Sadly Over-hyped

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I was not expecting to even like Frankenfish, but I did. The story is ridiculous on the whole, in the script there is a sea of corniness and eye-rolling cheesiness amid the odd sprinkle of wit, the characters are on the annoying stereotypical side and some of the effects are cheap. Despite all this, I did enjoy Frankenfish. The editing was not as choppy as I had anticipated and some of the locations are great. There is enough suspense and tense fun to make up for the ridiculousness of the story, the fish although not great in design(though I have seen far worse) are menacing and great to watch and while the lead is uncharismatic the acting is reasonably good. On the whole, not great, but I sort of liked it. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Frankenfish is probably one of syfy's worst movies to date.There is absolutely no plot what so ever, except for the "mutant fish killing people" if that can be considered a plot. A man is found horribly mutilated, investigators are sent in, and are killed off one by one. Most within a 20 min time period. The filming is mostly in the dark and makes it hard to see everything, especially the few shots of the fish in the water, it looks mostly like a blob. Also, most of the main characters are killed randomly and very quickly in one or two scenes. The characters are very poorly developed as well. The fish themselves are never filmed for more than 5 seconds, due to the horrible special effects. Just another Syfy creature feature (I created a profile JUST to review this movie, if that tells you anything)

To my surprise, this actually turned out to be a rather amusing B-Movie. The characters, handsome cop, brainy female scientist, unpleasant young lawyer, taciturn Vietnam vet (how many Vietnam vets in the movies are ever eloquent conversationalists?) and superstitious Voodoo lady are so much cut-out cardboard, but the actors make the best with what they have to work with. Even the fish look like they are enjoying themselves.There is the odd witty line, some great low-key action sequences and the Frankenfish themselves are great - chewing up most of the cast with great gusto and not without some excellent black humour.There are some genuine surprises and a couple of unexpected deaths amid the usual B-Movie clichés. There's plenty of gore and plenty of fun. Not a bad way to spend an idle hour or so.

When a body is pulled from the bijou, medical examiner Sam Rivers doesn't buy it as an alligator attack and nor does biological expert Mary Callahan. Together they team up and follow a clue deep into the swamp to a small collection of houseboats in the middle of nowhere. On the way they discover plenty more of worry as they find mutilated animal corpses and other worrying things. Sadly for all involved it is only when they have all been trapped that they realise what they are up against – a terrifyingly large fish with genetic mutations that wants nothing more than a meal – them.I heard about Frankenfish from someone who had seen it in a video shop and had picked it up. I thought it might be a fun b-movie in the mould of Tremors simply because it seemed unlikely to me that one would call your film such a ridiculous title unless it had its tongue in its cheek (and it did produce box office for Snakes on a Plane I suppose). So I wasn't hoping for a great movie – just something that would be a schlocky horror film and a bit of fun. In a way that is what I got and, while no good at all, it is hard to criticise it for setting out its stall and not really attempting to do much else. As Dan says during the film, it is "ridiculous" and the plot is just a twist on the usual monster movie idea of one small group being picked off one at a time. The gore makes it watchable but it was disappointing that the film didn't deliver strongly in one of the things that usually make this type of thing good – by being either silly fun or gripping. It does a bit of both but never excels at either even if it gets it more or less right for genre fans scouring the sci-fi channel for something they like.The effects are generally reasonably prosthetics or poor CGI – again par for the genre course but the film is best when the fish is kept out of sight as the tension plays better than the delivery. The cast match the low-rent feel but are "bad". Kittles looks like someone who looks like someone who might be famous, but he himself doesn't have screen presence or charisma enough to carry the film. He is "OK" but unlikely to play the lead in films better than this one. Chow is quite good, while Aubert is also quite cute and "in peril" in the way the film requires. Neither have to carry the nudity part of the film either (apart from a pointless bit of dialogue-based lesbo-teasing for the audience) because other women are wheeled in early on to provide breasts for the (let's be honest) young male target audience. Although he is played as a "baddie" of sorts, I did like Rauch's cowardly and sarcastic performance because it added something to the film that the others didn't – his character didn't deserve his fate either. The rest of the cast are fishfood and nobody really does anything worth mention.Frankenfish is an OK genre film but it doesn't have enough fear or fun to it to give it wider appeal. It focuses on cable TV and nothing more and that is where it plays reasonably well. Those hoping for more than that should avoid as this is no Tremors in regards fun and the effects, plot and performances prevent it having anything like real tension or horror.