For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Films that feature/take place in Desert areas here’s a review of The Outwaters (2022) by Paul of the People’s Movies.
Thanks again to Paul of the People’s Movies for choosing this month’s Genre.
Next month’s genre has been chosen by David of BluePrint: Review and we will be reviewing our favorite Films featuring Swordfighting.
Please get me your submissions by the 25th of May by sending them to engarde@movierob.net
Try to think out of the box!
Let’s see what Paul thought of this movie:
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Relentlessly disorientating found footage horror that sees four cool travellers camping in the baking Mojave Desert to shoot a music video but end up documenting a terrifying phenomenon that pulverises their minds.
Presented chronologically over 3 recovered memory cards The Outwaters is so purist in its found footage nature that it escapes its genre parameters and permeates the surreal realms of experimental film.
As such, it has already proved supremely polarising. For every gushing critical appraisal, there is a counterbalancing viewer opinion of incandescent hatred. While some adore its Lovecraftian fuckery and nauseous sound design, many others scoff at its shaky-cam chaos and Blair Witch wankery. Some have even questioned if it deserves to be called a “film” at all and refuse to believe anyone beyond the Emeror’s new clothes brigade really likes this gloriously incoherent mess. Others have declared The Outwaters to be so dreadful they passed judgment without finishing the film and in doing so deprived themselves of the most fundamentally insane final reel outside of Aronofsky’s mother!
However, two things are irrefutably universal. At no juncture during the bloated runtime will you fully understand what is assaulting your eyeballs and at no juncture during the final third will you have the remotest scooby doo what the living fuck is going on. What is more, that is the absolute bravery and beauty of Robbie Banfitch’s daring gauntlet slap that bloodies the nose of conventional cinema.
Just as controversy imp Gaspar Noé chews up the movie rule book and shits out sparkling danger turds of genius, Banfitch has fashioned a ferocious film of no fucks given artistic autonomy that dares you to despise it and double dares you to go camping in the desert darkness EVER again.
A movie that transcends the evil of spoilers because the whole point of it lies in that you are not supposed to understand its events, but experience them organically and in the moment. Like a wide-eyed deer fear-pissing in the glare of a GoPro headlamp.
The Outwaters is often more akin to installation art than a feature film. As if Frida Kahlo had been commissioned to produce a Badlands folk piece reflecting Cannibal Apocalypse through the kaleidoscope of William Burroughs’ mind. If that seems a little pretentious then wait until you get a load of the lo-fi light show sequences and phantasmagorical hysteria featured in this film.
Perspective is always crucial to the found footage experience and The Outwaters doubles down magnificently in this area. Although we are viewing digitally captured images we are unsure how they are being perceived and processed in the fractured mind of the filmer. This adds a complex layer of undecipherable fog to the mix as the protagonist may not be absorbing the chaos and carnage in the same cognitive fashion we are.
The director has stated that he certainly didn’t set out to make such an experimental movie but by simply presenting what was occurring in a raw configuration it spontaneously evolved into one. Allowing his film this level of freewheeling self-governance gives it a liberating animalism that accentuates both the madness and the suffocation.
Visually and sonically The Outwaters utilises its Mojave setting to the max. The cold barrenness of the wind-blasted landscape drenched in dreamy sunshine makes for a discombobulating canvas for the psychological torture to unfold. The debilitating soundscape filters out any soothing notes of nature to isolate the drones of dread and magnify the cacophonies of fear and panic. For such a low-budget movie these two aspects are as accomplished as they are disconcerting.
Viewers who should avoid a dip in The Outwaters include those adverse to staring at a completely blank screen for minutes on end and unhappy with only seeing about 1/10th of the action the rest of the time. Also, those who require the narrative comfort of a tangible plot, epilepsy sufferers, and anyone on drugs.
Viewers who should seek out a swim include those who think there isn’t enough despairing screaming in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, fans of screeching intestine snakes, and folk who reckon the film work of Robert Eggers is overly simplistic.
If you do decide to take the plunge then be prepared to stay the course. Just as Shin’ichirô Ueda’s amazing One Cut of the Dead tested the patience before confounding expectations so The Outwaters builds with a languid slow burn before delivering a memorable payload that makes it worth the effort.
It’s no surprise this edgy psycho-horror found its natural habitat at festival screenings. However, it stands a strong chance of becoming a cult favourite outside of that thanks to its interpretational riddles and capacity to linger in the mind long after the hellish screams have faded
MovieRob 