The Canal

The Canal seems to be one of those films that sounds better than it is.  "A depressed and stressed film archivist finds his sanity crumbling after he is given an old 16mm film reel with footage from a horrific murder that occurred in the early 1900's."  I liked the sound of it, but it really did not blow me away.

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It's been a good week or so since I watched this, so I do have to be honest, I had to remind myself of it on Wikipedia, and reading about the film, it sounds fairly good.  I had forgotten about the twist but it is probably one of the most predictable ones going, so it's not surprising.  The story written out is actually a really good story.  But I just didn't really like it on film, which is a very strange thing to say, very strange...

The Canal, to me, felt like it was trying too hard to be some sort of indie 90s feeling film, and some parts of it did feel like that.  Certain scenes had 90s feeling, drug inducing feeling colours, and quick cuts from different angles, and the zooms, those damn zooms... Lots and lots of zooms. 
These scenes didn't really add anything I felt, but then I wasn't a fan of most of this film so I feel a little biased even if they try and change it up a little...

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I did like something else about this film though, not just the written story of it, some of the scenes including the ghostly figures and such, I felt were actually fairly creepy.  The tension is set well, the figure is shown just enough to make it scary but also stay mysterious, and it's nice and dark, lighting wise.  Those scenes were done very very well, unlike the rest of it... Sorry!

The Canal is an okay film, it has its scary moments but overall, they were the best parts.  Lots of potential but a bit let down...