CERT: 15 / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Aquaslash comes across as Porky’s meets Friday the 13th in a water park. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reach the highs of either of those franchises’ lowest points.
A group of college kids are at Wet Valley Water Park to celebrate and let off steam. There’s friction between the teens, with the ‘jock’ types already picking on people, and lots of sleeping around behind each other’s backs. Oh, and there was a murder at the park exactly 35 years ago.
Writer/director Renaud Gauthier (Discopath) tries hard to make this feel like it comes from the golden age of both the slasher and teen sex comedy genres, but nothing really hits as it should as it’s all too forced and obvious. If you were to take a drink every time a character says something about death (“Oh you’re killing me”, “You’re dead, asshole”, etc), you’d be Oliver Reed level pickled. Any subplots involving the cheating, bed-hopping park managers or the lusty teens are lost as we don’t care enough about them. Even a strand with an estranged father of one of the kids doesn’t provide anything other than a bit of slasher fodder.
On the plus side, the build up to the film’s big set piece is handled marvellously. It had to really, since this is all the film actually has, but there’s plenty of tension built and the gore effects are sickeningly impressive. It plays like an extended segment from a Final Destination film. Even at just over hour, the story is stretched thinner than the girls’ bikini straps.
