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Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'The Sand' (2015)

Someone give these kids a budget.

By Reed AlexanderPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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All right, this movie got a bad wrap. The way people talk about it, I was expecting full blown Birdemic or even Troll 2. Okay, it was bad, but basically it was bad because the CGI was fucking shit. This is a shoe-stringer from an independent studio. I expect the kind of quality that I'd get out of Gravitas or Uncorked. AND, on the rare occasion those studios produce a gem.

Look, we're never talking Hollywood with this kind of a production, so what the fuck did people expect? And you know what? For Horror, the acting was fine. It wasn't great, but fans act like horror as an industry has some fucking Shakespearean actors and dialog. Go back and watch Friday the 13th, or Child's Play, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. These movies did not produce academy award winners (speaking metaphorically, as the academy is an out of date, racist, circle jerk, that works more on bribes than actual talent). So yeah, not all of the lines were brilliant. The acting was not of the highest caliber. But it was more than good enough for horror, and even better than I expected.

Another thing I'd constantly hear complaints about was how dumb the plot is. "Sand that eats people is so dumb." Really? Because Steven King's man eating pond scum from The Raft is so brilliant? But you know what? That concept worked, and it's basically the same fucking plot. How do the protagonists get from point A, to point B, without getting digested slowly and painfully. It's no different than The Ruins, and if these kids had their budget, this movie would have been just as good.

It had the exact same kind of 'on the brink of madness' tension that those two concepts had. Unfortunately, the execution with the silly CGI just kinda ruined it.

You know what? Hardcore Horror heads only, but I'd actually recommend this movie. It was kinda fun and entertaining, and that's all that matters.

SPOILERS!!!

Okay, so the reason for this silly game of 'The Floor is Lava' is because our group of protagonists found an egg while they were partying on a beach, and it hatched while they were passed out from a night of drinking. It ate all the people sleeping on the beach, until it could effectively fill out the area, preventing the people who weren't directly touching the sand from leaving. First major problem here. When this thing eats you, it hurts really bad. Like, straight-up thousands of jellyfish stings while it laterally dissolves you alive. Now, I get that most of the party goers were 'ass up' drunk, but the first person to get eaten would have alerted the majority of the other people just from their shrill death throws.

Second, this thing couldn't eat through a guy's shoes, but somehow manages to pop the tiers on a car? It eats the bottom out of a metal trash can so it can get poor Gilbert, but it can't bust through the windows of the Beach Patrol SUV? Not to mention, it can't move through the ashes of a long dead fire for some reason, or the fact that it couldn't get through the bottom of an inflatable raft.

And what is this fucking thing's growth pattern? In Steven King's short story The Raft, the man eating pond scum gets just a little bit bigger with every person it eats. Eventually enough to poke up through the boards of the raft. This thing, one second it's little bristly tendrils, then slightly longer tendrils, then basically it's that fucking thing from Deep Rising.

You know what though? A Quiet Place, had dumber monster plot holes. The movie Us, downright forces you to suspend all disbelief about how a population the size of California can manage to live underground unnoticed, and survive without proper care or medicine, on the meat of bunny rabbits, for almost 30 damn years. Both those movies were fantastic, and the only difference is FX and better paid actors.

Give this a chance.

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About the Creator

Reed Alexander

I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.

@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.

Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander

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