Let's make no mistake, I didn't expect movie with the title "The Sand" to be masterpiece, just a rather cheap dumb horror movie.
And "The Sand" is exactly like that. I did like the premise of "something is in the sand", because it reminded me of those 50s horror-SF movies, even the premise is hard to take seriously. (but hey, that's why so many of us love these movies).
"The Sand" isn't a masterpiece of course, nor is it a good horror movie, but it offers some level of entertainment. The main premise is more or less one you saw in "Blood Beach" or one of those segments of "Creepshow 2" where characters are stuck on raft. "The Sand" plays the same: characters are stuck while the sand around them literally tries to devour them, or at least something that's in the sand.
Acting is sorta descent for this type of movie. I am unfamiliar with actors, but considering what the premise has and some of the stupid dialogue they had to say, it's a miracle how much they are selling the impossible situation they are stuck in. Speaking of characters, there's nothing special, they are your usual horror cannon fodder, except the two characters: the fat black guy who's stuck in trash bin for the entire movie and the "oblivious to everything" cop. Of course, he dies too for being cop in a horror movie. Surprised?
My main complaint is use of CGI gore effects. Movie should have stick to practical effects, but instead we get some obvious terrible CGI gore. Note to any filmmaker there who wants to make monster movie (because this is essentially one): Do practical FX and show the monster. No matter how cheap or bad looking it is, everyone's come to see it and the worst thing is if you grace us with CGI and no monster. No matter how bad practical FX and makeup might look, you'll get points from monster movie lovers for having courage to show and push it in front of us. It's sole reason why we come to see those monster movies.
And other major complaint is that, much like "Zombievers" this one runs out of steam around the half. One running joke. If it was 30-40 minute short movie, it would have been a much better movie.
