VOD Review: The Pond

Film, Reviews, Top Story

As winter comes to it’s chilling end, The Pond proves to be a disconcerting vision in the defrost. The film isn’t an outright horror film, but plays upon the main character’s paranoiac fears to create an off kilter world where all can flip without warning. The movie from Serbia with an English speaking cast is the perfect way to spend a chilly night inside your home as it arrives on VOD and Digital.

A professor (Streaker‘s Marco Canadea) is going through a rather rough patch. He’s recovering from the death of his wife and having been let go from his university job. Instead of getting work, he’s retreated to a desolate countryside near a large pond to focus on his serious work. He swears that he’s stumbled across something major as he obsesses over his data. His work occupies much of his time as he ignores the new woman in his life and isn’t quite sure what to do with his daughter. She spends time with two local girls who are kind of creepy in a homicidal sort of way. The only person the professor spends time with is a man with glasses in the trailer park that is an excellent Chess player. But what’s really going on in his life? Are people really wanting to steal his masterwork? Are the people around him really who they appear?

The Pond is quite a cryptic film. There’s quite a few moments where you’re not quite sure what’s going on in the professor’s life. But it’s consistent in keeping you from feeling comfort in figuring out what’s happening to him and his daughter. Visually the film grabs the eyes with simple imagery including the girls walking around tall bales of wheat while wearing paper bags over their heads with drawn faces. There’s a lot of tension in the confusion of what is reality and what is a hallucination. And it does payoff in the end. Not to give anything away, but the finale that provides “answers” while still being a tad off kilter. The movie doesn’t kill the tone or the tension. The Pond is perfect if you need a night of high tension folk nightmares in the countryside.

Shout! Factory and Shout! Studios present The Pond. Directed by Petar Pasic. Screenplay by Dusan Bulic. Starring Marco Canadea, Leslie Kunz and Paul Leonard Murray. Rated: Unrated. Running Time: 96 Minutes. Released: February 23, 2021

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.