I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of found footage films. Jennifer Van Gesell’s Water Horse took me to another realm. A realm where found footage meets a dark back story. The style has been tried many times, but these movies are hit or miss. The style never really worked until recently.

Anyway, let’s get to the review.

Synopsis

A paranormal investigator links a bizarre string of seemingly unrelated events to the disappearance of her mother.

Lake of No Return

I have seen several movies with this premise, I mean, The Blair Witch Project astounded viewers before others tried to outdo it. However, none of them were good. Water Horse isn’t just a film; it’s an entire experience.  Water Horse takes you on a ride of basic confusion. If you don’t understand the genre, there is not much I can say about this story combo. The film left me completely speechless over how well they nailed this story.

Nailing the trick

Water Horse uses a combo of an interrogation and folks being followed by a video camera, trying to get the next best story. We have seen this done in films like 21 Days that pulled this idea into my favour, complete me, it worked perfectly for a very long time. In the 90’s and early 2000’s saw a brief glance at something I will always consider a terrible film. Films such as Quarantine may have been one of the early found footage genre, and I am glad there isn’t really too much.  It took a while with strong dedication to really pull this film off, and it’s clear that Water Horse broke down all those walls and not only flashed to detectives. However, Water Horse was able to switch easily from documentary film to found footage.

The ending really caught me off guard. It was a scene I wasn’t expecting at all. Everything has a completely different ending scene. Water Horse had me between finding knowledge and studying the story, and sitting at the edge of reality. Could this story have actually happened? Probably not, but the film crew made you believe it could. We have all heard local folklore growing up, or moving to a new state, and listening to local legends, especially from senior citizens. We have also seen that done a million times over, and it is very hit or miss. The climax at the end is what I love the most. It is where the monster comes alive, and you don’t know whether to turn the movie off or let it play and infest your brain so you sleep with the light on. Water Horse also captured one of the best climax scenes in my life as a horror movie fan.

In The End

In the end, Water Horse thrilled me, and chilled me. The movie left those uncomfortable negative thoughts, maybe you will even lose sleep. These are the movies most old-school fans hunt down in the current time. I will also admit here and now that all of these blockbuster movies suck, while films like Water Horse go completely under the RADAR. I didn’t want to see anyone have sex with a scarecrow. It is all getting a little weird. The only things left for me are splatter movies, which I also love. Water Horse sits high in my fandom, and it will stay there for a long time.

Water Horse is coming to most cable and streaming services on March 17th, 2026

Stella and Gerry might not have a bad marriage, but they don’t have especially healthy one either. In the new film “Midwinter Break,” out Friday, these two Irish empty nesters beautifully portrayed by Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds have become the embodiment of the words “alone together” in their late 60s and early 70s. She goes to church. He reads, and drinks, and passes out on the recliner. Repeat. But one Christmas Eve, Stella decides to break the monotony: She books a trip for two to Amsterdam, departing as soon as possible. Gerry beams that it’s a fantastic idea and off they go to try to get out of their routine and maybe remember why they made this lifelong commitment in the first place.

An adaptation of a Bernard MacLaverty novel of the same name, “Midwinter Break” is a delicate film that stays in a minor key, but whose impact is profound if you can get on its level. Directed by theater veteran Polly Findlay making her feature debut, the film parachutes the audience into the current state of this relationship, in all its quietly contradictory beauty.

These are two people who have walked through most of their adult lives together, raising a child, living a self-imposed exile in Glasgow and now sort of watching the clock tick down on their lives. The film teases that something violent and traumatic happened many years ago in Belfast, but that they don’t talk about that, or the Troubles, at all.

We gather that nothing quite so dramatic has happened since, but you can see the distress in Stella’s face as she sits down for the nth time to remove the plastic wrap to eat some sandwiches she prepared while Gerry sleeps. It seems both then and now, they’ve opted for a change of location instead of a serious chat about things. But there’s nothing like a new location to bring all that buried discontent to the surface.

One of the loveliest things about “Midwinter Break” is how it lets Stella and Gerry be all things at once. In some moments, they’re loving and intimate, sharing a sweet before their flight takes off, laughing in the red-light district and resting their tired feet in their nice hotel room. Other times, they seem like strangers. Stella has only grown more devout as they’ve gotten older, while Gerry can’t be bothered to even accompany her to church. Later in the film, they’ll both explain why, though not to each other.

Amsterdam in winter is expectedly picturesque, and the film makes sure to have Stella and Gerry out in the fresh air as much as possible visiting real sites around town (though the interiors of the Anne Frank House were a recreation). It’s tempting to draw comparisons to the “Before” series, but Jesse and Celine are a little chattier than these two.

This is a relationship that’s all about the small moments and what’s left unsaid, which is tricky to compellingly execute on film. There aren’t big fights or particularly mean words said: And yet when Stella, nearly shaking with nerves, quietly proposes a possible change to their lives, it feels earth shattering. You’re relieved later when she wants to go out and have some fun; Gerry is too.

These may just be the ordinary, dull rhythms of a relatively stable relationship, and yet these actors make the mundane so much more. It was a brilliant stroke to let “Midwinter Break,” which could have been deadly in the transition from the page to the screen, rest on these two actors in particular, sharing the big screen for the first time. Our investment in Stella and Gerry raises real questions about long-term commitment, assumptions of stability and the possibility of change. It might also have you planning your own Amsterdam getaway in your head, hopefully with fewer weighted silences on the schedule.

“Midwinter Break,” a Focus Features release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “some strong language, bloody images, alcoholism, suggestive material and thematic material.” Running time: 90 minutes. Three stars out of four.

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “I need a Xanax!” declares a victim-in-waiting in the bloodsoaked slasher flick “The Strangers – Chapter 3” (Lionsgate). Moviegoers unwise enough to patronize the film may end up echoing that sentiment.

By turns sadistic and stupid, this wrap-up concludes the story of Maya (Madelaine Petsch), the protagonist of the series, and the masked killers who have been chasing her since the 2024 reboot of a horror franchise that dates back to 2008. Although her face may not be hidden, Maya’s identity is as sketchily established as those of her seemingly motiveless stalkers.

Having slain one of her pursuers at the end of the last installment, Maya is eventually recruited by the group’s leader as a potential replacement for her would-be murderer. The notion underlying this plot development seems to be that anyone is capable of becoming a dab hand at disemboweling. Call it the Bob Ross approach to grisly slaughter.

Toward the beginning of the movie, a church with a scary crucifix is used as a neutral setting, a sort of sanctuary, and there are vague ruminations on religion. These are too inconsequential, however, to do more than irk Christian believers.

At the other end of the running time, the returning filmmakers — director Renny Harlin and screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland — dabble in ridiculously unrealistic psychology amid the predation.

They somehow end up mixing absurdly ill-motivated momentary eroticism with the ongoing mayhem, all to the tune of the Moody Blues’ classic song “Nights in White Satin.” Rest assured, your eyes won’t be missing any beauty at all if you prudently choose to steer clear of this senseless dud.

The film contains excessive gory violence, at least one mild oath and several rough terms. The OSV News classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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