London filmmaker Charlie Steeds is earning a reputation as a British Roger Corman, grinding out low budget shockers with machine-like efficiency, as we saw in Freeze, his community theater version of a doomed polar expedition.
In The Barge People, Steeds crams scraps and trimmings from Wrong Turn, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Humanoids From the Deep, and The Hills Have Eyes into a Turducken tale of hungry amphibian mutants living in the nasty waters of England’s canal boat system.
Kat (Kate Davies-Speak) and her sweetheart Mark (Mark McKirdy) rent a canal boat for a bucolic weekend with her sister Sophie (Natalie Martens) and toffy-nosed boyfriend Ben (Matt Swales).
It doesn’t take long for snobby Ben to rub everyone the wrong way, including a feral couple living on their own barge that gets sideswiped thanks to Ben’s nonexistent navigation skills.
Before we can settle into a rousing chorus of Dumb City Kids vs Rural Ruffians, a pack of scaly predators board the tiny ship and start gnawing away on everybody in sight.
This forces Kat to strike up an uneasy alliance with Jade (Makenna Guyler), one of the boat invaders, to rescue Mark from captivity, that’s undermined by their mutual distrust of each other’s social class.
“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” Jade sneers. “You’re on your own.”
When confronted with a boatload of hostile monsters, Ben somewhat whimsically offers to buy them off with a deposit of $5,000 pounds into their bank account.
Ben didn’t get the assignment.
Once again, Steeds manages to offset his lack of funds with a commitment to create something reasonably fresh, and the timeless wonder of the English countryside helps considerably.
The Barge People features vegetarian gore, with not much meat to go with all the sauce, but serves as another reminder that no one should ever go anywhere for a relaxing weekend, other than back to bed.
Stay at home and read a book. You’ll live longer.
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