No.108 : The Reef (2010)

The Reef at the IMDb

 You know all those films you’ve seen about a group of sexy youths stranded at sea and who are plagued by a big shark? Well, here’s another one.

A group of four Australian twenty-somethings take off in a fancy boat to have a look at an idyllic island off The Great Barrier Reef. Their slightly older deckhand, who looks like Moxey off ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’,  does the heavy lifting as the two guys and two girls frolic about on the sand for five minutes. They quickly realise that their boat is in danger of running aground due to the tide but manage to get back on board in a scene that offers no peril whatsoever but a few bikini shots for those so inclined.

They decide to head back but as night falls they are all awakened as the boat capsizes due to the hull being ripped open by the coral reef. They all manage to escape the craft and soon assess their options from the upturned hull - stay with the boat or swim for safety. The leader of the group wants to swim but Moxey who “knows these waters” advises caution. I think he was trying to sound like a wise old sea salt but looked more like he was missing from a German building site.

The four pretty people decide to leave Moxie in the boat with the distress beacon and head off on the ten mile swim with a cut in half boogie board between them. As you’d expect things quickly go wrong as a portentous dead turtle signals trouble ahead. Can you guess what it is yet? Well if you’ve looked at the poster you’ll have gathered the trouble is in the shape of a big fraggin’ shark.

True to form the four youths are slowly whittled down by the shark who is either reading the script or just a bit hungry. Who will survive? Will that woman ever stop screaming and is the boat insured?

This was an OK ‘Based on True Events’ film but I bet my synopsis is longer than the plot pitched to the studio. If you’ve looked at the poster you’d be able to guess almost every event and there is really nothing here to recommend it over the superior ‘Open Water’ or even ‘Open water 2 : