Bait (2012)

 

Well, sharkfilms: pretty much something that I can usually find myself attracted to. And there is an overabundance of shark-related films out there, even if the vast majority of them are horrendously awful. As with so many people, it's a pretty safe bet to blame 'Jaws' for this fascination with those glorious hunters of the deep, even though that film scared me so much I almost didn't want to take a bath anymore. It took some time to fully comprehend that sharks are graceful and oftentimes intelligent creatures, not those mindless murdering machines so many pictures want us to believe. 

But you need murderous monster machines to make fun films, so there's that. 

To be fair and straight to the point: this is not the worst sharkflick. Neither is it one of the better. It is average at best, but it does have some fun ideas and scenes to keep your attention. 

After an opening scene where a guy gets killed by a great white, we skip ahead one year. Our protagonist has broken up with his girlfriend (the kid from the opning was her brother) and now works in a small supermarket. Then a tsunami hits the town. This supermarket is below street level, so it floods, together with its carpark. A handful of people survive the initial flood, but it turns out that two great whites have swum inside and they are hungry. 

I blame all that subliminal advertising. 

There is this subplot with two robbers (one of them reluctant), but that amounts to little, save for the incredibly annoying one that survives the initial events. The only good thing that comes out of this subplot is that Julian McMahon plays the 'decent' robber, as he is by far the best actor in this film. You will honestly not care about any of the other characters. Heck, I can't even remember their names and I have seen this film about four times by now. It's more like: angry teen girl, limping store officer, Asian store owner, love interest etc etc. And a great bunch of them get eaten anyway. Which is pretty much the entire point of this film. 

The location is actually interesting and it is something different for a change. What also works, is that this film does have its intense moments and at times can be relatively scary. This is good. There were some surprises along the way and it's always nice to see a film riddled with clichés take some alternate routes to the end. So kudos there. 

But there is a lot of bad stuff to find as well. The acting is pretty awful for most of the time. It doesn't help that the dialogue is so gutwrenchingly predictable either. Oh, and the psychorobber is annoying as fuck. Someone should have told this guy to severely cut down on the overacting, but they failed to do so. I genuinely cheered when that arsewipe died. Also: screw the ditzy and her dog. The heroic sacrifice one of the characters makes, is absolutely stupid and could have been easily avoided and it didn't do anything to advance the plot. 

You can also wonder how 13ft sharks can hide so easily in cramped surroundings, but I guess they took a cue from the 'Deep Blue Sea' handbook of invisible shrinking sharks. 

The sharks themselves are a mixed bag. The animatronics are actually decent and some of the shots underwater look okay. But the 3D effects are horrendous and are almost as pisspoor as those from 'Jaws 3D', a film that is about 30 years older than this one. No really: they are thàt bad. 

So is this film a total waste of time? Well, for most people, the answer will likely be yes. But if you like sharkfilms, this one is not a total dud. It has some fun kills, there are effective tense moments (be they few, though) and all in all, if you have some time to spare, you could give this a watch. 

If you don't have any affinity with our beloved denizens of the deep, I would give this a wide berth, though.