The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond is a great little horror film, which to me really harkened back to the glory days of 80’s horror. The film centers around nine surprisingly not college, or high school, but late 20’s early 30’s friends who travel to a remote island to get away from it all for the weekend. Once arriving on the island, which of course has no cell coverage, and is watched over by the T-1000 himself Robert Patrick; they settle in their rented Victorian house for the night, only to have the power go out.

When one of the characters, attempting to find the fuse box and comes upon an ancient board game stashed away in the basement. They decide what better to do than pass the time playing this interesting, very cursed looking game. Once the game begins, mysterious things begin to happen. The game begins to manipulate the players showing them things, which pray on the fears and desires of the participants. The game first starts out as a flirty truth or dare, but as the game goes on the questions change from simple queries to deeper secrets better left untold.



The game wakes insecurities in husbands and wives, and re-awakens feuds in old friends, turning them against one another in what builds up to a glorious all out Battle Royale of blood, and mayhem. I thought it was interesting when a character would go under the influence of the game, you could tell because they would inherit the black eyes, and some of the same mannerisms you might recognize from Maryann’s followers in season 2 of True Blood. The film I thought was kind of a April Fools Day meets Jumanji, meets True Blood. While the plot is nowhere near believable, it is a very fun horror film to watch and had me watching from start to finish to see what the game would throw at the players next.

For a genre film that follows this formula, I found the fact that the film’s main protagonists were in their late 20’s early 30’s a bit more refreshing and believable. There is a very shallow back-story to the game and how it got to the island, which also involves a bad animatronic goat monster, it makes an appearance at several parts during the film. But the director wisely knows that the crux of this story relies on the characters and their interpersonal struggles, and those scenes involving the monster are luckily few and far between, and could easily have been left on the cutting room floor altogether.

The film is a low budget production, and appears to be shot on HD; which is not a bad thing.  This really wouldn’t been that apparent either, if only they didn’t put so much polish and filters on some of the earlier flashback scenes in the film, making the transition when we go to present a little jarring in quality. The film’s cinematography in general evolves throughout the film. Early in the film, the cuts and framing seem less polished. As we go through the film the scenes are better framed and the transitions are more fluid from cut to cut.  While the cinematography not great it does leave a bit more to be desired.

The acting in this film is actually surprisingly well done for a genre picture. I mean we have some serious genre veterans in this cast from Robert Patrick, James Duvall, and one of my personal favorite genre actresses, or scream queens if you will Dannielle Harris; who got her start as Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4. These are people who know how to make a horror film, and pull off the gags. One addition to the cast, which was also very pleasant, was Electra and Elise Avellan. You might recognize them from their roles as the Crazy Babysitter Twins, from Planet Terror and Death Proof.  I think they have a great look to them, and twins for some reason are always creepy thanks to The Shinning. I thought it was a great ensemble cast for a horror film, and definitely one where they played with the racial stereotype roles in a genre picture giving us something just a little bit different.

For being a genre film it was definitely something new, and for a film about a demonic board game it was actually quite good. There wasn’t a ton of jump scares, which I feel are the cheap way to go with a picture like this, and seem like all the rage nowadays. While some of he animatronic effects were not the best, some of the practical blood and gore was a little better done, and chainsaws always help. I thought the design of the actual board game was done quite well.  While this is no Texas Chainsaw Massacre if you’re looking for a good horror film to pass the time with some friends, I think this definitely fits the bill.  Also, while this is a horror film there is not a high gore factor or high nudity factor, the film walks the middle ground with both surprisingly well.

I feel confident giving The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond a 3 out of 5 stars.  The film just opened in theaters on Friday April 9th in a wide theatrical release. It’s rated R and definitely earns its rating. I mean its great to not only see something like this in theaters, but getting a wide theatrical release as well. Its not often in the straight to DVD horror market we currently live in that something like this gets put on the big screen. So check it out while you can.