Aquanoids

My colleagues at work often question my taste in film: they cannot understand why I waste my time championing low budget horror when I could be watching the latest blockbuster to wow the masses at the local multiplex. After watching Aquanoids, I'm beginning to wonder why I bother myself.

Set on a small island off the Californian coast, Aquanoids stars Laura Nativo as Vanessa, a beautiful diver who, after being attacked by a hideous fish-man, attempts to warn the locals of the danger that lurks in the surrounding waters. This upsets the nasty officials of the island, who are afraid that Vanessa will scare away tourists and upset plans for the building of a shopping complex.

A shoddy mish-mash of themes and ideas stolen from the likes of Jaws, Humanoids From The Deep, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon, Aquanoids is absolutely awful in almost every way imaginable: the direction is clumsy and amateurish; the script is childish, poorly written, and highly unoriginal; the editing shows no hint of restraint, utilising every gimmicky fade, wipe and split-screen effect possible; the monster make-up and gore is cheap and laughable; the special effects are unconvincing; and the acting is uniformly awful. Even some welcome female nudity cannot stop this one from being a total waste of time.

Whilst watching this lamentable mess, I noticed that one character had the surname McClure, whilst another was named Bruce—possible references to actor Doug McClure (from Humanoids From The Deep) and Bruce the Shark (from Jaws). There is also a scene where several characters discuss their favourite watery monster movies, mentioning Deep Star Six, Leviathan, Tentacles, Alligator 2 and Roger Corman in the process. This leads me to believe that the makers of Aquanoids are genuine fans of horror and B-movies. If this is the case, then those involved should hang their heads in shame for giving us this abysmal addition to the genre.

Aquanoids goes where low budget horror films are too scared to...underwater. Set on Catalina Island off the coast of California, this 'tight' little film delivers a healthy dose of blood, babes, a cool 'retro' beast, a rockin story and best of all...a fun ride. Long live the Drive-In Movie!

The trouble with so many of the horror films coming out of the indy world is that they take themselves too seriously. Aquanoids never does that. Director Ray Peschke is ever aware when dancing the line between B movie fun and cheesy schlock.

If you like a good 'sea creature' flick, you might want to add this film to your 'classics' list along with "Creature From The Black Lagoon," "Piranha," and "Humanoids From The Deep."

Now, i have been watching B-movie horrors for sometime now and this film is by far the worst one i have ever watched but also the best. If your looking for good script, acting, story etc. then avoid this film like the plague however if you are looking for a cheap laughter filled night in with the lads, this is the one for you. With no where near believable characters and a largely endowed femme fa tale you know your in for at least some cheap laughs and nudity. The script while trying to be serious is just awful, thats all that can be said....awful, just bloody awful.The script is devoid of interesting plot turns and any real creativity, if you gave a monkey a type writer the script for aquanoids would quickly churn out.

I do however have a place in my heart for this film, even though the script was downright terrible, some moments in this film are just a must to commit to memory and are undeniably funny. The camera quality too adds to the hilarity, as a good friend whom i watched this with described its quality very well as "porno Cam".

to conclude, if you see this in a bargain bin, buy it just to see what I'm talking about but if you are not someone in persuasion of B-movie horror you best look somewhere else.

AQUANOIDS with Eric Spudic www.ericspudic.com "Killers Of The Sci-Fi Sea, With gore & more…That's a good movie."Lara Nativo is a really nice Scream Queen©.There is a lot of footage of Catalina Island,Kind of a travelogue for Gorehounds.There is some political stuff because of the tourism problem with so many deaths,Didn't we learn from the JAWS movie that danger BRINGS tourists.The AQUANOIDS(monsters) look like the Sleestak from TVland's LAND OF THE LOST.I liked the movie.Great fight scene between man and woman.The casting seems from a Soap Opera employment agency.Some of the acting seemed forced and other times roles could have been themselves.

Right, well from the very beginning of the movie, with the intro and the insanely lousy and semi-unreadable text that introduced the actors and actresses to the poorly made logo of the movie's title, then it was very clear that "Aquanoids" was going to be a low budget creature feature.

Actually, I will say that writers Mark J. Gordon and Eric Spudic didn't exactly put together an all bad script here, there were parts of the narrative that had potential, and the odd interesting bit here and there. However, it was ruined by a poor and amateurish execution from script to screen by director Reinhart 'Rayteam' Peschke and some very lousy acting performances from the cast ensemble.

I loved the fact that the woman being chased by the aquanoid while she was snorkeling and frantically swimming to a jet ski, but she still found the time to stop up and put on a life jacket before speeding off on the jet ski. But there was a deadly Aquanoid right on her tail in the water when she was swimming. It made no sense that someone fleeing for their life stops up to put on a life jacket.

The acting performances in "Aquanoid" were shoddy and questionable to say the least. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, and I can't claim that I was impressed with what I witnessed on the screen.

Visually then you're not in for anything grand, should you opt to sit down and waste 78 minutes on watching "Aquanoids".

This is definitely not a movie that I would recommend you to sit down and watch, nor waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this 2003 movie so you don't have to; you're very welcome.

My rating of "Aquanoids" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars.