Movie Review: THE TANK

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 3rd, 2023 / 06:33 PM

THE TANK movie poster | © 2023 Well Go USA

Rating: R
Stars: Luciane Buchanan, Matt Whelan, Zara Nausbaum, Regina Hegemann, Ascia Maybury, Mark Mitchinson
Writer: Scott Walker
Director: Scott Walker
Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment
Release Date: April 21, 2023 (theatrical), April 25, 2023 (digital)

THE TANK is a handsome but oddly-paced monster movie.

Set primarily in coastal Oregon and shot in New Zealand, THE TANK opens with a title telling us it’s May 2, 1946. A woman and a little girl are sleeping in bed on a very rainy night. Outside, a man goes to investigate something in what we’ll find out later is the tank that supplies water to the house. The man tries to exit the tank, but is dragged back down, screaming.

Cut to Oakland, California, 1978. Jules (Luciane Buchanan) and Ben (Matt Whelan) are a married couple who have a seven-year-old daughter, Reia (Zara Nausbaum), and own a pet shop that doesn’t make enough money. Jules is also going for her degree in veterinary medicine.

Ben and Jules are astonished when a lawyer (Mark Mitchinson) visits. His legal partner, who’s suffered a stroke, was the attorney for Ben’s late mother. It seems that Ben’s mother left her son a cabin in the Oregon woods, set in a substantial tract of land. Funny thing is, she never said a word about any of this to her son. The document was discovered by accident when the lawyer was going through his partner’s files. All of this is by way of explaining why Ben hasn’t learned about this inheritance until now.

Ben and Jules want to inspect the property, so they pack up Reia and their dog Archie and drive into the heavy forest. The cabin is boarded up, but the inside is habitable. Ben is sort of charmed. Jules is a little creeped out – but she’s fascinated when she finds Ben’s mother’s diaries.

Meanwhile, Ben decides to see if he can get the tank for the cabin to provide fresh water.

There are a lot of strange noises outside that spook Reia, but Ben staunchly denies it’s anything more than normal wildlife. The realtor (Ascia Maybury) tasked with selling the property drops by with a sales offer, along with some local lore.

At this point, we are literally halfway through the running time. There is finally some action. The creature design by WETA Workshop is first-rate, with Richard Taylor as the creative lead, and Regina Hegemann in the suit.

It’s just that the set-up in writer/director Scott Walker’s story doesn’t do much for what comes next. The diaries explain why Ben’s mother never mentioned the cabin to him, but otherwise have no helpful information. (By the time the characters read that there’s something dangerous out there, they’re aware of the fact.)

We think for a while that there may be some connection between Ben’s state of denial and the tank creature, but no, he’s just being unobservant.

There’s also not much explanation for what prompts an attack and what doesn’t. There’s what seems like a possible hat tip to A QUIET PLACE, but this doesn’t follow through. In short, the hefty back story doesn’t impact what the characters wind up doing.

We get great production design, beautiful scenery, good night photography – we can actually see everything we’re supposed to see – and a respectably monstrous creature. What we don’t get from THE TANK is much in the way of narrative progression.

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Handsome but slow creature feature

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