Frankenfish

Deep in the bayous of Louisiana, something is munching on the inhabitants of a small community of houseboats. A coroner and a biologist are sent to investigate, and discover that huge genetically engineered man-eating fish are responsible. Specially designed to be tracked by big-game hunters seeking the ultimate quarry, the fish are fast, vicious and intelligent. When the scaly terrors attack the boats and scupper the floating houses, the survivors think they are fish food; but help is at hand when the hunters arrive, armed to the teeth and hoping to bag a trophy or two...

Had the makers of Frankenfish planted their tongues much further into their cheeks and not taken proceedings quite so seriously, this movie may have been a fantastic addition to the monster genre; unfortunately, they refuse to accept the complete preposterousness of the premise and deliver an average movie when the result should have been so much more fun. It doesn't help that the fish themselves are, for the most part, badly rendered CGI. Loads of nifty gore and a few tasty babes (China Chow and K.D. Aubert provide the main eye candy for the blokes) help to compensate somewhat, but Frankenfish ultimately fails to match the genius of its wonderfully camp title.

I give this film 5 out of 10, plus a bonus point for the impressive amount of blood and guts on display.

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

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.

This reminded me of two movies: "Tremors" and "Anaconda," but this film was a Class B version and cross between those two "higher class" movies. This film had no known actors - and it showed - and the dialog was pretty stupid, too (not that it was intelligent in those other films.)

However, I have to admit the killer fish were cool. The special-effects on them were very good. These suckers were ugly, scary and life-like. Since most of the humans in this film were unappealing to me, I rooted for the fish. There were several of them, pretty good-sized and pretty tough to stop.

This also was like those sci-fi films of the '50s with the genetically-altered spiders or ants or whatever, making something many times larger and deadly. Here, it was some fish in the Bayou swamps. Some of the action scenes were shocking and were, frankly, the best part of the film. Don't expect much for the first 35 minutes, but once it kicks in, it gets pretty intense.

The language is profane; the people (except for the hero, of course) are pretty scuzzy and stupid. Recommended for those who want to be frightened for an hour and aren't discriminating about the quality of their film-watching!

It's the name that does it. Not only does it fail to make sense in context, it just plain doesn't work. If they really wanted to go with some kind of Franken-animal they could have at least picked something that started with 'st', like... a stoat. Frankenstoat. Studios, are you listening?

Anyway. Against all odds Frankenfish is actually no worse a giant mutant creature romp than, say, Anaconda - I'd even go so far as to say it could have made a passable cinema release. Everything (with the standard exception of logic) is handled competently, from the acting to the effects, and the tiny bayou community setting of the whole thing actually feels quite novel. It's not even entirely predictable, I guarantee you won't see at least one of the deaths coming...

It's also a fine film for playing Name The Actor They *Really* Wanted. Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Wincott are lock-ins, while Anaconda veteran Jon Voight would have been a fine choice to play the hunter (who is, as it turns out, the most rubbish hunter in the world). Come to think of it, if they'd asked Jon Voight he'd probably have said yes - he usually does.

Overall, it's a surprisingly not-awful piece of work, which still manages to be entertaining despite its not-awfulness. I wouldn't say I'd recommend it, exactly, but you could do worse. Sci-Fighter, for instance. Now THAT's genuinely awful film-making (and as such comes highly recommended).