Customer Reviews

The Reeds

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Set in the Norfolk Broads, a desolate but photogenic part of the UK, six attractive Brits go on a weekend boating trip on the Corsair Star to celebrate two of their number getting engaged to each other, little realising that there's more to the reeds than, well, the reeds. There's laughing, joking, high-jinks, and then some weird local kids appear and things start getting creepy. Suddenly the film turns, as most good horrors do, from nicey-nicey to oh-my-God-how much nastier can it get??? I think that the final act could probably have done with a little bit more thought, but I don't think the film suffers terribly from this. To the contrary, for the most part it's an extremely watchable horror. The slightly retro feel is very 'movie': you can tell this was shot on film and not digital, and the piece benefits from this.

The girl who plays the lead 'Laura' (Anna Brewster) is very good, natural and believable and the Brit TV actor Will Mellor makes a great, humorous and then horrific (in a good way) impression. The cinematography is good, very good in fact. From a directing/writing perspective there's certainly not too much fat on the story, and what is clever is that there's sufficient misdirection to keep the eventual outcome in the balance. I think this would deserve another half-star IF - and only IF - the last act had had a bit more thought, and maybe punch but then some will really love it and some won't.

Three point seven-five stars, which Amazon nicely rounds up to four for me.

It's a shame that After Dark Horrorfest 4 only got a week long run in the theater. The Reeds is the second film I was able to catch on the big screen, and it was a solid attempt by writer Chris Baker and director Nick Cohen.

The story is pretty basic--a group of 20-something year old friends embark on a weekend boating trip through the Norfolk Broads. Disaster strikes as something stalks them from the reedy tidewaters.

This story is developed pretty well, taking its time with character development and building tension. There is solid acting from the cast, plus believable dialogue. The setting is superb, as the tall reeds in the water make for difficult navigation. But when a horrible accident occurs, things start to sink rather quickly.


I'm all for a story with a mysterious deadly force wrecking havoc on an unsuspecting crew. Nothing groundbreaking, but it provides one hell of a creepy story. But eventually I'd like to have some sort of halfway legitimate explanation of the evil forces--what the hell is going on here? Ghosts, demons, river bandits, dopplegangers, zombies? It seemed this film didn't really know where to go, so it decided to go nowhere.

Plus the end was totally ridiculous. Not wanting to give anything away, but it seemed to me (and several people in the theater) to just be a bad joke on the audience.

Maybe with another attempt I'll get more out of this film. As for now, I can only recommend it for bored horror fanatics. 2.5 stars

Yet another group of young, beautiful people take a trip into unknown, terror-filled territory. This time out, they take a boat into THE REEDS, where they encounter juvenile delinquents, tragedy, and death. After the first few minutes, I settled in for one more killer-kids-from-hell movie, only to discover that I was completely, happily wrong! THE REEDS is actually a chilling ghost story w/ tons of dread, foreboding, and doom! The twisty finale is the black icing on the whole rancid cake! Definitely one of the better AFTER DARK films...

When I saw previews for this film, I thought it may have been based on Algernon Blackwood's short story The Willows. I was excited, but quickly became bored. The film is little more than the same "kill the cast" flicks of which you have seen entirely too many.
The setting is lovely (the Broads are a joy), and the thought of being lost in a sea of reeds is bound to bring out fear, but I wound up fast-forwarding in the hopes that something would catch my eye and tell me what was going on.
SPOILER ALERT. The "reveal" doesn't really reveal much. The killer is told to kill by the ghosts, but that makes no sense. No explanation that I saw said why he killed the kids in the first place. So it is a chicken and the egg kind of thing. Makes no sense, has no significant plot, and the very end, where everything seems to go back in time and the woman's eyes turn black, makes no sense either. I was really disappointed.

UK import The Reeds marks another foreign release for this year's lineup of the After Dark Horrorfest, but compared to Lake Mungo and Hidden, this is sadly the worst. The Reeds follows a group of friends who run afoul of some very disturbing goings-on along the river. Equal parts slasher and ghost story, The Reeds starts out slow and proceeds to go nowhere, plodding along while throwing one incomprehensible story element at you after another. It doesn't take long to realize The Reeds is going nowhere fast, although the film is sort of strangely compelling, just to see what direction things are going to take in terms of what horror sub-genre the film is going to scrape up against next. The ending is mind-boggling and kind of lame, and while The Reeds isn't abysmal, there isn't anything worth mentioning about it either.

A new entry in the Horrorfest series boosted by a creepy atmosphere and solid acting. Three couples off for a weekend of celebration find themselves confronting a supernatural presence and meeting grisly deaths.
It's all been done hundreds of times before and the twist at the end a little contrived but it's an entertaining ghost story.

"The Reeds" is a hopelessly confusing mess, a horror film that knows neither the story it wants to tell nor how it wants to tell it. While many scary and bloody things happen all throughout, and while it consistently establishes mood, no real attempt is made at a story until the final ten minutes, at which point we're hit with not one but two plot twists that make absolutely no sense. I hate movies like this. They have no ambition other than to keep you in a perpetual state of bewilderment. I grant you that not everything has to be wrapped up in a neat little package, but really, what can be gained by jerking the audience's chain without providing some kind of payoff?

It opens on a premise horror movies thrive on: A young group of city dwellers getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. Lo and behold, we have six twenty-somethings from London retreating for a weekend of boating in the Norfolk Broads, an open expanse of rivers, lakes, and reeds in the English countryside. Strange that this area should be so deserted when for over a century it has been a bustling tourist destination and a haven for yacht racing, but never mind. When our six friends arrive, they meet the strange old marina operator, Mr. Croker (Geoff Bell). He informs them, in his own salty way, that all the rentable boats are gone. But ... what's this? Why, one is still available. What luck!

Thus ventures our six friends, who are all character and no development. Not even Laura, who knows a thing or two about first aid (Anna Brewster), is given all that much to do, which is to say she's about as fleshed out as twig stripped bare of its bark. The rest combine to form a generic mishmash of horror movie stereotypes, meaning it's virtually impossible to tell one from the other, regardless of gender.

It isn't long before things start going wrong, for both our friends and the movie. It starts to rain. The ship gets stuck. Someone gets wounded. Others start to see things that may or may not actually be there. Out in the river, a skeleton floats to the surface, having been freed from a rusted torture cage. One of the friends abandons the ship in search of help, only to become distracted by events that can't be explained rationally. And it seems that something is in the reeds, although no one can say what that something is. We do sometimes see things from its point of view, however, and we can hear it breathing heavily.

More puzzlement can be found in a subplot involving a group of teens wandering through the reeds. They rarely speak and are often covered with blood. When they're not sitting around a makeshift campfire - roasting things that ought not to be roasted - they're being stalked by a mysterious figure in a black hooded jacket, who totes a shotgun with a flashlight affixed to the barrel. Sometimes, the teens seem to appear out of nowhere, and they disappear just as quickly. One of them, a girl with flowing red hair, occasionally glances at Laura with an ominous smirk. If the plot twist is meant to explain who these kids are and what they're doing in the reeds, then director Nick Cohen and writers Chris Baker and Mark Anthony Galluzzo seriously need a crash course in plot twists. There's no clarity in the revelation, nor is there logic.

Oh, this movie made me mad. It begins as one big horror movie cliché before getting lost in an endless succession of murky visuals, vague hints, unexplainable occurrences, and nonsensical resolutions. It wants to tell a story without actually telling one. It's one of those rare movies that lack both style and substance, making it seem not like a movie at all but rather an eighty-minute collection of scenes, many of which didn't seem to belong together in the first place. Which subplot are we supposed to focus on? How do they all come together? Is it a supernatural thriller or a psychological guessing game? Who is the main character? What does the final shot reveal, and how does it relate to the earlier twist? I'm trying hard, here.

Believe me, I wanted to like this movie. I tried to delve deeper into the plot, to find the nuances that entice audiences along, to get wrapped up in the mystery, to be scared, to go inside the characters' heads and figure them out. But as I quickly found out, there was nothing to figure out; it's constructed in such a way that any attempt would be pointless. "The Reeds" is an empty, bewildering, unrewarding experience, a dreary and unfocused train wreck that mistakes maddening confusion with cerebral psychological horror. Now I know what a hamster feels like running inside a wheel, exhausting itself in a fruitless attempt at going somewhere.

After Reading All of the neagtive Reviews, I Figured, that i would not like this movie, but i was wrong. It is a Really good movie. Like with most After Dark Films, Some Parts Didn't make a whole lot of sense, but i looked over it, and enjoyed it. I hate when people Critisize, movies for being "Unrealistic" Come On, It is a Movie. MAKE BElIEVE. Lighten Up, and have a little Fun. This made a great addition, to my collection.

This was one of the last selections in the series of the 2010 After Dark Horrorfest films that I hadn't seen. I really liked it, and it had a lot of twists and turns, moments in the flim where I had to think to myself. Did I just see that. Anyways, on my experience with the seller. It arrived early and as described. It was fulfilled by Amazon. So, if you you enjoy thrillers and some Horror the least bit, you need to rent all of the ones in the series, or maybe catch the re-runs on Sy-Fy. Thanks a lot.

Part of After Dark Horrorfest 4, The Reeds (2009) is a horror thriller set in the British countryside that while semi-atmospheric, isn't very well written or executed, as six twentysomethings from London, head out for a weekend of boating in some reedy wetlands. After managing to rent a boat from a Mr. Croaker (Geoff Bell), the outing turns disastrous when the group runs into trouble in the boggy marsh.

The group has virtually no boating or outdoor skills, and they soon become lost. Night falls, and they are stupidly struggling to make their way through the wetlands in the dark, when they have a disastrous accident. The group's lack of intelligence is almost comical as they try to cope with the situation. After accidentally setting their boat on fire, the night turns tragic for several individuals.

Besides a couple of cool scenes of violence, The Reeds doesn't have much to recommend it. The people are clueless, and barely manage to keep from killing themselves. They are involved in a greater mystery, that includes supernatural forces, murder, and a group of younger kids that are seen running through the swamplands. Eventually it appears that some of the survivors may have made it to safety, but the film has a surprise finish, that may leave you scratching your head. The writing and dialog is generally quite poor, giving the actors little chance to shine. Anna Brewster, O. T. Fagbenle, and Scarlet Johnson, probably do the best job. The action ramps up at the end, featuring more terrible acting, as a confusing supernatural element is revealed. The Reeds is a muddled mess that gets stuck in the muck early. It's barely worth seeing once, but the finish seems to indicate otherwise. You can catch it on Sy Fy, and decide for yourself.