Director: Jimmy Gadd
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Blood in the Water
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Returning to his lakeside hometown, a man arrives to find a series of strange incidents that are affecting the citizens who depend on the lake for their survival, which is soon revealed to be a massive shark patrolling the lake, and he sets out to stop it before the town’s reputation is ruined.
Review:
Overall, this was a serviceable if unspectacular killer shark film. One of the better elements present with this one is the fact that there’s a genuinely likable setup in play that manages to tie together a reasonable enough starting point for the action to come about. The whole first half here setting up the arrival at time and how everything is happening, including the series of personal relationship issues present between the police chief and his mayor sister, the workers at the seaside bar who have to contend with the mysteriously disappearing fish impacting their menu, and the different fishermen trying to deal with the impact on their livelihood all while he tries to deal witrh the other ramifications of the return home. While none of these elements are original or creative in the slightest, they at least come together well enough to offer up the kind of endearing small-town mindset that is immensely likable and worthwhile with how it creates a great place to drop the drama involving the shark’s appearance and subsequent assault on the town.
That allows this to provide some fun encounters here involving the shark on the loose in the lake hunting down whoever it can. The opening assault on the kids in the flashback offers a nice start with the shark appearing out of nowhere to attack the kid on the beach in a thoroughly traumatic sequence that serves to properly explain what’s going on, and sets up the later sequences of the creature attacking others in the lake in the present day. Focusing on the different individuals going on to check on the shark and try to kill it means there’s some great sequences of the shark jumping out of the water to grab people off of boats, swarm the beaches to grab victims swimming along peacefully, or chase divers underwater in narrow, tense chases where they barely make it out. It all leads rather well into the finale where everything is designed to stop the shark from interfering in a major fishing tournament that the shark is threatening, leading to a solid means of stopping it that has the kind of cheesy outcome expected of the genre, giving this plenty of worthwhile elements.
There isn’t much to hold this one back, but it does have a few drawbacks. The main drawback to this one is the really sluggish first hour where it’s so light on shark attacks that it takes a while to get going. The series of exploits here detailing how the town has changed since the last time he was there, from meeting up with the bar owner, the staff of the facility trying to deal with their own issues, the mayor trying to keep the lake open while the shark attacks are happening, and the fisherman looking to seek revenge on the shark for killing his nephew as a kid in the opening, creating a great sense of community at the beginning to help set everything up but does so at the expense of the shark attacks. Those are few and far between in this section, especially with just random outbursts which show the shark appearing suddenly before taking someone out, and is mostly rectified in the later half when the action picks up, but the first part does take a while to get there. As well, with the seemingly obvious and goofy CGI present for the sharks being quite hard to take seriously, these all manage to bring this one down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A worthwhile and watchable genre effort, there’s a lot to like here which manages to give this enough positive factors to enjoy that it holds off the few issues to be had here. Those with an appreciation for the style or approach taken here or who are major cheesy shark movie fans will have a lot to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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