Thirst Review
Thirst follows a group of angst-filled teenagers as they go out on a wilderness retreat to improve their moral fiber. An alien crash lands and begins to consume members of the group one by one. The group must find a way to escape or fight the creature before they are all consumed.
This is one of those scifi horror films that is hard to judge...because it sits in that vein of SyFy Originals that are done on a shoestring budget. Though this film did not appear to have its origins on the SyFy channel, it has all the formulaic elements of one. The acting is subpar, the directing is linear, and the monster effects are gratuitous and below-average CGI.
But, again, it's hard in the horror genre to judge a film too harshly that completed its task successfully. Even as SyFy originals go, this film wasn't the worst. Speaking in that grade of quality, it had the second best CG I've seen (the first would have to be The Hollow, as it apparently was good enough to recall) and it actually had some rather versatile and creative sound design and sound effects that stood out.
The creature design wasn't completely worthless, but wasn't terribly fresh. The synopsis I read before watching it mentioned a "chameleon-like creature". I'm not sure what movie this person watched, but it more-so resembled the offspring of a cyborg centaur and a viperfish. It sounds interesting, I know...but on low-budget CG, even with a valiant effort, it's underwhelming.
The plot and characters, as is customary of such films, were as thin as can be. The character designs reminded me of Ticks, which was basically Breakfast Club with massive parasites. It's full of forced teen angst and even an uber-awkward kiss scene, followed by carnage that conveniently stops in regular intervals as the monster decides to, I don't know, take a nap?
And that monster...well, it's a hungry alien. That's it. I mean, Predator is one of the best scifi/horror/action films of all time, and that alien just showed up to hunt people...so it's not like a creative motivation for the alien is a prerequisite to a great horror film, but the film as a whole felt like it was crapped out of a factory that designs cheap thrills to turn a small but quick profit.
I gave this film a shot to quench my thirst for horror and I'm still parched.
Horror Qualifier: 7/10
Horror Quality: 3/10
Film Quality: 2/10