Director: Josh Gerritsen
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Following several strange incidents, the residents of a small island off the coast of Maine find themselves cut off from the rest of civilization and being hunted down by a ravenous sea creature intended to be used in a military experiment and must get away from the creatures alive.
This one ended up being a solid low-budget indie creature feature. That is built mainly on the wholly intriguing main premise of the film that makes for a lot of potential fun to be had. This one really works itself into a nice groove at the beginning where it slowly features the eventual buildup of their lives on the island, from the residents who make a living on the sea to the different potential romances brewing and how that gets interrupted by the serious implications on the outside of the storyline. This creates an effective atmosphere throughout here where the creatures closing in on the community by being responsible for their situation and creates both intrigue and suspense about what's going to happen due to this fine early build-up.
Once this goes into the creature attacks, it has some rather enjoyable attacks. Starting with the first discovery of the body parts strewn across the island, this offers up some nice concepts involving the creatures attacking here which features the later attack on the shipping vessel heard through the radio or the discovery of dead bodies in bloodsoaked houses which finally clues them in that something is out there. With a stellar sequence of the unseen creatures attacking and taking out one of the locals inside the house, a later ambush where they realize the creatures' intent in the area and a fine finale where the creatures are put into even more action-centric encounters that are rather thrilling, it's exciting scenes are placed at the right spot to give this a lot to like.
The cast here isn't bad and certainly have a lot to do with the enjoyment of the film. Of the few noteworthy cast-members, Laila Robbins is quite appealing as Maggie, the nurse stuck on the island who tries to keep her professionalism in check as the situation changes the deeper this goes. Andrew Wade McLaughlin is nearly as good as Sam, the doctor who discovers the creatures who has a down-home, laid-back attitude who never talks down to anyone and stays helpful the entire time. Matthew Wilkas as Titus the supposed writer who has a rather enjoyable twist attributed to him later on is quite fun as he initially appears to be on their side rather than being one of the locals. Though none of the cast is really terrible or outright stellar, those are the ones who stand out the most and are what make this one hold up over it's flaws.
While this one makes out well enough due to it's low-budget imitations, there are a few out there that would find fault with this aspect of the film. The fact that it stays within this close-knit community, never really venturing out to other aspects of the area and looking like it's all done with local limitations makes this one a lot more restrained than it really should be. That includes the slow-burn pace which doesn't ramp up the action as much as it should, featuring plenty of low-key moments of the group going about their lives or trying to push the storyline about the creatures being there which just takes so long to move to that part of the story which is what holds it back.
Likewise, some might also be on this one for the fact that it's a lot longer than it really needs to be which is certainly aided along by the overly slowed-down pacing. This one really could’ve been trimmed down some by either taking a little less time on the setup or injecting a bit of urgency into the proceedings once it had been obvious what was going on, which would’ve keep this one going a little faster. There's little reason for this one to take this kind of slow-burn route to get this type of simple storyline going and as a result the film is way too long for what should be a quick and dirty offering instead of straggling onward the way it does. Otherwise, this one wasn’t too bad.
Despite a few problems with the way it it appears at times, there are more than enough positive elements to be had here that make this enjoyable enough. Give this a shot if you're looking for some fine creature feature efforts or can tolerate the low-budget flaws that crop up, while those who are looking for some more action-packed thrills should heed caution with this one.
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