Saturday, October 5, 2013

The Black Waters of Echo's Pond (2009)

In 1920s Turkey, archaeologists uncover hieroglyphics that speak of pandemonium and tell how to build an elaborate board game.  Once they build the game, horrible things happen and the lone survivor hides it away so that it can never hurt anyone again.  As in all horror movies, he should have chopped the offending item into pieces and burned it.

In the present, a bunch of friends decide to go away for the weekend and head to an island where the only other person there is the caretaker.  When the electricity goes out the first night, one of the guys goes into the basement to find the fuse box, falls through the stairs, and finds a board game hidden there.

The gang decides to play the elaborately carved game and soon their secrets, as well as their hidden grudges, are revealed through the game.  When are people going to learn that if you're vacationing in a remote location and you're going to spend the next few days together, you don't get anywhere near truth or dare type of games.

Not only does everyone get mad at another in the group, but the evil in the game tends to turn people into black eyed killers who take their revenge for real or imagined offenses.  Robert Patrick is the caretaker and even though his role is small, he's the most enjoyable thing here.  Otherwise it's a fairly generic movie which reminds me of something else I've seen where kids find a game that turns out to be cursed and kills them all. Damn it, kids - don't play those games!

Also listen for the continuity error when Patrick says he'll go to the mainland to get fuses, but earlier in the film when the kids went into the basement, it was obvious they had circuit breakers.

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