Wild Swimmers – review

Director: Ric Rawlins

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers

A UK film set around the Bath area, this film suffers from some poor sfx and, more notably, it being a bit meh in the storyline department. It’s a shame as a couple of the characters warranted some more in-depth exploration as they were interesting.

After some scenes of the river Avon and connecting canal we meet Deji (Valerie Kwok), a journalist student from China; the spectre of the difference in journalism between China and the UK is touched upon, seems to be a driving factor for her character but could have withstood some more exploration. It is the end of term and the lecturer (Kirris Riviere) sets them a task of finding and following a story with legs. As she leaves the uni she passes mature student Kim (Caroline Murray), though they don’t know each other.

Valerie Kwok as Deji

Deji’s family want her to return home to visit, something she doesn’t feel able to do. She has started a new relationship with Mark (Harry Mason) and has a meeting set up with a retired detective who tells her about a case that haunted her, a wild swimmer, found dead with bite wounds consistent with a cottonmouth snake – lets gloss over the fact that they are absolutely not native to the UK (that isn’t mentioned in dialogue). There have been other strange deaths.

Kim and Deji

So, whilst Deji starts looking into the river, we discover that Kim has been booted of her photography course. Eventually the two meet and she offers to do photography for Deji. The relationship with Mark seems off also, he seems to be controlling (wanting her to carry a tracker for instance) and jealous of her time. These are the two characters that warranted more exploration. Kim is interesting and yet we discover so little about the character and that could have beefed up the film’s narrative and characterisation. Mark is possessive but so little is done with it and he is more a deus ex machina by giving Deji the tracker (which is a Chekov’s Gun) and being 'got' in front of her, when he coincidentally comes across her on the river.

blood effect

That second part regarding Mark leads us to the biggest issue – sfx. When he is attacked on the river the blood is a lurid, unnatural red. It stands out and not in a good way. When we see a vampire (Robin Bailes) caught in reflected sunlight a front shot has his face covered in gunk, profile shots the gunk is gone and the angles move back and forth with the sfx vanishing each profile shot. Finally, when we see him in the middle of a waterway, disguised as a scarecrow (which seemed oddly placed to the viewer and the characters that see it) it is clear that it simply is a scarecrow, being too thin to have a person swaddled (from the sun) within the clothing.

confrontation

With regards the vampirism itself, the only thing to mention is that by staying submerged in the silty water he avoids sunlight. There is little else to be said about the plot – the vampire has been preying on users of the waterway since the 17th century (the last part of the film is actually his story and tells us little more than he was bitten by a vampire and committed suicide). The fact that the police are so far behind the plucky journalism student is less than credible, her chasing him (yes, he runs) through the dark is shot too darkly to be meaningful and is mind-numbingly too long a scene. The filmmakers did try and do something a bit unusual by tying the vampire to the waterways but the final verdict is that it missed more than hit. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK