The Sand (2015)

A Killer What?

Sand. Or more specifically a giant bioluminescent octopus thing that somehow co-opts a patch of beach so that any organic thing that touches it will be grabbed by little tendrils that rip it apart and pull it underneath. It’s almost entirely rendered in cruddy CG but there are some gnarly, albeit also CG, gore effects.

Is It Any Good?

Readers, I am humbled. I threw The Sand on here because of its whackadoo The Floor is Lava premise and fully expected to bag on it but this is actually pretty good. Now temper your expectations, this is still a straight to video effort where the monster and almost all of the gore is rendered with very detailed but very fake looking CG.

But The Sand does some really neat stuff with its premise. On the eve of spring break a group of college-age kids are partying on the beach, somebody finds a giant gross egg thing and then they all go to sleep. The next morning the kids wake up, or at least what’s left of them. Anybody unfortunate enough to have been laying on the sand is dead and gone, probably hundreds of people. What’s left is four people asleep in a convertible, two in a lifeguard shack, a topless woman apparently unworthy of a proper death scene, and a poor fat guy stuck inside a metal garbage barrel.

The movie unfolds like a vintage Stephen King short story, most specifically The Raft but with the methodical resourcefulness of something like Gerald’s Game. Our kids try to figure out how to escape, mostly mangling an injuring themselves in the process. The movie kind of falls apart in the third act when there’s a fire sale on character deaths and Jamie Kennedy shows up as an obnoxious beach patrol cop who belongs in a much sillier movie but the first 50 minutes or so are tense and gruesome and if you can stomach the CG it’s totally worth it.

Watch, Toss, or Buy?

I say buy, it’s on Amazon Prime.