BAYOU, THE
(director: Brad Watson/Taneli Mustoner; screenwriters: Ashley Holberry, Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens; cinematographer: Steven Hall; editor: Brad Watson; music: Segun Akinola; cast: Madalena Aragao (Alice), Elisha Applebaum (Malika), Mohammed Mansaray (Sam), Isabelle Bonfrer (Zoe), David Newman (Rufus), Athena Strates (Kyle), Andonis Anthony (Frank); Runtime: 87; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: James Harris, Ashley Holberry, Mark Lane, Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens; Big Safari/Vertical; 2025-UK)
“An incoherent mess, its characters are unappealing and it’s humorless.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brit Co-directors Brad Watson (“Hollows Eve”/”Beacon 77”) & Taneli Mustoner (“Lake Bodom”/”Reunion”) present an inane, atmospheric, low-budget, survivalist nature film. Its experimental narrative (blending together a personal tragedy with an outside survivalist horror/drama) by Ashley Holberry and Gavin Cosmo Mehrtens is dreadful. It fails to develop a cohesive plot or fleshed-out characters. The mediocre film is unable to overcome its undeveloped story-line, its risible execution or its poor acting. But I loved its cinematography, and thought its CGI created alligators were not great but acceptable.
The Houston, Texas resident Kyle (Athena Straher), a poor biology major college student, takes a cheapo charter plane with her friend’s friend (Elisha Applebaum) and boyfriend (Mohammed Mansaray), to spread her brother’s ashes in the Everglades. There are a few other passengers on the flight. The drunk pilot (Andonis Anthony) crashes the plane in Louisiana’s bayou (filmed at an English swamp that doesn’t resemble the bayou). The survivors must fight off attacking mutant (“meth”) alligators. Why the meth is due to a DEA drug raid and the gang tossing the drugs in the swamp before arrested.
Kyle instead tosses the ashes into the swamp. This gets the mutant giant gators more aggressive.
The survivors face external and inner demonic threats, while the violated wild animals no longer act like themselves.
Bayou is a plane crash survival film that crashes on contact with any reality because it’s an incoherent mess, its characters are unappealing and it’s humorless.
REVIEWED ON 2/28/2025 GRADE: C-
dennisschwartzreviews.com