I don’t know about you, but when I finished school, the most me and my friends did was go to the local park for a chat. In Aquaslash however, the graduating class have an entire weekend long party at the local water-park. It’s not all fun and games though, as someone with a grudge against the park, and teenagers, has planted a deadly trap inside one of the slides; things are going to get messy.
Writer and director Renuad Gauthier most definitely has a fondness for all those cheesy slasher horror movies that were released in the eighties, and that adoration is abundantly clear in Aquaslash. It pays remarkable fan service to them and taps into that eighties nostalgic wave we’ve all been surfing since Stranger Things hit our screens. Prepare for neon prints, coloured eye shadows, and crimped hair as Aquaslash proudly rocks the trends of the decade. There’s such a strong eighties aesthetic to the fashion, hairstyles, and music, that at times you find yourself forgetting that it’s actually set in our modern day world.
Despite its heavy visual presence, the eighties homage doesn’t fully translate into the narrative style, as when looking back on Aquaslash you realise that there hasn’t been much slashing. Rather, the film spends most of its run time feeling like an American teen sex comedy instead of a slasher filled with hacking people to pieces. There’s the typical American Pie style debauchery; the kids have finished school and they are at the park to drink, do drugs, and hook-up, with no other cares in the world. We follow the love triangle between two park workers and one of the pair’s old classmate, the breakdown of a marriage of which both are cheating with graduate age students, the deflowering of a guy at the hands of a more experienced woman, and a whole lot of other horny teenagers. All of the relationship dramas start to feel a little repetitive. It might not be so bad, but no one dies until a long while into the film.
Eventually, we move away from the sex-charged walking hormones and enter into horror territory. It takes a long time to get to this junction and those expecting an over-the-top death-heavy killfest will leave disappointed.This is not a film with a frequent kill count. It skirts the slasher tradition of multiple kills spread across the timeline in favour of building towards one momentous bloodbath. Once no longer distracted by all the walking hormones on screen, Gauthier begins to work towards the climax of his movie. From here, he works hard to build the tension around the first ride down the flume of doom. As an audience, we know that something has been tampered with, but we don’t know which tunnel houses the slide of death and that makes thing suddenly exciting. It’s then less exciting once we know which tunnel is the one with the trap, but it still makes for a bloody good time.
Sometimes you just want to hunker down with a silly horror for some fun and, if you are prepared to wait, Aquaslash offers a lot. And a lot of blood…eventually.
Aquaslash was reviewed at Arrow Video FrightFest 2020.
Aquaslash
Summary
Fun, frolics, and frights await those that seek out Aquaslash. But be prepared for a long wait before the thrill ride begins.
