Magic in the Water

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Magic in the Water

Directed by	Rick Stevenson
Written by	Ninian Dunet (story) Rick Stevenson (story) Icel Dobell Massey (story) Rick Stevenson (screenplay) Icel Dobell Massey (screenplay)
Starring	Mark Harmon Joshua Jackson Sarah Wayne
Release date(s)	August 30, 1995
Running time	98 minutes
Country	US, Canada
Language	English
IMDb profile

Magic in the Water is a 1995 family film directed by Rick Stevenson and starring Mark Harmon and Joshua Jackson. It is about a fictional lake monster in British Columbia named Orky.

1 Plot
2 Reception
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Ashley (Sarah Wayne), a young girl, is depressed because her divorced father (Mark Harmon) spends all his time focusing on his job instead of her and her older brother. She constantly records his radio show to audio tapes and listens to them. One day, her father takes his two children on a vacation to a remote Canadian lake, where a myth about an aquatic monster named Orky has resulted in a gratuitous amount of touristy souvenirs and advertising in the local area. They rent a cabin on the beach, next to a wheelchair-bound old man of Native American descent. Ashley's father meets a local psychiatrist named Wanda who is trying to "heal" some local men of the after effects of a bizarre and wonderful experience... they claim that their minds were inhabited by Orky's, thus momentarily becoming the aquatic creature. When Ashley runs away, her father has the experience too while he is searching for her. After that, he becomes much more childlike and devoted to his kids.

But the children realize that Orky is taking over minds because he's trying to explain that he is dying because an unscrupulous businessman is dumping toxic waste into the lake. Ashley and her brother, help the old man next door find a totem pole in the woods. Then, with the help of a third child (the son of one of the men among a group of Japanese monster seekers), they wreck the villain's plans and expose him. However, Orky dies soon after the children finally find him in his cave. But the old man, back at the totem pole, conjures up a lightning bolt which zaps down the hole into Orky's home.

[edit] Reception

The film won Genie Awards for cinematography and sound. However, critic Leonard Maltin wrote in his book that "All the magic must be in the water; there's certainly none on the screen. Routine family film feels like recycled Spielberg."^[1]

Film critic Roger Ebert criticized the films special effects, describing the creature Orky as an "ashen Barney". Also he notes that Orky barely appears in the film at all.^[2]