Serving as a much-belated sequel to the 2007 Australian sleeper hit “Black Water,” director Andrew Traucki’s B-movie influenced follow-up, the blandly titled but effectively executed “Black Water: Abyss” is lean killer crocodile film that upgrades the appropriately lo-fi aesthetic of the original, replacing the expansive swamp setting with a claustrophobic cave descent. Relying on muted headlights and murky water for its most effective scares, “Black Water: Abyss” is exactly what it sets out to be, and all the better for it, a thrilling continuation of an improbable franchise that doesn’t rely on the first film for anything other than inspiration. For those who don’t want to commit to a crocodile film fest (though, who wouldn’t?), fear not, almost nothing is carried over from the previous film.
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Beginning with a predictably bloody prologue featuring two lost Japanese hikers and their accidental stumble into a cave that, of course, houses more than just the titular black water, the film truly begins with a couples vacation, spearheaded by gung-ho Eric (Luke Mitchell) and his semi-reluctant spouse (Jessica McNamee). Along for the ride is recently cancer-free and very reluctant Viktor (Benjamin Hoetjes) and his newly pregnant wife Yolanda (Amali Golden), carrying over the only plot element from the original film.
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They all agree, with the help of Eric’s cave diving friend Cash (Anthony J. Sharpe), that the best way to spend a vacation is to go into the middle of the jungle, with an approaching storm, tell no one and repel down into an expansive subterranean cave. What happens next is, well, pretty obvious. The cave starts to flood and a very focused crocodile begins to hunt them, picking them off one by one as they attempt to swim out of the ever flooding labyrinth cave system. Maybe they should have paid more attention to the approaching storm?
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Unlike the sun-soaked introduction, once in the cave, Trauki relies almost entirely on flashlights and headlamps to provide lighting, firmly placing the audience alongside his terrified protagonists. Once the water starts rushing in, it’s appropriately cloudy, obscuring all visuals. It’s an effective method of tension building, as Trauki knows that seeing the crocodile is obviously the least effective scare-tactic. “Black Water: Abyss” knows what type of movie it is, and works to provide enough tension to conceal the inherently ridiculous premise of the film.
Where ‘Abyss’ stumbles, though, is in overloading the already thin plot with character backstory. When you are being hunted by a killer croc in a hidden cave, with a storm threatening to flood everyone, there shouldn’t be much time for interpersonal conflict, yet co-screenwriters Ian John Ridley and Sarah Smith give these two couples enough issues to work out to fill a few months in therapy. As people start dwindling, and the group begins to separate to find a way out, Ridley and Smith decide it’s time to trot out contrived backstories, reconfiguring relationships in the process.
While using the overarching genre of horror to explore the underlying sexual tensions of couples who happen to be friends has been effectively utilized before (most recently in Dave Franco’s “The Rental”), “Black Water: Abyss” is an inherently absurd film that works best when focused on the singular problem of a very committed killer crocodile and whatever else the murky water might be hiding. While Trauki’s film may not go down in the pantheon of killer creature features, like the similarly themed “47 Meters Down: Uncaged,” it’s a lean and effective B movie. [B-]
