About the only thing this would-be Hitchcock rip-off has going for it is a cool DVD cover picture of lead actress Lake Bell up to her chin in a lake. Unfortunately, this shot is NOT from a scene in the movie. Worse yet, this picture is more interesting than anything that actually IS shown in the film. In an apparent effort to seem clever, UNDER STILL WATERS writer\director Carolyn Miller throws in one after another increasingly incomprehensible plot twist as this lame flick nears its totally inscrutable finale. Apparently Miller feels viewers should be forced to read between the lines, and fill in all the blanks by extrapolating what the missing scenes would have looked like if she had been able to fit more of the script into her shooting schedule. I say, to heck with that. If I'm shelling out 50 cents to rent a movie, I do not want to be forced into doing $40,000 worth of "script doctor" work in my head in order to complete what the writer\director MAY have wished to convey on-screen (but failed abysmally to do so). If you have been able to stomach UNDER STILL WATERS all the way through to the end, ask yourself these questions: did deputy Buford REALLY exist, or was he just a figment of someone's imagination, and if so, whose? Better yet, whether real or imagined, WHY kill him?
Review of Under Still Waters
Under Still Waters
(2008)
Writer\Director Carolyn Miller is in over her head here
31 October 2011
Warning: Spoilers