Perfectly adorable

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I still don't know why I was hooked after even five minutes...This is one of those movies where the trivia and recommendation far outweighs the entertainment of the feature. For starters, I only just learned of this movie's existence yesterday when I was catching up on the podcast: Shockwaves, specifically episode 98. During that podcast's first half, the hosts discuss what they've seen in horror that past week. Here, they hilariously described this weird-ass 80s "comedy" horror.In an actual complex and incoherent script, during a small town fishing contest period of time, someone is killing off people for really a dumb reason with an incredibly odd choice of weapon that wouldn't work. I guess that's the part of comedy this was meant to be.Despite the hilarious recommendation from the Shockwaves guys and the aforementioned (hilarious and actually interesting) trivia on this, I can't extend a recommendation. Some scenes are, honestly, funny and I did laugh out loud a couple of times, but for the most part, this low-budget wannabe doesn't garner a single repeat watch from me. Going real fishing is absolutely more exciting.***Final thoughts: THAT all said, I highly recommend the Shockwaves podcast. Normally they don't all chime in at once and make me (and themselves) laugh out loud at the craziness of a movie, but this episode 98 was certainly a fun one.

Cheap no-budget slasher with a rather absurd premise..the ever increasing sound of cicadas who react strongly to rock music(!)cause a local fisherman(..whose metal plate in his skull, a surgical procedure made after getting shot in the head during the Korean war, causes such harsh vibrations that he responds violently)to go berserk casting his line towards unfortunate victims in his general area, the massive float and numerous hooks embedded in the flesh jerking them towards him. He chops the victims up and uses their meat for feeding his minnows! It seems that this grisly process helps him lure in more quality fish! A small group of teenager friends enter this fishing village as a tournament is about to begin. As we witness in the opening, Peter van Cleese(Mark Jacobs)returns to the place where he watched his father fall into the river never to be found, the loud cicadas skrieking due to the music playing on a tape player. Peter has remained troubled due to this incident and is unwelcome by his father's grounds-keeper, Wayne Duerst(Paul Drake), a very bitter and rude old man who holds a hostility for how his lost friend mysteriously vanished. Wayne's rather unbalanced son, Evelyn(..the blubbery Bill Lowrie, with some truly awful dialogue he must endure, trying to express a very disturbed, volatile, and ugly creation of the Vietnam war in an over-the-top and outrageous manner)hangs around the place, causing the city kids some unneeded aggravation. We also follow a family of four, who enter the fishing community on vacation with father and mother Roger & Shiela Swain(Don Cosgrove & Bonnie Lee)falling prey to the homicidal fisherman, Leroy Leudke(Don Winters)..Irving and Ruth-Ann(Greg Nienas and Julie Vortanz)are left worried about their parents whereabouts as the local sheriff(Paul Heckman), burdened with little manpower, must begin an investigation in such a prosperous time for his community. Of importance to the advancing plot, Irving uses a metal detector given to him by a more mentally balanced Leudke, to discover certain truths which will indicate the fisherman of his sinister deeds. In a minor sub-plot, Peter's pal, Finner(Christopher Whiting)and a local gal, Bev D(Sandy Meuwissen)have a blossoming romance that is disrupted rather quickly when it's discovered that her husband is Evelyn! As Peter pursues the one responsible for attacks on his friends, he'll need some help from Wayne in order to do so.The gore is at a minimum, with most victims, from a large distance, getting hooked by Leudke(..always out of frame)either swimming, on a boat or float, even on ground. It's hard to take these attacks seriously as the victims are strong enough to outlast Leudke who must reel them in like a fish..it's just too ridiculous(..particularly Peter's girlfriend, Ann(Lisa Todd)who is a good distance away when the master fisherman snags her), and illogical to expect any one with such capacity to pull a victim into the water, reel them in despite resistance, bound them, carry them all the way back to his dock, and subdue them. We often see victims struggling with the hooks, attempting to free themselves as Leudke yanks and jerks. Peter's friends are extremely obnoxious, very vulgar and rude, acknowledging that visitors from the city deserve to die and horribly as they enter the uncharted territory of a rural fishing village. This is even painted with the suburban family whose patriarch is a big city hot shot, deeming himself the expert fisherman because he could afford the very best materials needed for the sport, with the perfectly annoying, nagging wife. The locals are a collection of colorful oddballs, as expected when depicted in the backwoods regions of rural America. One effects sequence is terribly executed and laughable, when Leudke nabs a victim, he jabs a rod into his neck, through his lower jaw so that he can pull a hook out his mouth..the cast of the actor's complete face looks exactly that with little authenticity. The cheap budget shows all the way through. The premise is original, but too nonsensical for it's own good..how could even an expert fisherman as Leudke be able to accurately hook victims from such a distance away? Still, it's rare to see a slasher film set in a fishing community using the tools of the trade so at least it has that going for it. Director Jim Mallon is best known for his duties as executive producer for Mystery Science Theater 3000. This film was released by Team Troma, but doesn't carry it's usual trademarks, except for the low budget, weirdo characters, bad acting, and strange plot.

average slasher but still watchable has a cool opening sequence with a fair amount of blood and gore but it has annoying characters weak acting and suffers from a talky pace at times still it was watchable all the same the script is average it has some neat scenes in this but it has it's share of poor dialog when a kid says something is wrong i smell something fishy (lame)!!! and a typically weak ending the score is alright but it has it's cliches and logic lapses like why does he hate noise so much and why lay in the middle of the ocean when there is a killer on the loose!!!!!!!! the deaths are pretty lame but this has some pretty weird moments and lots of talky scenes the cabin cool for sure overall worth a watch but try to get it on a free rental i suppose it's worth seeing if you have nothing else to rent (it was one one of three movies on the disc i bought so thats okay ** out of 5 the pacing isn't that great either

It is kind of funny that someone who would later be one of the forces behind a television show that made fun of bad movies would have one on his resume. Not that it is all bad, for a Troma movie it does have its moments. This one is not as goofy as a lot of Troma movies get, in fact it is one of the more straight horror movies I have seen from them. The only thing odd is that people are being killed with a fish hook and reeled in like fish. And no the people are not being killed by a giant fish (though that would have been rather good). This one instead is a basic slasher with the mode of death being the only real unique touch to it. Unlike newer Troma movies this one is a real movie too. They had a movie advertised on my copy of this called "Tales from the Crapper" and it basically looked like a tape of Girls Gone Wild. So this one looks great by comparison. Like a lot of slashers you don't know who the killer is and they try to fool you, but in this case once you know the killer the movie goes on a bit too long after. It runs about 10 minutes more than it should. Though this is not a cinematic classic it is not all bad especially considering it is a Troma picture.