I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Waterfront Nightmare. I’ve missed every screening due to my location. I was able to receive a special screener just for review, but for the rest of you – Waterfont Nightmare will be sent to distributors by Experience Media Studios. This means, hopefully, you guys will get to see this cool indie flick soon.
Waterfront Nightmare follows a large group of friends who spend some time away at a remote waterfront cabin. Oh yeah, the cabin is situated near a local urband legend, one that has to do with a mass murderer. I think you can guess where it goes from there. Blood, angst, sex, and evil intentions collide in Waterfront Nightmare.
Waterfront Nightmare is written by Jason Whittier and directed by Clark Birchmeier. Noteworthy cast members include Rick Montgomery Jr. (Dying 2 Meet U), Bree Michaels (Jezebeth), Simone Wasserman, EJ Assi, Liana Werner-Gray (The Man In The Maze), Andrew Roth (15 Til Midnight), and Kef Lee (Scream 4).
Where to start… Where to start…
As you can see above, the characters in Waterfront Nightmare are portrayed by seasoned and talented actors. Unlike most indie features, you don’t get bad acting here, but you do get one or two over the top performances. Normally you would think, “Great acting means likable characters,” but you’d be wrong. Except for two characters, I pretty much hated every character that graced the screen. Usually I want to enjoy the characters and root for them, but in Waterfront Nightmare I was more-so, “Let’s get to the killing already, please!” This doesn’t subtract from the quality of the movie or mean I dislike the script writing at all. It just means people who are into horror films just for blood baths will get a kick out of this flick.
Speaking of blood baths, one criticism I do have is in reference to the gore. There just isn’t a lot of it. I was saddened to see a lot of off screen or cut away death scenes. This makes me wonder if the intention for Waterfront Nightmare was for it to be more of a dark-thriller/murder mystery type film, or if they intended for it to be horror and just missed the mark. I wouldn’t say that Waterfront Nightmare is an in-your-face slasher flick, but more of a slow cooker slasher. You have to wait the whole time and digest the final product to really appreciate what you have on your plate.
As far as production goes, it was put together nicely for an indie feature. There were a couple scenes, especially at night, that were filmed in an odd way. I don’t mean odd in the negative sense, more-so…uniquely, I guess you could say. These scenes almost looked like they were shot for a found footage film, but ended up in a narrative instead; almost as if these shots were point of view shots. Now there is a guy with a camera in Waterfront Nightmare – so maybe this is me missing the mark. Anyway! The film is very concise and there aren’t any parts that contain major audio or visual problems. The script is crisp and to the point, and doesn’t fall completely into your standard “kids in the woods” storyline. I always like to give props for originality…
Waterfront Nightmare is a decent flick. Great acting, good script, high production value, and small doses of originality. Couple this with some good looking girls and minimal gore and we’re all set to go. My only thing is – don’t expect the holy grail of indie horror flicks, you won’t get that here, but you will get a fun movie viewing experience.
