When a gang of thieves rock up at a remote shoreline location after stealing a valuable work of art, they realise they’re missing one thief. What has happened to the female one of their number? It’s the first in a series of questions the three men will face over the course of the tense aftermath of their crime. But the action really gets going at around the midpoint of the film, when three mysterious and beautiful women who claim to have been shipwrecked show up. Being gentlemen, the lads decide to offer them a roof over their comely heads for the night.
For all this, the film’s ace card is its location. The pale, low-lying, single-storey house on a shingle beach isn’t your conventional cobwebbed and turreted spooky house – more like quite a nice holiday home – but its isolation and flatness gives a unique sort of strangeness to proceedings. The film is also almost entirely shot during either the first light of the day, the last light of the day, or night-time, which is an effective strategy: the characters feel quite literally shadier and the action unfolds with the off-kilter strangeness of a bad dream.
It’s a shame then that for the most part the acting and writing don’t quite come up to the same standard as the technical craft. Other than Michelangelo Fortuzzi, whose turn as Prussian thief Paul is the kind of thing that Peter Lorre might have done back in the day, the characters are evidently a touch underpowered on the page, with the actors resorting to lots of intense glaring and meaningful looks to try to bring a bit of zest to their roles. The juicy hints that an ancient power of some sort has been unleashed are a lot of fun, but don’t expect a massively shocking resolution, it’s absolutely the kind of thing that was set up from the get-go.
Still, it’s an impressive production given what was clearly a limited budget (when the credits roll around it is unsurprising to see the names of various crew members doubling up in different roles). Strong on hints and portents, The Drowned prioritises vibes over substance, but at 84 minutes, doesn’t hang about long enough to wear out its welcome.