Water Horse is an Australian horror movie from 2024. I guess you could say it’s kind of a Found Footage kind of movie since everything, more or less, is filmed by the characters of the movie themselves. You could also argue that the footage is actually “found”, even if it doesn’t really follow the same “rules” as many of these films do.
It’s a film about this paranormal investigation team that has gone missing. They were investigating a case, or a series of cases of disappearances during their last known whereabouts but now they’re no longer to be found anywhere. There is speculation, in the movie itself, about other dimensions and alternate realities. We never get a real solid answer to the cases they are investigating though.
What we get is the tension between the crew (they are not that many) and an insight in how stubborn people can be when they start obsessing over something, how hard it can be to let go of your own ideas and embrace a different approach.
It has a relatively slow pace throughout the movie. That in itself might not be a bad thing but I don’t feel really captured by the story. It’s an interesting one for sure, but there’s that last piece of nerve missing. I catch myself not really caring what happens next several times. A paranormal story needs to grab a hold of you and then never let go. It needs the tension and it needs the suspense to be effective. I don’t think Water Horse really reaches that point.
I also don’t really get the title. Perhaps Water Horse is a legend or myth rooted in Australian folklore? I also think that it’s not clear what significance some of the different scenes have. Sometimes I feel like there’s a scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It’s like there are different threads put together but never really connected to a coherent story.
It does have its moments for sure and part of it is really exciting. The acting is pretty good most of the time although the characters don’t seem really motivated. I think they might have needed a little more direction perhaps? There seems not to be as much motivation in finding the truth behind the seemingly paranormal event as there should be.
Don’t get me wrong here. There are scenes that are really ghastly and mysterious that I would like to dig deeper into. things that I would love to know the answers about, but Water Horse doesn’t explore these and seems to miss out on following up the most interesting aspects of its story.
