The Bayou

After suffering through Skinamarink, one of the most boring horror films I have ever seen, I needed to cleanse my palate, so to speak. The Bayou fits the bill perfectly - it's a cheap and cheerful creature feature with absolutely no pretensions. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is actually better than I expected, with above average CGI for this kind of thing, a smattering of gore and reasonable performances.

Athena Strates plays Kyle, who flies to the everglades with her friends to scatter the ashes of her older brother Jamie (Flynn Barnard). Disaster strikes when the plane experiences engine trouble and ditches in the middle of a swamp, where the alligator population has turned super-aggressive due to the powerful narcotic that was dumped in the water during a raid on an illegal drug factory.

The film obviously won't win any awards for originality, but it's not trying to - it knows exactly what is required of it, moving swiftly along, delivering a few jump scares and a fair bit of suspense. And it doesn't scrimp on the gator action: there's numerous ravenous reptiles, both practical and computer generated, and they put quite a few similarly themed films to shame.

6/10. Worth a go if it's a brainless, no-nonsense bit of fun you're after.

Ug, talk about a bad high school project, whole thing was probably filmed from an iphone. The trailer says from the producers of "47 meters down" uh really?

This is like cheap beyond cheap production, which is alright if they tried but the people are annoying, the story makes no sense, and just irritatingly the whole way that gives me a headache.

Everyone in the film is so unlikable and makes no sense, was cheering for the CGI gators. I mean, yeah, these kinds of films should have annoying people, but there's a limit.

And did the meth make the gather super smart too? That Jurassic Park 3 ending is ludicrous.

Easily 1/10.

I put this movie on last night not expecting much but it is so much better than I expected.

I thought it would be on par with a lot of Asylum films but this is way better.

The CGI is pretty good, the acting is also pretty good. Sure there's the expected a'hole characters and silly sacrifices but all in all it's a fun movie.

What's not to like? People and alligators in the bayou.

I don't know why other people have given it such rubbish reviews, glad I didn't read them before I watched it.

I went in expecting rubbish and was pleasantly surprised.

Why not give it a go.

If you like creature features, this is the movie for you.

Is their unlimited and limited funds each year to make crap horror monster movies?! There is naturally and obviously.

It is not bad, it is freakish bad. The monsters out of a 1982 visual effects box, the "blood" came from liters of reddish nail paint, the acting not so bad, the logic of the situations dismal and the ending straight from an empty juice packet.

I'm not against 'The Bayou', I just recommend watching any crocodile, alligator movie since the 1970s and finish with the sterling 2007 'Black Water' . Only then after watching the latter, you'd understand what a croc movie should be.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 3
• Production value/impact: 3
• Development: 6
• Realism: 4
• Entertainment: 3
• Acting: 3.5
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 5.5
• VFX: 4
• Music/score/sound: 4
• Depth: 3
• Logic: 2
• Flow: 3.5
• Disaster drama/monster horror/action/thriller: 3
• Ending: 2.

It's a shame, really, because the acting, cinematography, and score are all fine for a Horror movie. But the script and the directing are terrible. The best actors on the planet couldn't make these character interactions make sense. They wouldn't be able to make the dialog work either.

There's nothing original in the script. It literally sounds like it was cobbled together by AI, from other movies.

I feel bad for the actors... they clearly were invested in doing their best.

Maybe it was made to be a tax write-off. I'm just rambling now because a certain number of characters (letters) is required.