Horror Movie Review: The Sand (2015)

Nothing like a spring break beach party! Lots of drinks, drugs & casual sex, it’s so wild that everyone’s phone has been collected so nothing can be uploaded on the internet. Strangely enough though everyone seems happy enough to let one of the partygoers film them all with a handheld camera!

The party scene ends with the discovery of a large gooey ball that kind of looks like an egg.

The next morning a handful of hungover teens wake up in varying places…2 in a lifeguard tower, 3 in a car, 1 on a table & another inside a barrel…like I said, wild night.

Everyone’s feeling a bit worse for wear & no-one else seems to be around, just a load of empty sleeping bags. Confused & disorientated, the girl (topless naturally) gets off the table & finds she can’t move on the sand. One of the boys goes to help her & also finds he can’t move as soon as he steps on the sand. As the rest look on in horror the pair are dragged into the sand dying gruesomely.

It seems that whatever was in that egg has now hatched & is under the sand. As long as they don’t touch the sand they seem to be safe but they’re also on a secluded part of the beach…no-one may be coming for a long time.

There’s a lot to enjoy here, there’s also a lot that will frustrate & bore. The idea of a creature under the sand tearing your body apart as soon as you touch it before dragging you down is pretty terrifying. It should have meant some amazingly gory scenes but sadly settles for average looking CGI & off-screen deaths. The characters are mostly bland with a few taking inappropriate moments to talk about their relationships.

Seriously one character stops making a walkway of surfboards midway to apologise to his on/off girlfriend & insult the dude she spent the night with. It’s pretty dumb…

The only really likeable character is the one stuck in the barrel, Gilbert who has all the odds stacked against from the moment the movie starts. He handles it mostly well even if you just know it isn’t going to end well for him.

A couple of well-done sequences help distract from the reality that not a lot is actually happening. One in particular seeing several characters attempting to open the boot of a car without touching the sand. It’s exciting & fairly tense…

Keeping the monster hidden for the most part was a great idea considering the CGI for some of the gory scenes. Not only that, it makes it a lot more terrifying as subtly is key in a low-budget movie like this.

It’s probably best you don’t think about it too hard though as there are many glaring issues throughout such as:

• If everyone else at the party died in the night how did all that screaming not wake the rest up!?
• What happened to the topless girl at the start who stepped onto the sand? We didn’t see her die & she was instantly forgotten about.
• Was the monster growing under the sand? Or did it have tentacles all along?

See? Just leave your brain at the door & enjoy an ok monster flick that will at least make you laugh occasionally.

This could have been so much better with a higher budget. The CGI alone is one of my major gripes with it but it has moments that will entertain.