Barracuda

****POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILERS***

I was hoping for another corny 'Jaws' rip-off with this film, but after two unknown divers are killed in a long, drawn out, silent opening scene, the plot immediately changes itself into a land-based conspiracy thriller.

The story is based around the town of Palm Cove, where a large chemical plant is the main source of employment. Chemicals are being put into the water supply in an experiment to control the population - they are also leaking into the sea and stimulate aggression in the local barracuda.

There isn't much to get excited about here - a few 'Jaws' links are of minor interest: a labrador chasing a stick on a beach comes across a divers head; sheriff and marine biologist are the two main characters and they have a night search out on the water similar to the one enjoyed by Brody and Hooper.

The film has the look of a home-grown project and the multitude of credits given to the co-directors Wayne Crawford and Harry Kerwin suggest this may be the case. Once it is clear the barracuda threat is only a plot device the films interest level begins to wane.

Whilst production values are poor 'Barracuda' is still fairly watchable and the characters are fleshed out to a reasonable degree ( particularly Lester, the fat useless Victor Buono-like deputy ). This is still as far below 'Piranha' as 'Piranha' was below 'Jaws' though, so while not quite a full-blown turkey its very close.

Something strange is happening in the water off the coast of a town called "Palm Cove, Florida". For starters, the owners of a chemical plant have become extremely sensitive about their business and have hired some guards to prevent the collection of water samples taken anywhere near their facility. In one specific incident a marine-biologist by the name of "Mike Canfield" (Wayne Crawford) is arrested by the local sheriff "Ben Williams" (William Kerwin) and taken to jail for trespassing. While there he manages to help the sheriff investigate some deaths to local divers in the area. Along with these deaths the inhabitants of the town have become increasingly aggressive to one another but neither the sheriff nor Mike can connect any of these incidents together. At any rate, while this movie is similar in many respects to "Jaws" it obviously didn't have the financing of the former film and the quality of the movie isn't anywhere near as good. Even so, it had some good moments here and there and for that reason I give it a rating of average. But just barely.

The main reason why I often enjoy imitations and cheap rip-offs more than the original they're inspired by is because the people behind it are so much more shameless and extravagant with their ideas. Spielberg's landmark classic "Jaws" spawned a copious number of imitations and suddenly nearly every type of sea animal – whether genetically altered or not – at one point during the seventies got depicted as an unstoppable killing machine. Not just every possible species of sharks, but also piranhas, octopuses, whales and even barracudas. This one, however, isn't exactly the "Jaws" rip-off you'd suspect it to be. If anything, it's actually more of a "Piranha" copy and not nearly as trashy and/or mindlessly entertaining as I hoped. The script tries to be a little too clever, creative and mysterious even though the outcome of the story is pretty obvious right from the beginning. I, for one, think the writers/directors duo Harry Kerwin and Wayne Crawford perhaps should have opted for a cheesy good old-fashioned creature feature rather than a pseudo-intellectual piece of eco-horror. "Barracuda" nevertheless opens promisingly with moody underwater images guided by creepy musical tunes, immediately followed by a scene of two divers getting virulently attacked by the titular creatures. There's something fishy – pun intended – going on in a little coastal town. Simultaneously with a couple of bizarre and unsolved diving accidents, a marine biologist discovers dangerous chemicals in the water, probably coming from Poppa Jack's plant nearby. Likely, the chemicals turn the barracudas into ravenous killers and even appear to negatively affect the townspeople that consume locally caught fish. The middle-section is intolerably boring, mainly because you're completely unprepared for the switch towards a slow and talkative film, and "Barracuda" eventually ends as a full-blooded political conspiracy thriller. The killer barracudas don't even get mentioned or shown anymore. This is a textbook case of misleading – or even downright false – advertisement, really. The alternate title for this film is "The Lucifer Project" and at least that one immediately gives a far more accurate small description of what to expect. Of course, the title "Barracuda" accompanied by a bloody drawing of a sharp-teethed fish devouring a human head attracts a lot more horror fans. Shame.

I would love to hear the story behind how Barracuda got made. My guess is this: someone penned a land-based thriller entitled "The Lucifer Project" (which is the movies' subtitle) that was about a government conspiracy to control the populace through blood sugar manipulation. The film started pre-production, but someone said "hey, this movie called 'Jaws' was really successful three years ago and now I hear this new one called 'Piranha' is also going to do well. How about we change the title to 'Barracuda' and throw in a few scenes of hypoglycemic fish attacking divers to see if we can make more money".

The fish stuff really is that obvious of an afterthought.

If you attempt to watch Barracuda seriously, it's incredibly bad on many levels: cheesy acting, bizarre plot twists, a hilariously inept police force (complete with the fat comedy relief character) and an ending scene that strives hard for the bleakness that was so fashionable in the late 70s but only ends up being kind of funny instead.

But I will say this, if you're looking for a movie to put on with friends, maybe with a little drink, and run your own MST3K style commentary over the top, Barracuda is an absolute gem. My wife and I had a riot watching it. Unlike a lot of the intentionally bad SyFy channel movies (like Sharknado) that come across as manipulative attempts to draw crowds through corniness, Barracuda is an *actual* bad movie, not a manufactured one, and thus is much more charming and fun to experience.

I bought this movie because I really thought it would be terrible. I imagine something like "Spawn of the Slithis", or "Nazi Surfers Must Die", but this movie turns into a good one after all. In the beginning, the plot is very silly - barracudas eat people. Amazing. The filming under water, with the barracudas waving their tails while eating the limbs of people is laughing. But... in the middle of the movie the barracudas disappear, and the story, although with poor acting, is interesting. In fact, X-Files is very close to that. And the end is a lot better than one you could expect from a movie called "Barracuda".