On DVD

The Pool

Rated by critic:

Rated by users:

Rated by you:

Christopher Null
Christopher Null founded Filmcritic.com in 1995.
Well, what've we got here? We've got college kids, a masked serial killer, and an endless number of shots at night. Sounds familiar, but your Urban Legends and your I Know What You Did Last Summers don't have a cast of unknowns living in Czechoslovakia and speaking in broken English,now do they?

Unfortunately, The Pool is not meant as a comedy. It tries so hard to be serious and yet it is so unbearably derivative it's impossible to consider it thusly. Teens trapped in an indoor pool with a killer? 'Someone has to swim 100 yards to get us out of here!' A wardrobe that consists of nothing but bikinis for the gals?

As one Teutonic lad in the film says, Anyvahn in zee mood fuhr ein pahhhhty? I know I sure am, but The Pool just doesn't give it to you. The skull-headed villain is a little spooky, but we end up rooting for him to put us out of our misery far too early. If only these kids could act and if only they had an actual script to work from. Who's the killer? I have no idea -- I couldn't tell any of the cookie cutter characters apart well enough to figure it out, even after the mask comes off.

I guess it just goes to show that if you give a filmmaker an unlimited amount of phony blood, nothing good can happen.

Aka Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit.

Newest Oldest Most Replies Most Liked

About This Film from the AMC Movie Guide

Don't Miss