The Tank (2023)
Some families have secrets
Time to clear another one off the backlog. I don’t feel this one is particularly “back” back log, given that it’s relatively newer compared to a bunch of the stuff that’s on the list - but either way it’s one of the movie on my “get around to watching it list” and I didn’t really feel up to a longer, hard thought movie or artsy fartsy movie. Tonight, we go back to some monstrous creature feature that gets added to the list of movies that have an axolotl in them for one reason or another - tonight, we find what lurks in The Tank.
We open up in the days where of the past where everything had a blue filter, and discover that the old water tank houses a lot of anger towards customers. We fast forward to some 30-odd years where we start our focus on the main family of our story. Running a pet store, it sounds like they could use a bit of a monetary gain to get things up to stress-free, but at the end of the workday a lawyer comes in and they discover that the dad’s mom actually has some unattended items to deal with. I guess that’ll happen when your mom’s lawyer also dies while dealing with her affairs - but of this two things are used to move along our story - one, a mystery house out on the coast is now his, and also his dad and sister didn’t die in a car accident - they drowned! When faced with possible profits or a possible new place, and the bonus effect of maybe finding out a mystery or two along the way! It’s a pretty secluded place, with a beautiful beach front - but things are pretty creepy, and we as the viewers already know that the big old water tank holds a very dangerous mystery.
The actors do a good job here. This is generally a good thing, because you get our main three cast, and that’s largely it. Yeah, sure, we get a sheriff, a lawyer, and a realtor type lady- but the sheriff has practically no screen time. So our main three aren’t bad, although it really comes down to the two parents. The kid isn’t bad, although also they aren’t necessarily given a whole ton to really do either. The dad and the mother have some good chemistry, as do their interactions with the kid in most parts. It doesn’t really necessarily have any amazing levels of wow factor to the acting jobs here, but they do a good job, even when having to deal with the creatures of the movie.
Character-wise, I’m a bit back and forth. They are good enough, feel like a family unit, and largely like actual people. That said, there’s also a good few moments where there’s some dumb decisions that do or don’t result in consequences - which I can’t say are unrealistic for real people, but can give you a bit of a headache when they happen. For the most part, none of it is egregious in how it offends the logical minds watching but at the same time there is definitely a level of “oh, random slime coming out of the sink to match that weird critter you find? Probably fine” stuff happening twice or so in the movie. The creature doesn’t really have much as far as character goes - they are played off as animals, and in turn actions largely play off that way. It’s a bit tricky to tell certain aspects of it (do they hunt by sound? smell?) but at the very least it’s rather consistent with the creature.
Cabin in the woods by the beach?
The setting - both time and place - work great for the horror side of the movie. That said, the house has the best level of camouflage you’ll see on a house in a movie (all natural at that), and that beach side with a bit more color and light would make for a great vacation spot for sure. In this instance though, it serves as a nice contrast between the usually less menacing daytime and much more dangerous night time events at play. The underground aqueduct-looking water tank holds a bit of it’s own dangerous charm as a setting, both with and without water in it. It also does a surprisingly good job avoiding some tropes that would otherwise be low hanging fruit - cars never have issues starting, for example. I also admit that most the drone-style shots really make it pop as a perfect place for a sasquatch movie, even if that’s not the monster of this movie.
Effects work is pretty good. It’s mostly a lot of colored waters and some blood soaking. The monster has a good number of times where it’s pretty dude-in-suit looking, There’s also a few times it looks a bit CG-ish, but it never really looks all that bad. Yes, when it’s in the full frame shot with plenty of light it comes off as a bit of a budget Demigorgon, but it does match the whole amphibian vibe they are going for whilst also having the capacity to put a guy in a suit for some of the movement. Most the time it does a good job of keeping them (mostly) offscreen, either through just showing little bits of them in a flash or by using the age old tactic of stalker-cam. It’s a good mix of stuff, overly not too blown out in either direction of the quality gauge.
Audio does good, with plenty of music that gives off whatever emotional queues the scene is asking for. Most the time this is slightly spooky or tense grooves, but you get some good happy upbeat stuff in there too. Delivery of lines is fine, and the balance helps support being able to hear everything that’s said. The creature has a nice sound to it - one that makes me think if perhaps it has some sort of echolocation to it with the little warble to it. I will say, perhaps the “dangerous creature from beneath the earth” isn’t exactly the most original idea for horror - but it handles it all well enough that it doesn’t come off as just being a bore with what it gives you to watch!
Whose that peeping in my windows?
This was a decent one. It might not win over anyone whose already not a fan of creature features or horror in general, but it does a good job with it’s run time, and I didn’t mind watching it at all. It had a fun creature, some well acted family in danger, still had a bit of a body count. It probably could have done more with what it had - but the balance as is strides quite well on the side of using tension and implied danger quite well - something that’s actually benefited well by the intro’s past sequence. There are still a few moments where thing’s probably could be polished up to greater effect, but it isn’t anything that I’d hold against the movie because it all works as is.