Director Report Card: Larry Fessenden (2013)

5. Beneath

Conceptually, the idea of a television devoted to nothing but horror movies and shows sounds like a great idea. To be totally honest, I've dreamed of a fantastical Horror Network my entire life. For a brief period of time, horror fans actually had two networks specifically devoted to the genre to choose from. FearNet ran from 2006 to 2014. Chiller ran from 2007 to 2017. Yet neither lived up to their potential, FearNet having a repetitive schedule of the same underwhelming movies and Chiller eventually degrading into re-runs of horror adjacent TV shows. Both networks rarely showed anything made before the eighties and both usually edited movies for time and content. I remember FearNet's death being bemoaned by some but Chiller seems to be missed by exactly no one.

Yet you can't say both networks didn't at least go for it. FearNet's original TV series “Holliston” won a cult following, as did its yearly 24-hour marathon of “Trick r Treat” on Halloween. Chiller, meanwhile, presented an interesting line-up of original movies. They adapted well-known horror stories, like “The Monkey's Paw” or Brian Keene's “Ghoul.” Interesting independent productions, like “The Boy” and “Siren,” were part of the network's line-up. Among the network's earliest acquisitions was “Beneath,” Larry Fessenden's first directorial credit after a lengthy six year break.

A group of high school friends, before heading their separate ways to different colleges, decide to  go on one last trip together. The introspective Johnny, who harbors a crush on blonde Kitty his whole life, picks the location: A secluded lake on his family's property. There's no cell reception out there and Johnny is warned not to take his friends out on the body of water... But the kids jump on a boat anyway, deciding to take a swim in the middle of the lake. That's when a monstrous muskie with a hunger for human flesh emerges, trapping the teens there and starting to pick them off one-by-one. As tension escalate, secrets are revealed and betrayals surface.

Interestingly enough, all of Larry Fessenden's directional credits have been monster movies of one sort or another. The man has a clear respect for the narrative tradition of the mythological and Gothic archetypes. “Beneath” is the first of his films he didn't write but it's easy to see what attracted him to the screenplay. With “Beneath,” he wades into the waters of the lake monster. He pays visual homage to “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” with a shot of floodlights on the water. As for the big fish hunting our teens, its right out of any local crytozoological legend. It's less of a fantastical beasts and more the stuff of old fishermen's tales.

Admirably, “Beneath's” creates its monstrous fish solely through practical effects. Considering its TV origins, you'd expect some janky CGI to be utilized. Therein likes a problem though. Much like his wendigo, Fessenden's big fish is not the most convincing special effect. It certainly looks like a plausible big fish. (Wikipedia say its a giant catfish, I think it looks like a muskie.) However, it's obviously a puppet. The eyes are unexpressive. Its jaws flap open and close in a mechanical, unconvincing manner. Its movements are stiff, even totally under the water. The central threat of “Beneath” never seems to be truly alive and that is distracting.

Yet even if the big fish was more convincing, it wouldn't solve “Beneath's” biggest problem. All the characters in the film are cliches. Johnny is the quiet type, Kitty is the blonde cheerleader, Matt is the dumb jock. His brother Simon is the resentful little brother. Zeke is a nerdy film student. And brunette Deb doesn't even get that much personality. Worst yet, all the characters are cliched assholes. Zeke is utterly obnoxious, with an uncomfortably large ego. Johnny stupidly puts all his friends in danger. Matt is every bit the jerk jock. Simon is a passive aggressive Nice Guy who eventually reveals himself to be a casual psychopath. The film heaps on Kitty for cheating on Matt but her being so hateful and manipulative seems a more serious crime. There's no reason to care if any of these people live or die. They are all awful.

A project like “Beneath” presents a certain mechanical challenge to a filmmaker, especially one who has been in the business for years, like Fessenden. For the majority of its run time, “Beneath” is confined to one location. The group of characters are stuck on a small boat for almost the entire film. Fessenden supposedly cut flashbacks from the script, preferring to focus entirely on the boat. Yet such a limited location presents limited story opportunities. Once the first victim is claimed, and her body is used to lure the fish away, the film sets into a repetitive structure. The movie basically runs out of ideas of how to continue its story about an hour in, throwing in increasingly desperate story developments. Like another boat or chopping up their current boat to use as oars. This is why “The Raft” was only a segment in “Creepshow 2,” instead of occupying the whole movie.

“Beneath” is also very heavy on one of my least favorite horror tropes: Most of “Beneath” is devoted to endless bickering between the cast member. A plot point the film repeatedly returns to is the characters voting on who deserves to sacrifice themselves to the fish the most next. It's hard to imagine any group of normal humans deciding this would be a reasonable course of action, much less several times within the same day, as depicted here. All sorts of stupid, petty rivalries emerge as the cast endlessly argues about this stuff. Since the characters are such stereotypes, and so aggressively unlikable, it's hard to care too much about their interpersonal drama. It's just another way to beef up a story too thin for a whole movie.

Disappointingly, “Beneath” even lurches into the realm of unintentional comedy once or twice. That a group of humans, even dumb ones, are outsmarted by a fish, even a smart one, quickly begins to strain credibility. This leads to a mildly clever sequence involving a rope... A moment that is undermined by the ridiculous look on a corpse's face. Another moment that made me laugh, that probably wasn't suppose to, involves Kitty frantically hacking at the muskie with a hatchet. Her wacks are so limp-wristed, and the film's presentation of them is so frenzied, that you can't help but chuckle. There's a definite disconnect there.

I didn't really like “Beneath” but there are some things that are interesting about the movie. I suspect the film might have, at some point in its development, being designed as a found footage film. Zeke, being the movie's stock-parts film geek, has a Go-Pro strapped to his wrist throughout the entire movie. More than once, the movie assumes the point-of-view of this camera. Usually, this is done just to highlight his aggravating character traits. But one time it actually works really well. As he's tossed into the water and gobbled up by the big fish, we see through his camera once again. And it's actually a pretty scary sequence, a flash of teeth and blood flooding the water, crunching and screaming heard off-screen. It suggest Fessenden probably could've made a pretty solid found footage flick. (Even if it would've been indistinguishable from an episode of “Lost Tapes,” as far as plot goes.)

Though “Beneath's” script makes far too many mistakes, there are one or two sort of interesting choices there. First off, the film has a “Psycho”-esque twist, introducing a character that seems to be the protagonist only to kill them off halfway through the movie. I mean, it's not a new idea but I didn't see it coming. Secondly, the film hints at a greater mythology surrounding its killer fish. It would seem the creature has been inhabiting this lake for quite a while. The presence of a significant necklace even suggests a mystical element to the lake monster. That element of the story is left beguilingly unexplored, making me think its something Fessenden probably brought to to the script.

Speaking of which! Are any of Larry's stylistic quirks evident in “Beneath?” Sad to say, not really. You would think a story about a lake monster would allow the director to include some of his environmental themes. “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” after all, was an early example of eco-horror. “Beneath” is shockingly empty in that regard. This is basically a slasher movie, set on a tiny boat with a big fish instead of Jason, and nothing deeper to say. (One of the characters has the last name of “Voorhees,” as if that connection wasn't explicit enough.) Visually, the film is largely defined by jerky whip-pans and shaky hand-held work. Only a shot of the sky streaking by recalls Fessenden's usual touches.

It's hard to call “Beneath” that good or interesting. Even though his Glass Eye Pix produced it, you get the impression that Fessenden was largely acting in work-for-hire mode here. Even his “Fear Itself” episode is better and more distinct than this. “Beneath” would get a brief theatrical release before premiering on Chiller. The film received the weakest reviews of Fessenden's career, though it also wasn't entirely without its defenders. While I like the idea, ultimately I found “Beneath” to be a bit... Fishy. (By the way, the horror network I've always dreamed of does exist now, but as a streaming service instead of a TV channel. Which I suppose is the way of the future anyway.) [Grade: C-]