Set on the canals amid the glorious British countryside, two sisters and their boyfriends head off for a relaxing weekend away on a barge, unaware of the flesh-eating fish mutants lurking in the water, ready and waiting to feed.
Director Charlie Steeds was obviously heavily inspired by horror filmmaker John Carpenter. It shows in every frame of his indie movie, “The Barge People.” From the electronic score by Sam Benjafield, to the lush, widescreen cinematography of Michael Lloyd, it is evident that Steeds holds Carpenter in high esteem. And what filmmaker wouldn’t? From “Halloween” to “The Fog” to “Escape from New York” and beyond, Carpenter has always been very influential to young up-and-coming filmmakers.
I know, I am one of them. Growing up in Dublin, Ireland, I bought the soundtrack to “The Fog” when I was a teenager and would sit on the pier of a fishing village called Howth, especially when a fog rolled in, and while listening to the score on my walkman, it affected me so much that I came up with my own script and shooting locations for my own ghost story. None of that would have transpired if it weren’t for Carpenter and “The Fog.”
As an independent filmmaker myself for over 35 years, I love watching other indie filmmakers and their works and I desperately wanted to like “The Barge People” but while Steeds has everything in place, a cool-sounding retro, ’80s electronic score, a haunting locale in the canals of the English countryside, and radioactive creatures galore, the most important aspect of any film, horror or otherwise, are the performances by the actors. Granted, while some of horror’s most enduring franchises, “Friday the 13th, “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Halloween,” “Hellraiser,” and so many more, have entries where the acting is substandard, when you present an original horror-thriller, you want the audience to be able to relate to the characters onscreen, not be fatigued with the asinine choices they make.
During some scenes in “The Barge People,” while characters are in the midst of escaping from the monsters, they suddenly launch into long, pointless monologues about their families and what it’s like to lose someone close to them and I found myself scratching my head in sheer disbelief that they chose this particular moment in time to contemplate death, while their very lives are at stake. Maybe Steeds was trying to establish suspense but in adding these trivial moments, it completely takes you out of the movie and eliminates any air of authenticity.
The story is pretty straightforward; two sisters and their boyfriends rent a barge for a weekend to sail on the canals in the quiet English countryside but they are attacked by toxic creatures that have been living in contaminated water for decades. That is the basic premise, and for a horror film, that is all you need, just a way to introduce our protagonists and the monsters so that they can be killed off one by one.
“The Barge People” pays homage to numerous horror films of the ’70s and ’80s, primarily “The Hills Have Eyes,” as we discover the creatures herein are not just radioactive but also cannibalistic and inbred. While the movie looks fantastic, the acting and mediocre special effects take all the positive aspects and sadly, turn them into negatives. At times, it is easy to see the masks the actors are wearing while trying to portray the monsters and the acting, for the most part, is disappointing. With a stronger cast and better special effects, “The Barge People” could have gone on to become a cult classic and while I came away from the movie discouraged, I am very curious to see what director Charlie Steeds’ upcoming films, “Death Ranch,” “Vampire Virus,” and “A Werewolf in England,” will hold in store, especially that last one.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD & Digital HD August 18th from RLJE Films
