The Barge People review: Fear the water, the canal water, in this British attempt at the American classic horror story.
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American horror has a long tradition of innocent travellers falling prey to all manner of maniacs. The locations for these disasters has ranged from the dessert to forests. With the US having such vast areas of different terrains, it’s quite easy to believe that people could just vanish within them. The same can’t really be said of our fair British isle. We don’t have much free space for nasty creatures to hide within, except for Scottish caves. That hasn’t deterred director Charlie Steed from trying to replicate the same idea over here; enter The Barge People.
The film opens with a crawl of text that reports of over one hundred and fifty people going missing on the Kennet and Avon canal. Now, the canals of England don’t really strike the same terror into the hearts than the vast wilderness of a West Virginian forest or the Californian desert, but Steeds tries his best.
Kat (Katie Davis-Speak) and her nature-loving boyfriend go away for the weekend with her sister and her boyfriend. It’s a weekend trip up the dreaded Kennet and Avon canal path. There’s friction from the start when the men, whom are basically polar opposites, don’t get along. Things get even worse after an altercation with some locals, which comes to a head in the local pub. As night falls, the group, shaken from their public spat, arrive back to the boat to discover they aren’t alone. Lurking nearby are a family of mutants whom have developed a taste for people. As the night wears on, Kat and co embark on a desperate bid for survival.
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What The Barge People does well is that it’s an unashamed homage to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and Wrong Turn. The issue with The Barge People is unfortunately exactly the same thing. It’s almost too much like the films that it’s trying to emulate, right down to the names of the clan of monsters being things like Razor and Blade. If you’ve seen a mixture of them before, you already know where The Barge People is going in the first few minutes. It’s a shame as the film does have a compelling tone, nothing is super serious and nothing is super silly either. The design work on the Barge People themselves is creative and well done, but it’s just a little too hard to get past all the cliches.
The Barge People is a fun attempt to create a British Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn. It doesn’t fully pay off however, thanks to falling into the same pitfalls as the very films that it’s trying to pay homage too. Who knew canals could be so deadly? At least now we know what happened to poor old Rosie and Jim.
The Barge People was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
