QUICKSAND (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Quicksand, Shudder

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 13, 2023

As is so often the case with survival stories set in a single location, the problem with Quicksand isn't in its limitations. It's in the way the filmmakers attempt to overcome them.

There's a terrifying premise, as well as an intriguing story, to Matt Pitts' screenplay, which brings back a peril that was once common to adventure tales and cartoons but has since fallen out of favor. The danger, obviously, is quicksand, that seemingly endless pit of heavy mud that can trap unaware people and more or less pull them under with any effort to become free of its grasp. It was so prevalent in old-fashioned tales that quicksand became a cliché, and if Pitt and director Andres Beltran does anything, it's to remind us that there is something inherently frightening about the natural phenomenon, in that it's hidden and capable of rendering a person helpless.

As for how and why two people find themselves in such a situation, the movie offers a fine enough excuse, filled with a lot of potential for interpersonal drama. Married doctors Sofia (Carolina Gaitan), who has been on an extended leave from practice in order to raise two kids, and Josh (Allan Hawco) have come to Bogota for a conference being run by Josh's long-time friend Marcos (Sebastian Eslava). It's an opportunity for Sofia to return to the professional world of medicine after her long absence, but the chance comes at a bad time for the couple in general.

They're separated and on the cusp of divorcing—a fact that Josh has kept from his pal, leading to an awkward hotel arrangement of sharing a room with only one bed. That will be nothing and a distant memory by the second day of their trip.

With Sofia's talk rescheduled for the end of the week, the two have time for some rest and relaxation in Colombia, where Sofia was born and spent some of her childhood. Josh and Marcos have plans to hike a path through the rain forest, but Marcos has to cancel. Sofia had decided to join them at the last moment, and she wants to go ahead as she planned on her own. Despite their failing marriage and some unspoken hard feelings, Josh refuses to let her go to the rain forest alone, so he tags along to ensure that Sofia is safe.

A couple of major problems set up before the hike essentially guarantee that neither of them will be safe for long. The most obvious one, of course, is the quicksand, with pockets of it located in an off-limits section of the rain forest known as "las Arenas," or "the Sands," appropriately enough, but after some pointed warnings, it's not as if the two are going to be heading into that area without a really good reason.

The reason is established in a prologue, which follows a pair of thieves and poachers looking to hunt snakes for a profit. One of them finds a patch of quicksand instead, while the other (played by Andrés Castañeda) learns his lesson and decides to return to conning and robbing tourists. Sofia and Josh, who discover the man trying to break into their rental car, become his first targets since the incident.

This is a lot of setup for a story that, soon after, becomes primarily about two characters becoming stuck in a pit of quicksand, and one can feel the gears of Pitts' screenplay spinning in anticipation of connecting all of these plot devices. Unfortunately, it's simply not enough that Sofia, who becomes lost and stumbles into the thick mud after trying to escape the armed robber, and Josh, who jumps in to save the woman who's the mother of his children and still technically his wife after she erroneously struggles to get free, are trapped in a hopeless situation.

There's also a snake with which to deal, of course, because it's not as if a story can have elements that just exist without becoming a necessary part of the plot. The thief comes into play, too, in a rather pointless series of scenes that conveniently have Marcos seeing the thief with his friend's backpack, getting locked up in the hotel's basement with the guy, and trying to figure out if his friends are alive and, if so, where they are at the moment. Those scenes are extraneous, not because they're not essential to the movie's plotting, but because they take us away from the main characters and, more importantly, the palpable feeling of being trapped.

That through line, as Sofia and Josh try to find a way out of their natural prison, is compelling, even if Pitts also offers them a bag filled with perfectly convenient tools/weapons (as seemingly useless but necessary as a pair of binoculars and as on-the-nose as a shotgun with two shells loaded into it). It all comes down to the pair being resourceful and forward-thinking, or at least, the story should, although the mechanics of the setup and plotting are transparently distracting. The rest of the drama is in watching these two cut to the chase of the issues and promise of their relationship under the duress of imminent death by some horrible means.

That stuff's strong, especially with these two lead performances. Quicksand simply doesn't put enough trust in it for the real drama to develop in a wholly convincing way.

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