Shark Attack!

If you read and enjoyed my recent review of the shark movie Swim, or if you indeed, somehow watched and enjoyed that movie, then you’re in for a treat as today we’re talking about another shark movie which is somehow worse. Maybe it’s not worse, but it’s at least as bad. It’s a shame, because the trailer made it look as if it might be a cheaper, less interesting version of The Shallows. It ain’t.

The movie, in grand tradition, starts with a scene of a bikini-clad being gobbled up by a shark. It has little bearing on the plot and exists purely for some early titillation and gore, and to tell us that this is a movie about sharks attacking, in case that wasn’t clear from the movie’s name.

We switch to our central trio – a model, her photographer ex-boyfriend, and his current make-up professional girlfriend. The three are in Florida, heading out to some island to do a photoshoot. Oh look! Michael Madsen is also here, and WTF is going on with his eyes? Like Joey Lawrence in Swim, who was clearly there for two days of filming, Madsen was seemingly called in his own house, on the day, with no forewarning, and told to literally read some dialogue off the email he was just sent. Holy God, the line reading in this movie is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. More on that later.

The island our trio are heading out to is apparently only reachable by canoe, but they decide to go to an even more remote island which is rapidly going under the water due to tides. Foolishly, they are ill-prepared for unfortunate circumstances such as tide-rising and shark-gobbling, neglecting to fully charge their phones or bring walkie-talkies, food, flares, or common sense. Damn millennials, eh? Shortly after arriving at their destination, old Sharky McRipleg shows up with white pubescent flesh on his mind. The water’s rising, the shark is circling, and nobody knows they’re out there.

Luckily, Michael Madsen is here! He’s daddy to one of the trio, a former pilot and all round hero. He’s not your typical hero; he doesn’t resort to such tropes as leaping into action, fashioning a makeshift Bell 222 from old bits and bobs in his garage before hightailing it down to Florida to offer a bullet-hell solution on some protected wildlife, nor does he organize a zany crew of old friends to head out on one last ‘this is suicide’ mission to save his family. No no, instead he elects to sit in his cozee chair, struggle to read explanations of meteorology and co-ordinates to some guy on the phone, take off his glasses, put them back, and occasionally rub his head all the while looking coked off his tits and giving a million mile stare off in the corner where I can only assume the Producers were holding his actual family at gunpoint, yelling ‘just read the damn lines or the puppy gets it’. He does get to mumble things like ‘you’ve been through hell, now you have to go through high water’, which is both terrible and worse than terrible.

This would all be fine if there was some threat and comedy in the movie, but elsewhere it’s just poorly made. Incompetent editing and directing which a simple once-over by another pair of eyes should have been enough to resolve; shots of the island going under the waves, then in the next shot not being touched by water at all, scenes of our survivors supposedly out to sea and struggling to swim yet the camera clearly showing the ground within touching distance of their feet, followed by scenes shot metres below the waves showing their feet way above, and repeated shot after recycled repeated shot of canoes. Our survivors have this good cop bad cop thing going on, with one going above and beyond on the freak out scale, while the other is unreasonably calm. This wouldn’t be so odd if it stayed consistent, but the two switch roles at multiple times, with both trading what I would normally call uncharacteristic sarcastic barbs if either had a character to speak of.

It’s not all bad. We watch these movies not expecting them to be good, or even particularly well made, but because we want to see idiots killed in amusing ways. There’s a bit of that, the ocean shots look nice, the effects aren’t terrible, and outside of whatever is going on with Madsen the performances aren’t the worst. As a Neighbours fan I did enjoy getting to see the same guy who played the villainous Gareth Bateman getting chomped up. On the sliding scale of bad shark movies, this is somewhere in the middle, neither offering the nonsense nor the entertaining silliness of the worst of the bunch. It’s worth watching for Michael Madsen’s new interpretation of the art of acting alone.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Shark Attack!

 

Swim

With Meg 2 lighting up the box office and pissing off critics upset that a movie about a giant prehistoric shark isn’t a Wes Anderson quirk-fest, it’s about time I once again scrape the bottom of the ocean floor in search of the best of bad shark movies. Enter Swim.

Swim follows a similar format to Alexander Aja’s thoroughly enjoyable Crawl and the entertaining and little seen Burning Bright. Each film is a mixture of home invasion and animal attack, and while Burning Bright featured the leading light of Brianna Evigan and the novelty of a unique premise versus Aja’s nuanced experience of bringing quality to somewhat tacky ideas, Swim is on the lower end of what you can expect from a film about being trapped in a house with a big beastie.

A family (who never once feel like a real family) are heading to their summer vacation rental. Dismissing the advice of the weathermen and the huge, dark clouds on the horizon and ignoring the obvious shenanigans of their previously-proven-to-be-shady landlord, the barrel their way down the coast in search of one last get together before their eldest heads off to college. Daddy (Joey Lawrence) was only contracted to be on set for two days, so he spends the majority of the film away from the others, yelling into a phone in his car, before an ill-advised and illogical rescue attempt. As the storm gets more fierce and the waves rise (to levels which would surely cause irreversible damage to the entire State), an excessively hungry shark decides that the family is in need of downsizing, so heads on inside and starts chomping.

Swim is the sort of movie which the tired criticism of ‘predictable’ was made for. Not only did I, within the opening two minutes, correctly predict who would be eaten, but in which order and under what specific circumstances. Aside for some late canon fodder additions, my predictions came true and I began to wonder if I was in fact watching a movie that other people had written and directed, or if there was some psychic connection between me and some God Tier AI which was able to instantly convert my thoughts into what was happening on screen.

