Hollywood has a history of copycat artists. If something is successful, it's only a matter of time before cheap knockoffs begin showing up in an attempt to capitalize.
"Barracuda" is just such a movie. I mean, even the basic premise sounds a little too familiar. Ben Williams (William Kerwin), sheriff of a small coastal town, and Mike (Wayne Crawford), a marine biologist, have to work together to find out what what is happening to the townspeople. It even has a one word title that elicits images of blood-in-the-water-style horror.
Just from the title alone, we're expecting some menace from the deep that will be the downfall of this tiny coastal town, but the filmmakers instead pull the old switcheroo and give us a weakly plotted tale of conspiracy against its citizens that will leave you scratching your head in bewilderment.
The movie starts out well with people being attacked and chewed up in the surf, but once Mike is tossed in the pokey for trespassing, the tone swiftly switches. It quickly goes from a ridiculous horror movie to an unwatchable thriller.
The scenes of the barracuda attacking swimmers and divers are not too shabby. The shots are tight and super-fast, but unfortunately they don't last nearly long enough.
In "Jaws," fans were thrilled by the realistic look of the man-hungry shark affectionately known as "Bruce," but in "Barracuda" the fish look so bad — awesomely bad. It's just one of a very few great elements of this stinker.
Just as you're getting ready for the horror to kick into high gear and the blue waters to run red, the film moves into a completely different direction. Instead of trying to cash in on the "Jaws" horror element, the film dips into the absurd notion that a local company is putting chemicals into water to make the people more violent.
The biggest fault of "Barracuda" is the fact it suffers from not knowing whether it wants to be a complete ripoff or make a political statement. If it went down one path or another, the film might have been able to pull itself out of the sluggish no-man's-land it finds itself wandering around in for 98 minutes. However, the flick tries to straddle both and accomplishes little in the way of entertainment.
"Jaws" is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I was truly looking forward to seeing what "Barracuda" had to offer. Instead of going the way of fellow ripoff flick "Piranha" and embracing its spoofy nature, "Barracuda" tried to deliver a weak conspiracy-themed film that fails to deliver on all fronts.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOHNzZhN7Q&w=514&h=315]