Director: Mark Polonia
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After waking up in the hospital, an undercover agent recounts his experience trying to crack a new drug ring in the area attempting to make synthetic drugs that put him in danger not just with the ruthless boss of the criminal gang but the series of mutated sea creatures his experiments have created.
Review:
This was a rather fun if slightly flawed genre outing. One of the better elements of this one involves the film's use of mutations and not just a singular rampaging beast. The explanation here involving the extract from the drug causing mutations to occur involving the mutated shark/human hybrid, the bat-like creature, and the hammerhead/shrimp combination that show up here is quite inventive and manages to provide the kind of wide-ranging setup for the cheesy effects here showing the creatures operating in their environment. When it finally gets to the creature action at the end, it’s fun but way too brief to be anything else than that with the focus turning to some cheesy shootouts and gore effects that provide the positives with the film.
There are some issues to be had here. One of the main drawbacks here is the film's odd pacing to focus far more of the running time on the shady shenanigans of the drug operation rather than the shark action. The first half here is far more of a crime drama involving the undercover work of going through the motions detailing the rise of the new kingpin and how he took over the streets while his undercover work gets him in good standing within the organization. Beyond a brief appearance here or there involving some mention of the mutations being employed by the doctor, that's all the horror that takes place here which means that a lot more of the running time than should be necessary is kept away from the creature action into a separate genre entirely that doesn't have much interest involved.
As well, there’s also the expected factor in this kind of film where there's no denying how silly and outright shoddy the effects are. The effects of the stop-motion creatures are all obvious and look exactly like that while the CGI carries some bargain-basement style work here of the immobile creature in its environment changing shape or dimensions whenever the scene calls for it. Coupled with the guerilla-style indie production style here that makes everything look cheaper than it should or making use of locations taken without permission, the constant technical issues, and nonsensical storylines, these should be taken into consideration here since they're expected and not truly detrimental.
Overview: **/5
Not really about what you think it is despite still being decent enough and enjoyable, if you can get over the deceptive title with the film being more of a drug thriller than anything involving a killer shark film. Those who are fine with that or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to enjoy here while those that aren’t into these factors or feel turned off by the deception should heed caution here.
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