Review of What the Waters Left Behind

Just because a horror film is Argentinian, it doesn't by default mean that it's worth seeing or even remotely interesting! "What the Waters Left Behind" looks appealing and gets programmed at international genre film festivals all around the world, but honestly the overall quality level never rises above that of any random sequel in the "Wrong Turn" or "The Hills have Eyes" franchises! It is a 200% derivative and uninspired South-American exploitation horror flick with dumb characters, poor performances, zero ingenuity or tension and lame & customary slaughtering. Some will refer to it as a loving tribute to the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", but I'm simply calling it a blatant imitation. The continent of location is different, obviously, and the buzzing chainsaws are replaced by barbed-wired bludgeons, but apart from that it's an exact copy of Tobe Hooper's horror landmark. The only interesting thing I learned from watching "What the Waters Left Behind" is the sad historical disaster that overcame the town of Epecuén in 1985. The part about the poor inhabitants losing everything because of a flood and never receiving any help from the government to rebuild their homes is factual. The part about a bunch of irritating twenty-something imbeciles shooting a documentary about Epecuén but finding themselves kidnapped and tortured by a cannibalistic freak-family is fictional rubbish. I'm so sick and tired of wannabe shocking horrors with redneck/inbred families, by the way! We get it now: their dental hygiene is terrible and the mothers/fathers are even crazier and more bloodthirsty than the offspring.

This was my first acquaintance with the acclaimed directors' duo Luciano and Nicolas Onetti, and I must say I'm very disappointed. I sincerely hope their previous work is a lot better, since I just bought their film "Francesca" after reading that it was a visually striking giallo-homage.