Beneath the Surface

This isn't a shark movie or a horror, it's more of a whodunit. To be fair the acting isn't bad but I found the whole thing quite boring, and there are definitely better ways to spend your time.

Where to start. This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The story was so weak that I am sure a bunch of 10 year old school kids could have written a better script.

The acting was nausiatingly poor. And I will name and shame them: Georgie Banks, Stephanie Lodge and last but not least Matthew Marcelis. It doesn't matter about the rest of the cast because they were immeterial, but the lead three were just terrible.

All in all the story, the dialogue and the acting was stupid. Like in many of the contributions it wasn't too hard to figure out who did what and where from pretty early into the movie. I am not sure but I am willing to bet the budget of the movie could not have exceeded 10,000 British pounds sterling!

Right, well I very, very rarely - as in actually almost never - read reviews of a movie before sitting down to watch a movie. But I really wish I had done so before sitting down to watch the 2022 movie "Beneath the Surface" from writer Paul W. Franklin.

I was lured into watching "Beneath the Surface" because of the movie's cover/poster with the shark, the bloodied water, a burning wreckage and a distraught woman in the water. Talk about false advertisement, because this had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the actual contents of the movie. Well, sure there was a shark in the movie and a woman in the water, but that was about it. And the movie didn't have the thrill and excitement in it at all which was displayed in the cover/poster.

Nay, this was definitely not a shark movie. Instead, I was sitting down to watch a murder mystery, and not a particularly good one at that. The pacing of the movie was rather slow, and the storyline itself was, well truth be told, bland and sort of bordering on being pointless. So no, you're not in for a great movie experience if you sit down to watch "Beneath the Surface" from directors Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews.

Now, I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress in "Beneath the Surface", and that was actually one of the better things about this ordeal of a movie. And while the actors and actresses had very little to work with in terms of script and properly written characters, then the acting performances in the movie was actually fairly okay.

I managed to suffer through all of "Beneath the Surface", but I wasn't particularly entertained, much less enjoying the storyline. So I can honestly advice you to not waste your time, money or effort on this movie, because it simply isn't worth it.

My rating of "Beneath the Surface" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

The movie starts with three people who have fallen off a boat. Its night, and they are in the water, sharks cirkling around them. Then, some screams. It lasts under five minutes, and you see no shark attacking.

Three months later, we are home (a large mansion in England) with Lexy, who lost her father and sister at the sea. We never find out if their bodies were recovered.

Lexy suffers from survivours guilt, and have little recollection of the event. She knows they partied on the boat, drank alcohol and were dancing.

Her boyfriend, Isaac, and her stepmother, Vicky also live in the house, and they were also on the boat that night.

She has a good friend, Amy, who are supportive, and also wants Lexy to get some help. Which is needed, because Lexy is whining a bit too much.

There are no more sharks to be seen, and just a few scenes from the boat. This is a drama/mystery movie, where we want to find out what happened that night.

There are some gaping plotholes, as to why the solution wasn't discovered at once, or why Lexy takes so long time to realise what's happening, but there you are.

The solution is exactly what you think, including the people involved and the motive.

The killer's plot on how to do away with Lexy in the end, is laughable, and utterly impossible to work, without no one finding out.

Acting is ok. Lexy is the worst, but that is because it takes some real acting skills to carry a movie. And she does not have what it takes.

Beneath the Surface is a very low budget drama dressed up with a minimal shark theme to make it more marketable. Once you get over the disappointment, it's not a terrible movie, but it's not the least bit original aside from the bait and switch scam to convince you to put the time into watching it. It's basically a not-very-clever murder mystery. If you're looking for the next Bait or even the next Sharknado...keep looking. This ain't it.