The Sand
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| The Sand (also Blood Sand) | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Isaac Gabaeff |
| Written by | Alex Greenfield Ben Powell |
| Produced by | Gato Scatena Jordan Rosner |
| Starring | Brooke Butler Meagan Holder Cynthia Murell Dean Geyer Cleo Berry Mitchel Musso Hector David Jr. Nikki Leigh Etalvia Cashin Jamie Kennedy |
| Cinematography | Matt Wise |
| Edited by | Sean Puglisi |
| Music by | Vincent Gillioz |
| Distributed by | Taylor and Dodge |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Sand, also titled Blood Sand, is a 2015 American gore film directed by Isaac Gabaeff and starring Brooke Butler, Meagan Holder and Mitchel Musso. At least one version of the opening credits reads "Killer Beach," but the closing credits give the movie title as "The Sand."
Plot
A group of friends are having a party at the beach with some of their classmates. A girl named Heather (Etalvia Cashin) is videoing the party, when two of the boys, Vance (Hector David Jr.) and Gilbert (Cleo Berry), find a large ball covered in a strange gooey substance. All the teenagers agree to put their mobile phones in the trunk of a car in an effort to ensure that no one will post compromising pictures or videos online.
The next morning two of the friends, Kaylee (Brooke Butler) and Mitch (Mitchel Musso) wake up on the lifeguard shack. Kaylee's boyfriend, Jonah (Dean Geyer), awakens in a nearby convertible next to a girl named Chanda (Meagan Holder). In the back seat are Vance and his girlfriend, Ronnie (Cynthia Murell). Gilbert wakes up, stuck from the waist down in a trash barrel, having been put there as a prank after passing out. A girl named Marsha (Nikki Leigh) wakes up, topless, having fallen asleep on top of a picnic table. The rest of the teenagers, including Heather, are nowhere to be found; there are, instead, a bunch of empty sleeping bags in their places.
Marsha accuses Heather of having stolen her top; she leaves the picnic table to find her. Kaylee, having witnessed a bird getting sucked into the sand tries to warn her, but Marsha doesn't listen. She is immediately immobilized in the sand and is visibly discombobulated when she gets trapped. Vance attempts to help her but he, too, becomes trapped when he touches the sand. Vance and Marsha are swallowed by the creature, as their bodies sink into the sand, much to the horror of their friends. Jonah sees the cracked ball from the night before and concludes that it must have been an egg, and whatever hatched from it has burrowed under the sand and has wiped out everyone, including Vance, Heather, and Marsha.
The group cannot call for help, as their phones are locked in the trunk of the car, and the car's battery is dead from their having left the headlights on all night. Mitch and Kaylee find hot dogs in the lifeguard shack and toss them at different ends of the beach to find out the extent of the creature under the sand. Thus they find the edge of it, and the group is momentarily hopeful until they realize the distance is too great. Jonah uses two surfboards as a bridge to reach the picnic table. He makes it to the table, but not before the creature has slashed his stomach, leaving a painful wound that starts to seep pus. He notes to the others, though, that the creature won't go near the ashes of the previous night's bonfire, indicating that it hates fire.
The sun beats down. Ronnie and Chanda attempt to retrieve the phones from the trunk of the car, but Ronnie becomes trapped, her fingers crushed under the rim of the trunk. A beach patrolman (Jamie Kennedy) drives onto the beach. The group warns him, then are shocked to see him get out of his car and walk across the sand unmolested. Mitch realizes that the man's boots are protecting him. The patrolman, seeing Jonah's and Ronnie's injuries and Gilbert stuck in the trash barrel, assumes the group is on drugs and taunts them.
But the patrolman drops his keys in the sand, and when he reaches to pick them up, his hand is captured. He uses his pepper spray, which temporarily saves him, but in the process, his lower arm has been consumed; the shock causes him to fall, and he is sucked into the sand. Kaylee, however, manages to retrieve his pepper spray. The pepper spray gives Mitch an idea: he thinks he can get to the truck by putting his flip-flops on and wrapping his feet with towels soaked in pepper spray. Chanda throws him a towel from the car, but when Mitch attempts to catch it the banister breaks and he falls to the sand and is devoured by the sand creature in a gruesome fashion.
Kaylee, after a brief moment of sadness, takes charge. She frees Ronnie's fingers from the car trunk, then has Chanda take the broken pieces of the boardwalk and use them as a bridge to get to Jonah on the picnic table. Meanwhile, Gilbert discovers that he has cut his stomach on the edge of the trash barrel during his attempts to escape, thus alerting the creature.
Kaylee and Ronnie each make their way across the makeshift bridge to Chanda and Jonah. At the last step, Ronnie trips and, despite Kaylee's efforts with the pepper spray, she dies and sucked into the sand by the creature. Chanda, in desperation, follows through with Mitch's plan and runs across the sand to the truck with pepper-sprayed towels wrapping her feet. The group celebrates for a brief moment as she succeeds. But just then, Gilbert is attacked by the creature, sucked down through the bottom of the barrel. The creature, having grown much larger tentacles, bangs against the patrol car, knocking Chanda unconscious.
At nightfall, Chanda wakes up and recuperates. She gets to the back of the truck and finds a self-inflatable raft. Chanda inflates the raft, and Kaylee and Jonah use it to reach the patrolman's car. However, the ground erupts, knocking Kaylee out of the open door and onto the raft. A huge glowing tentacle shoots out from the ground and assaults her. She manages to get on top of the car and, finding two gas cans on the rear rack, uses them to set one of the large tentacles on fire.
Kaylee, Chanda, and Jonah lock themselves in the car as the creature's tentacles flail and bash at them. Eventually, the attacks stop; in the silence, Kaylee and Chanda see that Jonah has died from his injuries. The two girls cry for the loss of their friends and fall asleep huddled together.
In the morning, the girls are awakened by a man (Michael Huntsman), who taps on the glass and asks them if they are alright. Kaylee and Chanda note, incredulously, that the creature is gone. They walk across the sand together, traumatized, as the man calls for an ambulance.
In a closing shot, the creature, revealed as an enormous jellyfish, is seen under the water, faraway and headed towards another beach full of people.
Filming
In 2012 filming started in California and filming was completed later that year.
Cast
- Brooke Butler - Kayle
- Cleo Berry - Gilbert
- Cynthia Murell - Ronnie
- Dean Geyer - Jonah
- Meagan Holder - Chanda
- Mitchel Musso - Mitch
- Hector David Jr. - Vance
- Nikki Leigh - Marsha
- Etalvia Cashin - Heather
- Jamie Kennedy - Beach Patrol Alex
- Michael Huntsman - Name Not Known
See also
- Blood Beach - a 1981 film with a similar premise
External links
- The Sand at IMDb
- The Sand at Rotten Tomatoes