I watched The Canal! Let's talk about it!
This has been on my watch list for awhile now after randomly discovering the trailer and losing my mind that I'd never heard of it before. Finally a year later, Netflix got it, and I watched the shit out of it on Monday night.
The Canal is an Irish horror film which only meant that I needed subtitles on. Written and directed by Ivan Kavanagh and starring Rupert Evans - neither of which I had heard of before this. Evans' character David moves into a new home with his pregnant wife, we skip forward a few years, now he has a young son and his wife is a hussy.
The beautiful little house he lives in has a canal behind it and the house itself is 100 years old. So obviously spooky shit goes down.
SPOILERS FOR THE FILM IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT
The story really begins the night David witnesses his wife having an affair with a guy who looks vaguely like Khal Drogo if you squint. David runs as most people do in films when they see their significant other having an affair (which btw....I would not do. I would storm in there and create THE most dramatic scene I possibly could. It would be incredibly satisfying and I would hope to flip at least one table) down the path by the canal, he then starts to profusely vomit and runs into the creepy public toilet.
But he's not alone in the toilet. A spooky looking man, who we can only assume is a ghost based on his weirdo body movements, whispers something into David's ear, which makes him vomit more (fair enough - I'm not entirely sure ghosts would have good smelling breath) and then he stumbles home.
PANIC! His hussy wife doesn't come home that night, or the next morning, or the next day. So obviously we're all gonna assume gurl got hella murdered.
In comes the detective who I feel on a spiritual level when he constantly suffers from acid reflux and suspicion in general. He straight up tells David that he knows David murdered his wife and he's basically just going to try and prove it. Perfect timing - that's when the police find the wife's body in the canal.
Then things slowly start to unravel. David's sanity starts to crack and he starts to see ghosts around the home, he becomes convinced that a ghost murdered his wife - even after the coroner determines the death an accident. He delves into researching the house (as an archivist, this is super easy for him) and discovers that for a 100 years this little house has got one hell of a past. From multiple violent murders to some satanic rituals, ya know - the usual. (also this is my dream - move into a house - weird shit happens - investigate history of the house - BOOM SATAN WAS RAISED HERE)
Everyone around him is starting to get scared of him as he's acting a little cray cray. And after locking the Nanny in the closet after he's convinced a ghost tried to rape her (bear with me here) the police get involved again. Now they're keeping a verrrry close eye on him.
One of my favorite things about this movie (and this may just be my experience with the film) was that I really trusted David. All the way 'till the end I really did believe his ghost theory and the evidence he uncovers is extremely convincing.
The second favorite thing is when David discovers that by using a very old film camera to film parts of his house and the canal, he picks up ghosts on film. These lead to some of the absolute creepiest moments of the film.
So finally, after what feels like an hour of ramping up to this one moment, David's coworker comes by and he shows her the ghost footage. In a clever little trick, the film maker shows you what David sees...then shortly after shows you what the coworker sees....which is David murdering her (so technically she doesn't see much, she's too busy choking to death). Then everything speeds up extremely as David, trying to escape from the police, runs through the tunnels underneath his house which lead to the canal and starts to realize he was the murderer all along. He murdered his wife, he tried to hurt the Nanny, and he murdered his coworker.
He drowns in the canal but his son survives this whole ordeal. The Grandma takes the son into her care and puts the house up for sale but before leaving for his Grandma's house the boy needs to grab his dinosaur book from the house because dinosaurs. When inside the house by himself he hears David talking to him from the walls, David whispers something into the kid's ear and then the kid leaves the house WITHOUT THE DINOSAUR BOOK. The goddamn nerve.
In a shock induced ending, the little boy is in the back seat of his Grandma's car as they drive away from the cursed home. Until, psyche, the little boy opens the door and throws himself out of the car to his death. CREDITS.
END OF SPOILERS (also basically the end of the blog post sooooooo)
The movie did feel a little long? Might just be me. But I remember near the end I actually paused it just to see how much was left.
I really enjoyed the creep factor, the ghosties, the camera footage, and I loved the "shock" ending. But when David starts to lose his sanity a little, things drag on quite a bit. WE GET IT DAVID, you're seeing ghosts, lets wrap things up.
I would recommend it for sure. But I would recommend it only if you were in the mood for a slower build horror film with a lot of story and almost no jump scares. It's more the imagery and the story that haunt you when it's all over.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment