Under the Undertow (2005 Video) User Reviews

It's "Night of the Hunter"

[craysellers · 3/10 · 18 December 2010]

This movie is an over-directed version of "The Night of the Hunter". Josh Lucas replaces Robert Mitchum stalking two young siblings for the fortune they ran away with after Lucas (Mitchum) murdered their single-surviving parent.

In both movies, the stalker has a supernatural ability to go without sleep - to know where to look and whom to charm to stay one clue behind his prey. The older child will eventually destroy the fortune that he was previously willing to die to protect.

Mitchum's psycho-Evangelist portrayal transcended every other uninteresting aspect of "Night of the Hunter". In "Undertow", it's Shiri Appleby's character, Violet - a strange homeless tramp with a huge wardrobe of rags. She looks like she rubs her face in mud, and her bipolar con-artist/savior is the only reason to sit thru this self-indulgent exercise.

self-indulgent exercise.

A hilarious and candid look at film-making in the deep south

[bluegrassmovie · 10/10 · 12 February 2006]

This candid and hilarious companion to DGG's esoteric masterpiece pits the cast and crew of Undertow against a litany of outrageous characters and incidents. From an insane make-up artist to homicidal crab poachers, UTU offers a rare glimpse into the daily battle of filming in the deep south. Early on, a pugnacious extra steals the Dodge Dart driven by Josh Lucas's character after threatening to kill the entire crew. Scrambling to finish the sequence, a new Dart is located (in another state), painted (the wrong color), and brought to set. Within minutes, somebody has accidentally jammed the trunk key into the ignition and the crew must again halt filming, this time to call in a locksmith. The improbable quickly turns to the impossible as local horseshoe crab poachers (the blood is believed to be an aphrodisiac) halt filming by blaring their truck horns for minutes at a time. No one is spared from the madness, including Lucas and Mulroney, who batter and bruise one another to near oblivion in one of the extended fight sequences, each sustaining numerous broken ribs and concussions. And that's just the first week of production............

funny funny stuff

[alix207-2 · 8/10 · 20 February 2006]

Not often that we see a true look into the wilder side of film-making. This is one of those rare glimpses into the world of a truly genuine director, for better or worse. David Gordon Greene's latest film is quite esoteric, to be nice, and this is an overdue journey into the process of his madness. Greene looks like a nineteen year old in a southern candy shop. The shop being set in 70s-era Savannah, Georgia, complete with swamps, old man's beard, Spanish moss, and boar's head on the dinner table. Greene's ragtag fraternity of friends and schoolmates (many dating back to the days of George Washington) battle the elements, the south, the cast, the crew, and just about anything, and anyone, capable of impeding the process of renegade film-making in this completely genuine behind-the-scenes vignette.