Sometimes at the Cherokee Sink (1992) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The discovery of fossil rocks and prehistoric life forms at the bottom of a freshwater spring brings anthropologist Professor Fontaine and his students deep into the Florida countryside to look into things. Instead of just coming to the inevitable end by the dangerous flora and fauna of the Florida wilderness, a creature and a Satanist do their part to narrow down the cast (if you can even call it that). Matthew Samuel Smith’s Super 8 hybrid of a 50’s creature feature with a backyard 80’s mentality harnesses the regional charm expected from the dangerous mixture of youth, inexperience, a lack of money and simply managing to exist in Florida. A mom in a bikini carries a glass of champagne as she drives and picks up Fontaine’s assistant. A trailer park resident sees something in the water and calls the cops. He then has a drink. UFOs are mentioned and a military coverup is glossed over. An angry phone call from a pot farmer lets the professor know that he and his students need to leave or they’ll all be dead. A masked man who spent all of his paycheck at a Halloween store’s skeleton prop section leaves his angsty and confused bedroom. A slumber party is interrupted by a little brother and we get a lovely POV shot of a tossed pillow coming his way. People start dying. Like Folies Meurtrières years before, everything comes off like a washed-out nightmare happening to one of the most boring people you’ve ever discussed horror films with. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but that is somehow a compliment. It’s a connection of barely discernible images and plotting explained purely through dialogue that is as stilted as you randomly asking your dad to be the lead in the remake to a movie he’s never heard of. Also, he’s very drunk. Home footage of a beach hangout and then a pool hangout may show us some Florida belles in thongs but it also feels like it drags on forever. Further hammered home by slow motion grilling. A cheapjack decapitation and a safari hat help but then the following narration brings everything to a close and we realize we never saw a monster and may have just had a 30 minute hallucination thanks to tainted beer. Sure, it may be close to nothing but it’s also completely its own thing and I respect that.