Beneath the Mississippi (2008) User Reviews

A promising director sunk by poor sound.

[shadowfever · 3/10 · 18 January 2012]

An entire town disappeared from an Island on the Mississippi River where Elly Thompson grew up. At age 5 she was with her father when he disappeared, an event that she witnessed but did not understand. She has returned to the area as a documentary filmmaker, and along with her film crew, attempts to find answers. Apparently the others have no knowledge of her personal history with the river. As time goes on we learn that everyone has their own personal fears to deal with. I really hated giving this movie such a low score. I liked the story, thought it was competently directed, and should have been much more watchable than it was. My problems: First, the sound was all over the place. Dialogue that you could barely hear, with Foley and background noises that blew you out of your seat if you turned the volume up enough to hear what was being said. Silverware on the table, footsteps, and oars in the water should not be louder than the spoken word. And even the dialogue rose and fell in volume, from too much to almost inaudible. Please, go back and redo your post work and balance the sound. Or, add subtitles so we can turn the sound off and still know what the characters are saying. Second, the colors were washed out. This may have been intentional and was probably effective for dream sequences and actual documentary footage. But the whole movie shouldn't have been so drained of color in my opinion. Too much of it was made to look like "found" footage when it wasn't. There was more color in the final scenes of the movie than in the earlier hundred minutes combined. If I missed the point of that, or if my copy was just a bad transfer, then I apologize. Third: about 20 minutes too long. Unfortunately many low, low budget filmmakers are so enamored with their masterpiece that they feel that it can't be trimmed. They are usually wrong. They take what could have been a taut thriller and make it drag on and on. Shortening would have added tension and probably made the movie easier to follow. As I said, I hate to give this such a low rating. It could easily have been a 6 or even a 7, especially considering it's low budget roots. But the sound, more than anything else, effectively ruined it.

Truly abominable

[Leofwine_draca · 1/10 · 19 October 2016]

BENEATH THE MISSISSIPPI is a criminal enterprise when it comes to film-making. By that, I mean it's criminally bad, and without a doubt one of the worst ever films I've had the misfortune to watch. It makes the likes of TROLL 2 look like an Oscar-winning masterpiece by comparison. This is nothing more than an amateur BLAIR WITCH PROJECT copy made without one tenth of the skill that went into that movie.

The story sees a documentary film-maker and her crew travelling to a remote area of the Mississippi to investigate some weird historical deaths. It soon transpires that this is nothing more than an exercise in traipsing around while nothing happens other than the director plays with various features on his camera. Not a second goes by without dodgy editing, random strobe lighting, or distorted picture and sound effects. It gets distracting and tiresome about two minutes in.

In addition, this is a film that plays out virtually without dialogue so it becomes indescribably boring before long. The running time is near two hours which is the most inexplicable thing about it; surely this kind of trash should be over and done with as soon as possible, not dragged out endlessly? It really is an abomination of film-making.

Audio sucks, makes it almost unbearable to watch.

[pevryn77 · 26 December 2011]

Everything else aside, the sound on this film is deplorable. Extremely loud bass sounds and bangs (which can be a cool effect if used properly) followed by actors that are basically whispering. Impossible to watch normally, so I switched to headphones. Still a disaster. I really gave this movie a chance (several actually), but someone seriously f'ed up what could have been a somewhat decent film. I challenge anyone to watch this without continuously adjusting the volume on their TV. Example: at the beginning during the breakfast scene, the silverware and plate clatter is about twice as loud as the dialogue. And there are many many more examples throughout. Better luck next time guys, I don't know who is responsible for the sound levels in this film, but they should find other work.

Very poor filmmaking

[jerryholt74 · 1/10 · 13 May 2020]

Couldn't hardly see the film story is pretty good but the quality of the film needs improved its like it was filmed with a cell phone there's hardly any color more like a black and white movie but story is better than the quality of the film

Find me a movie worse than this

[sharpekyle · 1/10 · 30 October 2022]

Anyone who gave this movie anything better than perhaps a 2 star rating (and that's if they were being very generous) must have worked on this movie. Whenever people ask me about the worst movie I've ever seen, I always tell them about this movie.

The sound quality makes this unwatchable. If you don't turn your sound to max, you can't hear the dialogue. If you DO turn your sound to max, you will be blasted by clinking of silverware.

IMDb asks me if this review contains spoilers. I'm putting "no" because there's nothing to spoil. No one could possibly tell you what the plot is by watching it. I imagine this film could actually used to torture people. I mean, it really is that awful.