Sloggy Horror Quicksand Simply Sucks

Cue another well-earned wordplay burial for Andrés Beltrán’s Quicksand, a stupendously flat survival thriller about extreme couples therapy. The more you try to wriggle free of the film’s ensuing dullness, the more you become tangled in a script that haphazardly melds subgenres. Intensity is sucked beneath, drowning under a dense slop of hamfisted emotional character beats that drag stakes to a muddy, mucky grave. Quicksand ranks unfavorably against far more expressive and diabolical single-location entrapments, from Buried to 4×4, Fall to 12 Feet Deep, wasting opportunities to glorify every Saturday morning cartoon’s favorite way to catch heroes and villains alike.
Sofia (Carolina Gaitàn) and Josh (Allan Hawco) have nearly finalized their divorce, separated only a few months prior, but decide a joint medical conference getaway in Colombia sounds peachy. Even better, Sofia agrees to accompany Josh on a jungle hike instead of preparing seminar presentations—despite their non-stop bickering since arrival. The concierge at their hotel warns the travelers to stay away from a territory dubbed Las Arenas, where poisonous snakes roam and quicksand pits have appeared. Cut to Sofia and Josh sprinting through Las Arenas in a rainstorm, where the two eventually find themselves up to their shoulders in a quicksand-like stew.
Writer Matt Pitts forcibly weaves cold-blooded relationship drama into a lockbox scenario that takes place mainly in the swampy pool. In a mere twenty-eight minutes, Sofia finds herself sloshing around despite Josh’s pleas for his frantic wife to remain calm lest she fatally submerge—his reasoning for joining his wife’s potential demise. Pitts fights against the simplicity of two victims trapped in place with the hope of reuniting under dire circumstances, but never taps into the human naturality of Sofia and Josh’s limbo status. Everything between Josh’s obnoxious hero complex and sour attitude towards Sofia to his wife’s return-fire reactions lacks the authenticity and investment to justify Quicksand being more than what’s on the tin.