Welcome to Knockout Horror. We are back with another shark movie. Today we will be reviewing Blind Waters from 2023. Oh, and in case I forgot to mention, it’s both a Tubi Original and an Asylum shark movie. So, yay, this is going to suck.
So for anyone who doesn’t know. Asylum are that movie production company that makes a bunch of mockbusters. Basically, low budget re-imaginings of hit movies. They created their own versions of The Fast and The Furious, Paranormal Activity, films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and much more. Although these movies all come from very disparate genres. They all share one particular thing in common. They are all shit!
Almost without exception, Asylum is the movie equivalent of genital herpes. You know that it exists and you want to stay as far away from it as possible. Tucking into bed with an Asylum movie promises about as good of a time as bedding down with a person who has a significant number of suspicious sores around their mouth. The best prophylactic when it comes to Asylum is abstinence.
More of the Same
When it comes to Asylum’s fascination with sharks, Blind Waters is more of the same. A young couple rent a boat to spend a romantic day snorkeling on the reef and enjoying the sun. Only to encounter engine problems that leave them stranded in shark infested waters. Naturally there is a bit of a twist during the middle which plays into the title but this is about as run of the mill as it gets. Blind Waters, very much, follows the usual pattern of these types of films. Get a couple of people out on the water and give them an excuse to get intimate with the business end of a shark.
Rather than being ridiculous and “so bad it is good” like so many of these movies. Blind Waters is just extremely slow and very boring. More so than Shark Waters, to be honest. So much of this movie is spent bobbing away on the waves with nothing happening that it is hard to stay interested. The relationship between our main characters, Valentina and Weston, is dull. The characters aren’t particularly interesting and the side plot that takes up much of the time does little to create intrigue. There’s just no reason to invest your time in this movie.
Even the shark elements provoke yawns. There is no reason why the shark here is so completely pissed off. It’s just there to be a menace with no rhyme or reason. At least they attempted to create a story behind the aggression in Shark Waters, there is none of that here. The gimmick that comes into play later on in the movie doesn’t really add much and opportunities to do more with it are completely squandered. There aren’t any tense chase scenes here, tons of the time is spent focusing on mundane things and the characters are so dumb that the only risk they are ever in is a product of their own stupidity. Oh, and did I mention that it is over 100 minutes long… Yeah!
Terrible Effects
All of this wouldn’t matter a great deal if the shark related thrills were competent but this is an Asylum movie. You know that the effects here are going to be the equivalent of someone playing around at home on Photoshop. The shark looks terrible, managing to be ridiculously small and not at all imposing. It has a disconnected from the environment feel, as if they didn’t think they needed to bother with shadows. It looks terrible. Just as bad as it did in Shark Waters but with only one shark instead of six.
Meghan Carrasquillo, as Valentina, is absolutely fine. She was decent in Shark Waters and does a good job here too. She emotes convincingly and is far too good for these low budget movies where nobody else gives a crap. Noam Sigler, as Weston, is hilariously awkward in parts. He really tries but comes across so wooden at times, his dialogue delivery was very reminiscent of the voice-overs from the original Resident Evil games. Managing to be both extremely cheesy and completely over the top. He gives it 120%, though, and has a great look for a movie like this. Francisco Angelini, as Gabe, looks pretty bored for the most part but comes on a lot in the later scenes.
The script is dog shit. Speech is unnatural and extremely basic. Characters often go into too much detail about what they are thinking, feeling, or doing. And the movie frequently resorts to cheesy one liners. Direction follows a similarly cheesy approach. Repeatedly cutting to character closeups so they can delivery lines that sound both out of place and a bit silly. Continuity is a problem with a ton of variation between shots, the movie looks okay, though. Asylum movies never look particularly low budget. Camera work is, often, decent and the colour palettes are bright and vibrant.
Should You Watch Blind Waters?
Blind Waters falls onto the less energetic end of Asylum’s shark movie obsession. It is a slow, boring, and not very interesting shark movie with bad effects, limited thrills and a silly story. The shark looks shit, as is par for the course with Asylum, there are no scares, a serious lack of tension and no fun chase scenes. Blind Waters is content to bob around on the waves like a piece of driftwood. Plain, unremarkable, and of limited purpose. Noam Sigler’s over the top performance and the bad script does offer a few “so bad its good” qualities though so maybe you will find something to like there.