DROWNING ECHO

Friends and family members are frequently horrified by what seems to be my insatiable desire to watch as many cheesy horror/monsters movies as I can. When I’m too exhausted to write or otherwise use my time wisely, I’ll pop one of my vast accumulation of un-watched movies into the Blu-Ray player or all-region DVD. This is always a crap shoot, the closest I come to a gambling addiction. But there’s an upside to my mania.

Sometimes I find movies I really enjoy and I can’t wait to tell you about them. Sometimes I find movies that make my eyes go wide with how truly awful they are. I can’t wait to write about those movies either. In the case of the latter, the end result will usually be a blog entry like this one.

Drowning Echo [2019] is not listed under that title at the Internet Movie Database, though that was the title on the DVD I got through my local library system. The official title seems to be Nereus and that’s the name under which it’s listed. The mythological Nereus was a sort of Triton prototype. Neither of those titles is as good as the original working title: The Complex.

Here’s the IMDb storyline summary of this movie:

During a visit to friends, Sara begins having visions and is attacked by an unearthly creature in her friend's swimming pool; she soon discovers that anyone who comes into contact with the water is in danger and she is driven to confront the mystical and malevolent creature lurking in the depths.

SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD

Sara [played by Itziar Martinez] visits childhood friend Will at a motel-type complex with a few permanent tenants. At various times of the year, it does a good tourist business. However, Sara’s visit doesn’t come during one of those tourist times.

There’s a pool at the complex. A young woman vanished from it and her body was never found. Two residents saw the woman taken by some creature who appeared in the pool and then vanished. They saw more than the viewers did. All we see is a spooky gill-man kind of face and some water tentacles. The awesome tentacles you see on the DVD? They aren’t in the movie.

Sara starts investigating. Some residents reveal themselves to be bad people. Others become victims. One of them seems to be the host for the creature, but that’s not made real clear. Sara and another resident - the only one left alive - defeat the creature. But then we get one of those “oops” endings wherein Sara discovers she’s the new host for the creature.

SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
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SPOILERS OVER

Let’s cut right to the chase. This movie is a 108 minutes of sheer tedium. It seemed longer. The acting isn’t awful, but that doesn’t make up for the tedium. Drowning Echo is boring with no satisfying payoff for the two hours of my life it stole from me. I recommend giving it a very wide pass.

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Today’s blog entry is shorter than usual because, a few hours after I post it, I’ll be on my way to G-Fest, the amazing annual Godzilla convention. The legendary kaiju event runs from Friday, July 12 through Sunday, July 14, at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel. On Friday, I will be giving a presentation called “Cheesy Monsters Raid Again!” It’s the second in a series of similar presentations I’ll be giving until I run out of cheesy horror and monster movies to share with the audience. In other words...forever.

The bloggy thing will be on hiatus while I’m traveling, save for an entry on Tuesday, July 16. On Wednesday, July 17, I’ll be flying to San Diego for Comic-Con International. You won’t see another blog entry until I return and recover from that event. I’m shooting for Wednesday, July 24.

I’ll be back sooner or later with more stuff.

© 2019 Tony Isabella