Dead Sea (2024) Review – A Predictable And Repetitive Nautical Slog

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are taking a look at a movie that has just arrived on Prime to rent or buy Dead Sea.

It’s not another shark horror movie!

We have covered a fair few low-budget shark movies here. Most of them coughed up in a phlegm-covered puddle by the awful Asylum Movies production team. We haven’t, however, covered many plain old “out at sea” horror movies. That’s all about to change as this movie popped up recently and we decided to check it out.

Following the story of young woman Kaya (Isabel Gravitt) and her friend Tessa (Genneya Walton) as they head out for some fun on Jet Skis (where have I heard that plot before?), the pair find themselves in trouble when they are involved in a serious accident that results in the death of one of their friends and the severe injury of another.

Floating around in the wide open sea, they feel like all hope is lost until a fishing vessel picks them up. Little do they realise that they may have just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

An interesting concept but poor execution

Before I get into the review itself, I am going to quickly summarise by saying that this one is pretty bad. While the concept itself is fairly interesting and, at least, offers some potential for soggy thrills, the execution is really poor. The first twenty minutes, or so, are spent building our characters up just a little bit. Think of it as a teenage drama movie complete with all the cringe and annoyingness that you would expect.

Kaya is a decent woman who recently lost her mum and now spends her time working, looking after her hopeless father, and caring for her younger brother. She gave up a swimming scholarship to do all of that and she’s pretty down about her future prospects.

“While the concept itself is fairly interesting and, at least, offers some potential for soggy thrills, the execution is really poor.”

Her friend Tessa is, to be honest, a bit of a prick and spends most of her time pressuring Kaya into doing things she doesn’t want to do. Hence why the pair end up using jet skis to head to a random island with Tessa’s boyfriend and some random dude.

Some smooching happens and things appear to be looking up for Kaya, before everything, obviously, starts to look down rather quickly. And by down I mean down towards the bottom of the ocean. It’s a super basic setup and things don’t really get going until the fishing vessel pulls them up and the captain, Rey (Alexander Wraith), pulls them on board.

It’s just sooo generic

From here on out, it’s just generic thriller nonsense with a liberal helping of gratuitous ass shots from a very invasive camera operator. Seriously, this dude wants to examine every single crease and crinkle of poor Kaya’s bikini bottoms. I hope she got hazard pay for the amount of times she probably nearly tripped on this person giving her a widescreen colonoscopy.

“Dead Sea brings absolutely nothing new to the format. The one thing it brings in spades, is minute after minute of characters standing around thinking about what to do next.”

There are a few words that would be perfectly applicable here, namely “predictable”, “formulaic”, “dull”, and “ridiculous”. It’s the same shit you have seen a million times, just on a boat and in slightly less clothing.

Characters have minor suspicions of their rescuer. The rescuer proves these suspicions correct. Characters have a chance to escape but fail. The situation escalates all leading up to the big finale. Dead Sea brings absolutely nothing new to the format. The one thing it brings in spades is minute after minute of characters standing around thinking what to do next. The narrative is so weak and poorly formulated that there are numerous periods of dead air with nothing to fill them.

Very repetitive

Characters repeatedly climb ladders to peep through gaps and to give the camera more of those trademark gratuitous ass shots. They repeatedly comfort each other for minutes at a time. They spend most of the film confined to one tiny room. And they spend far longer than is normal, in these movies, deciding what their next step will be.

“The usual constant drip-feeding of thrilling scenes that you would expect from this type of film just aren’t there.”

Every single scene drags out far longer than it should. Naturally, this has a huge impact on the excitement level. It is all just so repetitive. The usual constant drip-feeding of thrilling scenes that you would expect from this type of film just aren’t there.

For the vast majority of the runtime, simply nothing happens. We have a tiny bit of story exposition and literally nothing else. The characters don’t fight back; they do nothing at all. This, obviously, makes the final stanza feel extremely rushed. But, even then there is still time for one of the characters to fumble around trying to figure out how something works for over 3 minutes. It’s insanely dull.

One decent performance as a tiny glimmer of hope

The only beacon of light in the dead sea here is actor Isabel Gravitt. She tries so damn hard and does a good job with the really poor dialogue and dishwater dull narrative. Isabel has loads of potential. She deserved far more than all the sunburn, chapped lips, and 200 different angles of her ass cheeks that she got here. I would love to see her in a much better horror movie sometime in the future.

Dean Cameron was a nice addition. It’s cool to see him popping up. I am not confident about his drawing power if he has to take small parts in movies like this, though. Everyone else is pretty lacklustre. Not that the script offered them much to work with. Alexander Wraith barely says a word all movie. He just lumbers around being vaguely menacing.

Camera work is fantastically uneven. I am fairly sure that water-based scenes were filmed with a GoPro or something. You can imagine how great they look in a feature-length movie. They are occasionally interlaced with some actual 4K stock footage which makes the awful standard cinematography even worse. It all just looks pretty nasty. Throw in some lacklustre shots, again mostly focused on capturing Kaya bending over or doing things that will make her ass jiggle, some continuity issues, and a lot of pacing problems, and you have a very weak directional effort.

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Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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