Director: Isaac Gabaeff
Year: 2015
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Blood Sand
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Awakening the morning after a beach-party, a group of teens find that the sand around them contains a vicious, unseen creature that pulls them underneath the beach and tries to find a way of stopping the curious creature in order to get away alive.
Review:
This here was an incredibly fun and enjoyable effort. One of the best parts to this one is the fact that there's such an enjoyably creepy air of menace here that works very well in the film's favor, as it really manages to get a lot out of the concept here. The fact that it goes forward with the reveal very early-on with the creature's appearance to them underneath the sand, and there's a lot right about this that comes off rather chilling and creepy with the way this works here. The early scenes of the remaining group getting attacked and pulled under takes that concept out into the open rather well, and there's a lot of nice work here throughout this which really puts that to fine work.
It has numerous scenes of the group getting stuck in the sand and then getting pulled under by the fine tentacles poking up to attack them, and the main sequences that stand out are the first few encounters where they don't know it's there as this pops off plenty of great deaths that really let their quick-strike ability and ruthlessness in attacking them are great fun. As it later descends into a series of scenes where they try to escape their predicament that ends up failing and causing them to fall into the sand to get devoured, it does have some solid action scenes as they try a series of rather solid and surprisingly plausible escapes which really help this one along here.
While there's plenty to like here, it does have a few rather stylish flaws where it's dragged down a lot more than it really should've. The film's biggest issue is the monster effects here, which is all done in CGI that looks absolutely atrocious and never once looks quite lively at all, rarely meshing with the action of the scene here as it's quite low-res during them. By doing the whole amount of creature effects and the gore effects here for the mangled bodies while they're being eaten alive by the creatures, it gives this such a low-rent feel that there's almost little to save it overall and holds this back somewhat.
The other minor issue to be had here is the weak storyline, as although it's a chilling concept it feels way too weak and gets started so quickly anyway that it comes off as being too thin and stretched out way too much. As it is, this quite rushed and glosses over several important opportunties where it could've either given them a longer build-up to get going with the type of plot this one could've had or just trimmed it down into a shorter time for an anthology segment or a shot as it's got plenty of moments that could've been done in a briefer time. It just seems too weak as it is to really play out for anything other than a shorter segment as it really has to stretch itself to make a feature running length. Otherwise this one wasn't all that bad.
Overview: **/5
While there was the potential for some cheesy fun to be had here, the way it plays out is way too problematic to be anything more than a curiosity piece instead of anything more. This really only works for the most devout, hardcore creature feature fans who can overlook the flaws, while those with more discerning tastes should definitely heed caution with this one.
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