CHOMPFEST 2023

(NSFW photos warning)

Bait swam a very long way to get to become a finished film, during the journey which at one point had the talented well-diverse director Russell Mulcahy, attached to the project however due to scheduling conflicts with the Teen Wolf series he was unable to commit. But before we can discover who was the actual director there’s a far greater aspect to investigate, that’s the smorgasbord of writers for this 94-minute flick. Now often is the case that the director serves as a writer on a horror movie, or has at top two screenwriters, however this production had a total of 6! Obviously, that bloodied the waters, and made for confusion and plot holes that sank the logic faster than the ship Orca in Jaws [1975]. The first two writers were Mulcahy (Tale of the Mummy [1998] and John Kim, his only credit to date, then the additional writers were Shayne Armstrong and S.P. Krause both who worked on Acolytes [2008], aided by Justin Monjo and rounded out by Duncan Kennedy, who brought his understanding of shark horror to screen as he assisted in the writing process on Deep Blue Sea [1999]. As for finding a leader to helm the direction of the film that was handed to Kimble Rendall (Cut [2000]) with a hefty budget of $20-million, though a mere gross of $29-million, as the concept was a bit ludicrous, yet still plausible because of realistic possible that sharks could find themselves swept in land due to tsunami (or high rising storm swells). This conceptual design was later deployed in both Crawl [2019] and Swim [2021], of predators driven into commercial or residential location thanks to a turnabout of mother nature’s vicious destructive force to cause havoc.

First, one needs to have an audience that is in the mood for a good gory horror movie the uses both animal attack versus survival-sacrifice skills, as the movie gives more good richness on the screen than negative, as long as you suspend your belief mindset. Therefore, we have a bit of false opening learn about a fresh engagement of Josh (Xavier Samuel) and Tina (Sharni Vinson) sister to Rory (Richard Brancatisano), which results in an early gory death, but clearly doesn’t make too much sense of why it occurred, alas it sets up the main story. Josh and Tina’s lives were heavily disrupted, but fate reunited them in the same location as she has returned just in time from Singapore. Meanwhile a failed robbery attempt in an Oceania Food Mart (don’t ask, although in reality was an Aldi grocery store) goes awry as a freak tsunami pounds the Australian coastline, and floods quickly inland. The storm event kills hundreds quickly and leaves a group thieves, customers, and management struggling for survivability in the store while others are caught in a flooded underground parking garage and has a new shopper: a great white shark cruising the aisle. The environment is relatable to anyone, thinking of your local supermarket, noting to oneself as to how to climb higher, the sudden disruption in life, the lurking dangers. Also caught in the situation is recently fired Ryan (Alex Russell) and kleptomaniac girlfriend Jamie (Phoebe Tonkin), her father a police officer and the crafty robber Doyle (Julian McMahon) and his partner both survive long with others, including the smug manager Jessup (Adrian Pang) who all in different degrees of panic. Shockingly the film presents a serious outlook, with ghastly kills, which are hard to explain do their appearance and what a shark can do but face it when to have a head floating away after everything below the neck it bitten off it is gory fun. The movie doesn’t skimp on the blood and makes sure the jock Kyle (Lincoln Lewis) gets to fulfill his righteous place in our Chompfest. Several different plotlines are woven together but there is one scene, where Josh, rationale leader of the survivors, understanding a better chance of survival if all work together regardless of their feelings. Steve volunteers to swim to the backroom to shutoff the power, before the he fries to death in the process they MacGyver a scuba suits out of milk cartons, baskets, soup cans, zip ties, and other store items, it is a bit of laughable moment, but again suspension of disbelief required.

Let’s look at the positives first, the visuals in good order with a realistic display of the tsunami (it was originally done in 3D), though a few amateurish CGI sharks, versus very few practical effects, likely a budgetary concern. There’re just too many characters that aren’t interesting, almost borderline of the stereotypical cardboard cut-outs found in slasher films and while obviously they were as fillers to the shark’s tummy and our carnage lust, it just repeats a bit too much perhaps if their more sharks. In addition, there is the coincidental soap opera romance between Josh and Tina and how it’s rekindled. Then a significant chomp scene occurs (shown below) with a decent amount of blood loss, it was similar to DeepStar Six [1989] scene when a sea creature, Depladon chomps the character Jim severed him mid-torso show here, however Bait’s chomp is far more graphic.

Every year there are more shark infested movies released, it’s likely the largest animal predator filmed for cinema watchers, but at least this time we have left the ocean and even the bay for the confines of supermarket and parking garage, merely switching back and forth between the locations. Even though it is not a perfect film, it is still refreshing in the conceptual design with gory moments though not else. I feel it misses one key element, there’s no true frightening moment of the survivors sitting at the frozen food compartments, a sense of lounging about is clearly shown, there’s no uneasiness for dwindling odds in film, the cast is too upbeat when facing the long odds. This leads to the tone, misfiring throughout the film, we have the squawking birds and dogs barking alerting us to impending worries, but it’s all gleefully ignored, again likely due to the numerous writers on the film, each with their own style cause confusion for the cast. Just minimizing the storyline, and expanded dangers in water especially outing a few other sea creatures to kill and/or feed, such as sea snakes or box jellyfish as the humans were the bait a terror-filled time to shock audiences would have been more memorable than what was witnessed.

TAGLINES:

• A tsunami just flipped the food chain.
• Cleanup on aisle 7.
• The food chain just got flipped.
• The ultimate predator is coming to a store near you!
• A tidal wave just flipped the local food chain.

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438173/

IMDb Rating: 5.2/10

Baron’s Rating: 5.0/10