{"id":40236,"date":"2023-07-10T03:10:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T07:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=40236"},"modified":"2023-07-10T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T17:45:00","slug":"quicksand-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/10\/quicksand-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Quicksand (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There\u2019s that funny meme on the internet about how fiction always warned us about quicksand but very few of us rarely come across it. It\u2019s funny also how there aren\u2019t many movies revolving around the idea of being stuck in quicksand. Andr\u00e9s Beltr\u00e1n approaches the idea with a survival thriller that\u2019s quite good, but doesn\u2019t re-invent the wheel. When it comes to films of this ilk, everything you think is going to happen does happen, and the movie doesn\u2019t mind hitting on those tropes along with handing us an ambiguous finale that felt kind of like a cop out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Set in Colombia, \u201cQuicksand\u201d follows an American couple on the verge of divorce who go to Colombia for a work conference. While on a hike through the rain forest, a storm causes them to become trapped in a pit of quicksand. Unable to move, it becomes a struggle for survival as they battle the elements of the jungle and a venomous snake, in order to escape. With no one aware of where they are, they fight to make it out before the forest consumes them.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuicksand\u201d is a survival thriller but it is also a metaphorical thriller about marriage and the dysfunction that comes from a troubled marriage. Carolina Gait\u00e1n and\u00a0Allan Hawco are essentially the only stars of the movie, save for an interesting sub-plot, and they work well off of one another. As mentioned Andr\u00e9s Beltr\u00e1n makes \u201cQuicksand\u201d more about this troubled marriage and how the quicksand is a metaphor for their uneasy relationship. Once they\u2019re submerged in to the quicksand, a lot of their situation involves comprehending the severity of their situation, and how they could possibly make it worse. To add to the chaos, once their circumstances are made clear, they have to decide if they want to turn on each other, or work toward this one goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuicksand\u201d for the most part works, and that\u2019s thanks to the pair of performances, as stars Gaitan and Hawco are very good together. I wish Director Beltr\u00e1n had worked toward a more definitive finale as a lot of the closing scenes are propped up to provide a sense of ambiguity that just feels unearned and kind of silly. Nevertheless, director Beltr\u00e1n is able to garner a lot of story from this single setting where you\u2019d think nothing really interesting can arise. Suffice to say a lot of obstacles including the elements, and health problems emerge to where it becomes more and more hopeless by the minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuicksand\u201d brought to mind the immediate terror from a lot of films like \u201cOpen Water\u201d and \u201c12 Feet Deep\u201d to where the answer seems so close, but is realistically so very far from their reaches. The problem director Beltr\u00e1n does confront is if any of these scenarios can be considered logical or realistic, and I was hooked right in to the movie from the starting gate. \u201cQuicksand\u201d is a competent thriller, one that really helps emphasize the inherent horror that comes from being stuck in the muck.<\/p>\n

Streaming Exclusively on Shudder June 23rd.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s that funny meme on the internet about how fiction always warned us about quicksand but very few of us rarely come across it. It\u2019s funny also how there aren\u2019t many movies revolving around the idea of being stuck in quicksand. Andr\u00e9s Beltr\u00e1n approaches the idea with a survival thriller that\u2019s quite good, but doesn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[240,302,477,1012,1087],"class_list":["post-40236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-horror","tag-survival","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40314,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40236\/revisions\/40314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}