed to raid the facility’s bar and pool rides. However, they don’t know that someone has been stalking the group, already killing one of their own before the shin-dig starts. That masked killer also invites himself to the pool party, and hunts them down one at a time.
THE GOOD The film was shot in Prague and features characters/actors with a mixed international flavor: American, British and German. For half of the film, this loosely gives identity to the individual characters. There are two actors who stand out in the film, one of which is not Isla Fisher (her character leaves by the first act) but rather German actress Elena Uhlig, who I haven’t seen much of since this film. Go ahead and take a guess at who the other standout is. He’s in a minor supporting role- but your guess at James McAvoy would be correct.
The film also makes a terrific use out of one general location, and while the masked killer is somewhat stock (a bit Halloween/Scream inspired) he’s got a nasty way of using his knife. He doesn’t sneak around, he’ll try to kill off two or more if he can. The film’s director, Boris von Sychowski, tries to make the film more stylish which works for the film’s first two acts. For low budget and one location, it’s impressive.
There’s also, for the horror fans, two nicely done kills. One involves a water slide, the other, a pair of feet.
THE (NOT SO…WELL OKAY IT IS…) BADAh, as a guilty pleasure for me this is, there are three elements of ‘The Pool’ that I truly despised. I praise the first and second acts for holding my interest and while The Pool isn’t going to be a horror classic by any means, at least they settled for ‘bearable’. But then comes that third act of the film, when the young folks speculate on who among them is ‘the killer’. The prime suspect is the guy that cheated on his girlfriend. Yes, you heard me right. Now, I’m not saying a dude who messes around on his girlfriend doesn’t deserve to get a butt whuppin’. However, if you’re trapped in a building with a killer:
a) why do you automatically assume it’s one of your friends
b) why do you think the guy doing the killing is a guy whose sole crime to your knowledge is someone who is a player?
The second problem area is when the killer is revealed and we, the audience, is given this flashback to something we, the audience would only know, not the other characters. Sure “we” knew where he supposedly was. But the misdirection was made up for OUR manipulation. If we could trim out some of those scenes, it would be a bit better.
The third problem is my usual pet peeve in recent horror group therapies: here’s a bunch of friends who are tight. Some of them hook up together. It takes one to panic, and then nobody trusts anyone and they start fingerpointing in teen emo meltdowns. It’s short, it’s sweet. It’s a pain in my brain.
OVERALL So, yes, I am revisting The Pool because it’s one of James McAvoy’s (X-Men First Class) early roles. It’s also a guilty pleasure that I discovered by dumb luck and picked up for my DVD collection. There are some elements which I didn’t care much for, but the effort (for a 5 US dollar value on DVD) was better than most. For a low budget horror with a nice little set, it was worth the buy. A guilty swiss cheese pleasure for me.
