Naked Beneath the WaterThe rise of reality television has already proven to be fertile ground for satirical genre filmmaking. From the 'mockumentary' style of The Blair Witch Project, Man Bites Dog and Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon to the direct send-up of reality TV with the likes of Series 7: The Contenders and The Running Man, the tendency is towards such entertainment spiraling downward to the base desires of the Coliseum. Do audiences really want to see actual people die onscreen? Continuing this trend is low-budget US indie DV flick, Naked Beneath The Water, a lurid and slightly misleading title for a piece about a TV show purportedly showing real-life murders sent in by the killers. The plot follows Pelle Svanslos as he searches for his missing brother. Following a mysterious voice on the phone, Pelle moves into his brother's apartment which may or may not have been the set of a gruesome murder screened on reality show, "Public Enemy Number One". The story is undoubtedly the strength of Naked Beneath The Water. It twists numerous times, confounding audience expectation nicely. The pacing may be awkward at times, with some stilted portions and an extended denouement, but the original plotting is both refreshing and imaginative. The interest maintained through the storyline manages - for the most part - to offset some of the more problematic areas of the movie such as its very low production values, awkward filming and some stilted performances. Fortunately, the central acting from writer/director Sean Cain is excellent and he manages to anchor the film with his increasingly unhinged Pelle where it would have been easy to lose the audience's sympathy due to the detached and unbalanced nature of the character. Gorehounds will enjoy a particularly messy sequence involving a pregnant woman and the flick has bare breasts inside the first couple of minutes - belonging to the movie's producer, no less! Ambitious, with a large number of shots and a challenging plotline, Naked Beneath The Water may be too flawed on the technical side of things to meet the vision it sets out, but it is nevertheless an intriguing and promising piece from first-time helmer Cain.
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