Thankfully, the shark effects aren’t too awful. They’re not great, but in most cases we just see a brief fin cutting through the waves. Beyond the insane logic of the shark coming into the house, then up the stairs, then up the other stairs while still somehow being hungry after its first taste of idiot flesh, it doesn’t go sailing through the air or perform death defying feats of anti-biology. There isn’t much acting on display – Joey Lawrence shouts for a bit, poor old Andy Lauer looks like he has zero awareness of what a movie even is, and Jennifer Field as the mum is very adapt at making an ‘O’ shape with her mouth. There’s never a sense of threat and the only enjoyment comes from seeing what the next silly decision will be or whether or not I’ll pass out Rum by the time dad finally makes it to the house. The kills do keep coming relatively thick and fast through the movie, and that’s really why we come to watch, right?

You know what to expect from a movie like this, and it delivers. It’s not good, and it’s not on the level of ridiculousness as the Sharknado series, but it will help you enjoy your Rum buzz. Let us know what you think of Swim in the comments!

Bait

Why do we do it? Or more specifically, why do I do it? You can count the number of good, truly good shark movies on one hand and yet I watch as many of the bad ones as I can, knowing full well they are going to be bad. Is it my inherent love for the mysterious creatures? Is it because most shark movies are horror movies and an excuse to watch annoying people get chomped to pieces? Is it the hope that maybe one day someone will make another truly good one? I think it’s all of those things – I’ve always loved sharks and horror movies, and I always hope that another good one will appear. Reading the synopsis of shark movies, and knowing the companies and money involved before hand is a valid way of anticipating if the film will be good, but as I’ve said, that won’t put me off; it may not be good, but it could still be entertaining.

Bait has the following synopsis:

‘A freak tsunami traps a group of people in a submerged grocery store. As they try to escape, they are hunted by white sharks that are hungry for meat’

Aren’t most tsunamis freak events? Also, that kind of makes it sound as if the grocery store was already submerged. I assume they mean Great White Sharks too, and the fact that they’re hungry for meat goes without saying. If I was trapped in a grocery store, you’d better believe I’d be looting it to the bone. And I wouldn’t be starting with the meat, no, I’d be filling my face with sweets and crisps first – all that top shelf stuff (matron). Plus, that synopsis makes me think of two other movies I’d like to see – one set in a world where all shops are underwater, like The Jetsons but with water instead of space. So.. Spongebob, I guess. Secondly, a movie about a freakshow tsunami – a giant supafly wave which does funky dances and wears an afro.

All in all, I don’t mind the idea for this – it has potential, merging survival horror with loose disaster movie and siege movie tropes. I imagine John Carpenter having a go at this – it’s basically Assault On Precinct 13 but with sharks instead of gangstas and crap instead of goodness. Honestly, it’s not all that bad. In terms of being a cheap B movie, it’s perfectly watchable and gives enough attention to its characters that we have a passing interest in their fates, if not care. The acting is a notch above what you would expect from these things, with famous faces like Sharni Vinson and Julian McMahon providing the ‘oh, I know that guy’ moments. The film also spends time building up to the main scenario, introducing various characters and conflicts before releasing the sharks. It begins with a tragic event as lifeguard Josh watches his friend Rory be killed by a shark during a rescue. Rory was brother to Tina, Tina was engaged to Josh. Flashforward a year and Josh and Tina have split up, with Josh now working in a supermarket. Tina shows up with her new boyfriend – uh oh. Worse, a couple of criminals show up too in a botched armed robbery – oh no. Worse still, a tsunami drops, trapping the staff, shoppers, and criminals together – oopsy. Then to spice things up further, some sharks have been washed in by the tsunami, and I have a feeling they like the taste of young pretty flesh.

At times it feels like there are too many characters, each with their own crap. There are security guards, criminals, managers, shoplifters, couples galore, dogs, and some are revealed to be intertwined and some are revealed to be dicks. There are a couple of ‘twists’ though I pissed off my wife by calling them out long before they were revealed, as I always do. I won’t spoil them here, but they seemed fairly obvious even to me. There was a great moment where it looked like the dog was killed, only for a later cop-out. Hey, I love dogs but I love it just as much when people who moan about dogs being killed in movies (which almost never happens) are frightened that the dogs will be hurt. The dog here especially is more than deserving of being gobbled. But as mentioned, there is a lot going on, characters trying to resolve their differences all while working together (or not) to try to survive and escape. Certain characters are split off from the main group, some have selfish motives, others are fish fodder.

The gore and kills are as you would expect – a lot of improbable shark action and even more improbable attempts to hunt and kill the sharks. The CG isn’t great but it’s still a level or twelve above Sharknado – you’ll get a laugh out of it but can still suspend your disbelieve enough to not let it get in the way of the story. The film is actually known as Bait 3D – so you know you’re going to get some of those scenes to make the 3D stand out. Naturally I watched in 2D, so these scenes added to the ridicule. In terms of pacing and action, the film rattles along nicely and while it hits all of the expected notes, it does so in a fun way. I was never bored even though I’ve seen it all before. It’s much better than the ‘so bad it’s good’ shark movies, but still a way behind Jaws and… Jaws 2. Thanks to an interesting premise, a decent cast of recognizable faces, and actual attention to building story and character (somewhat), Bait is a film for anyone who enjoys shark movies or animal attack movies in general.

Let us know in the comments what you thought of Bait!