Terror en la bahía

I was not expecting to even like Frankenfish, but I did. The story is ridiculous on the whole, in the script there is a sea of corniness and eye-rolling cheesiness amid the odd sprinkle of wit, the characters are on the annoying stereotypical side and some of the effects are cheap. Despite all this, I did enjoy Frankenfish. The editing was not as choppy as I had anticipated and some of the locations are great. There is enough suspense and tense fun to make up for the ridiculousness of the story, the fish although not great in design(though I have seen far worse) are menacing and great to watch and while the lead is uncharismatic the acting is reasonably good. On the whole, not great, but I sort of liked it. 6/10 Bethany Cox

To my surprise, this actually turned out to be a rather amusing B-Movie. The characters, handsome cop, brainy female scientist, unpleasant young lawyer, taciturn Vietnam vet (how many Vietnam vets in the movies are ever eloquent conversationalists?) and superstitious Voodoo lady are so much cut-out cardboard, but the actors make the best with what they have to work with. Even the fish look like they are enjoying themselves.

There is the odd witty line, some great low-key action sequences and the Frankenfish themselves are great - chewing up most of the cast with great gusto and not without some excellent black humour.

There are some genuine surprises and a couple of unexpected deaths amid the usual B-Movie clichés. There's plenty of gore and plenty of fun. Not a bad way to spend an idle hour or so.

Take one part Jaws, one part Tremors and a hint of Creature From the Black Lagoon, mix well, and you get Frankenfish. Yes it's filled with stock characters (though its nice to have an African-American hero for a change) and some foolish plot twists, but, I liked it.

Why? Well, the characters were basically likable and well-acted by a largely unknown cast. Second, the story moves along at a good clip which is always important when the plot is clichéd. Third, the Frankenfish were terrific, big and scary. And, of course, there was plenty of blood and guts; surprising since the Sci-Fi channel usually edits this out.

Don't go in expecting too much, just your typical large, voracious monster on the loose and you should enjoy this one.

Something big and nasty is hanging out in the Bayou, so baaad it can bite a gator to pieces. Could it possibly be a scientific experiment gone awry? Might it possibly threaten a group of people trapped in the middle of nowhere? Is it conceivable that the above group would be offed one by one? In various bloody circumstances? Would you believe the hero and his babe will somehow survive? Is there any way a rich evil middle-aged white male might be responsible? Is there anything in this movie you haven't seen before? the fish are pretty well done, but too high a body count (and too much foul language) for me. Think of Deep Rising with a smaller budget. If you like that sort of thing--enjoy.

Not that I'm complaining or anything, but...shouldn't have been a movie like this even cheesier? Sleazier? Trashier? With a title like "Frankenfish" and a striking DVD-cover that proudly shows a monstrous cross-breeding between a catfish and a piranha, the least I expected was a more over-the-top and completely absurd homage to old B-movies and/or low budget creature features. "Frankenfish" attempts and, admittedly, often succeeds in being a fun and vastly entertaining little flick, but still the production takes itself slightly too serious and should gave gone straight for pure shlock! The film is gory...but not gory enough! Some of the characters are quite insane...but not insane enough! One or two female stars appear naked...but not... You get the picture. The opening sequence is truly promising and bathes in the same atmosphere as all those deliciously awful monster-movies of the 80's. A lonely fisherman living in the swamps of Louisiana is devoured by some kind of new water monster and, by the time local authorities discover his body, there's not much left but a rotting torso. An expedition of two (only two?) specialists is sent to the small swamp-community where they quickly witness more and even bloodier attacks by immense fish that appear to be genetically altered snakeheads. The aggressive and extremely hungry creatures are owned by an eccentric hunting-freak who was looking for a new challenge. Don't you hate it when that happens? The most obvious mistake the producers of "Frankenfish" made was to opt for lame CGI-effects. The teenage audiences that fancy this type of hi-tech computer tricks don't care for small films like this. They go straight for over-hyped video game nonsense like "The House of the Dead" or "Resident Evil" and always ignore the lowest shelves in videostores, where modest releases like "Frankenfish" are usually put. The more experienced horror fans that are looking for possible new B-classics wish to see old-fashioned and cheesy effects and make-up art! Apart from that and some other minor stupidities in the script, "Frankenfish" is a fairly exciting film with a good pace and likable characters. The death sequences are probably the best moments, as they offer quite a bit of ingenious variety. People get decapitated, dismembered, half-eaten cut up by fanning boats. The absolute coolest death scene doesn't even involve the over-sized fish and shows a poor (lesbian?) woman being shot in the head by an unmanned shotgun! That was just too funny. I guess they simply don't make 'em a terrific like "Tremors" anymore, but if this movie represents the next generation of creature-features, I'm more or less satisfied