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Customer Reviews of The Pool

The Pool
The Pool is wierd.It tries to be different from the horror genre but ends up trying to hard and fails.The whole setting is pretty ridiculous and dumb.The killers outfit is not scary it is kinda funny.I think I might have jumped once during the whole movie.The acting is also pretty bad.The dialogue is standars horror movie dialogue with a little try at being romantic.The showdown is probably the best part even though that's not real great.Overall I would give the film a D+.Another thing is that the character's aren't likeable.You don't really care who dies.(SPOILERS)Finally I hate how at the end they end the movie by the two main characters kissing and loud music playing without any sadness from the characters or a reappearence of the killer.I don't reccomend you see this one.

When you mix hot teenagers, a vicious murderer, and an abandoned pool, you get movie that is nearly irresistible. THE POOL is that movie, a frightening horror story that begins when 13 hopeful teenagers graduate from high school. Elated at the thought of their new lives in college and the real world, the youngsters find a way to bust into their city's abandoned public pool and throw a huge party. But one of them has an ulterior motive--a desire for revenge that turns out to be fatal.

"The movie's biggest offense is its complete and utter lack of tension."
-- David Cornelius, AMAZING COLOSSAL WEBSITE

Average attempt at Eurohorror
Perhaps no better way exists to compare the gradual dominance of Hollywood over all foreign film markets than to look at the horror genre. Once upon a time, European horror films developed their own intriguing mix of gory scares, with directors like Dario Argento and Mario Bava leading the pack into a brave new world of shriek cinema. Argento started out with the Hitchcock themed "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" but managed to invent the giallo film in the process, that unnerving cinematic style involving stalk and slash carnage committed by a black-gloved madman. Bava's "The Twitch of the Death Nerve," arguably the first modern slasher film, inspired countless imitators in the form of John Carpenter's "Halloween" and Sean Cunningham's "Friday the 13th." Those halcyon days are now over; replaced with films like "The Pool," a German slasher piece that sets no new precedents and covers no new ground. In fact, this movie by director Boris von Sychowski is an extremely derivative horror picture whose antecedents are "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" more than Argento's or Bava's masterpieces. Obviously, film buffs could advance compelling exceptions to this thesis, but the central premise holds solid. Tinseltown now dominates the world horror market.

If you must think of "The Pool," think of a Eurotrash cast with a sprinkling of Americans and South Americans thrown in for good measure. Set in Prague, the movie follows a group of students graduating from the International High School. Since all these kids will soon go their separate ways, the official leader of the group, Greg (Thorsten Grasshoff), decides to throw one last alcohol fueled bash. Rather than do something boring like party at someone's house or apartment, Greg approaches a friend about getting the gang into an aquatic park in town. Doing so requires breaking into the place, a risky proposition that could involve jail time if the police catch the kids. But how much fun it could be! Romping around the water slides and the pools while drinking the night away sure sounds like fun. Besides, the setting gives the director the chance to put his young cast into skimpy swimsuits. You can guess what happens next: the kids turn up at the pool, start having fun, and then begin expiring in hideous ways. It's stalk and slash time at the water park, and only a few might make it out alive.

The chap hunting down the gang wears a black outfit while wearing a skull mask. He's got his work cut out for him; I think at least a dozen cast members are hanging around the water park when the party begins. The most important characters include Sarah (Kristen Miller), an American worried about her future; Carmen (Elena Uhlig), a German snob harboring a few secrets from her other friends; and the aforementioned Greg. You've also got Kim (Isla Fisher), Svenja (Linda Rybova), Diego (Maximilian Grill), Mike (James McAvoy), and Mel (Cordelia Bugeja) waiting in the wings. A few more characters are present as well. At least you know the body count will be high. A bunch of subplots pop up from time to time, such as hidden relationships, one of the students languishing because she failed her finals, and a cop on the outside methodically tracking the killer to the swimming pool park. Two scenes of carnage take place outside the aquatic environs, one at a house of a mutual friend that recalls the opening scenes of the first "Scream" and another one in the forest. The conclusion, following one extended chase scene after another, made me wonder if the killer was somebody these people knew or Superman. Only the man of steel could take such a pounding and pop back up for more.

The single biggest problem I have with "The Pool," the one thing that really had me grumbling under my breath, is the huge number of cast members. Director Sychowski simply does not possess the skills to juggle this many major and minor characters in a film of this length. It's not a poor reflection on him; many directors could not achieve such a balancing act either. Too, once the bodies start falling it gets even harder to remember who is who. A scorecard with names matched to pictures of the actors might have helped. At first, I thought the various accents of the characters would act as label for figuring out who was who. I was wrong. With the exceptions of the Americans and the Aussie, the voices of the other nationalities began to blend into an unidentifiable Eastern European patois. I halfway expected the murderer to pull off his mask and identify himself as Gavrilo Princip. If you think the murders will save the movie, think again. Sure, a few imaginative incidents take place. The waterslide disaster looks like it draws the most attention from viewers. You know what I thought when I saw it? Dario Argento would have done it better, and done it in a way that would have truly made us cringe. Instead, the scene ends up being a pale imitation of what it could have been.

The DVD from Artisan Entertainment contains a few extras. Trailers, a photo gallery, and a few interviews with cast members all appear on the disc. The picture quality is good, too. It's tough to recommend "The Pool" to horror fans. Slasher film fans will probably like it to some extent, as much as they like any of the other hundreds of similar films out on the market, but viewers seeking a unique experience should probably look elsewhere. "The Pool" deserves three stars for a few good scenes and an occasionally effective stab at atmosphere. Just don't expect to be wowed.