Director: Edgar Nito
Year: 2025
Country: Mexico
Alternate Titles: Un cuento de Pescadores
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Living in a small lakeside town, a series of exploits around town brings the residents to believe that something might be living in the local lake, causing the disappearances, and when they find the real culprit is revealed must find a way to stop it from taking over the town.
Review:
Overall, this was a fairly fun and generally enjoyable genre effort. Among the better elements of this one come from the strong setup about how life in the community exists before the chaos starts. This manages to work rather heavily to give us a showcase of the village and life among the fishermen at the lake, and how it impacts the others in the community, with the various residents shown engaging in their everyday life while also dealing with the outcome of the harvest from the fishing fleet, with how dominant the mindset of the villagers featured here is. This brings about the small-town lifestyle ruled by superstition and folklore, with the constant whispers of the demon that lives on the lake being responsible for the series of accidents and strange deaths that begin piling up in a way that feels natural and consistent with this type of isolated, intermingling society, where everyone is familiar with everyone else and no secrets are truly secrets.
It’s all certainly helped by the atmosphere of isolation and dread that hangs over everything, from the atmospheric look of the lake and the way it’s all perceived to the standout way all of the local influences work their way through the central location. Encroached by the woods and a local swamp where the creature that supposedly lives, the general approach is of isolated and terrified locals in over their heads when the bodies start appearing, and they’re forced to confront the truth that something might be in the water killing off everyone, instead of their preconceived notions regarding someone from the village. That they try to continue living is another fine way we get to see the final outcome of everything at the end, where all the victims of the lake are gathered together in gruesome fashion. It creates a strong image that helps to tie together the idea of what the village is about, rather nicely, with the whole thing providing this with a lot to like.
There are some problematic issues for this one holding it down. The biggest factor against this one is the generally lacking story for the creature in the lake, as it seemingly exists in the lake but never gets more to understand what’s going on. It’s all treated as if there’s a specific legend about who or what is responsible for the misfortune everyone experiences but yet it never successfully makes it clear to outsiders looking at the story who or what the locals are referring to with their born and bred knowledge of the situation. That makes it somewhat hard to care what’s happening when the lives of these people are being interrupted by something that doesn’t make any sense, as the atmosphere of what’s going on makes it interesting and comes together rather than the storyline. That also means the film is longer than it really should as it tends to meander through these sidestories of the villagers rather than offering up the kind of clarity on the situation, which is what holds this back.
Overview: **.5/5
An intriguing enough if somewhat confusing genre effort, there’s a lot to like here that is somewhat undermined by some big flaws that do bring it down overall. Those with an interest in the style or approach taken here will have the most to like with this one, while most others out there turned off by these factors should heed caution.
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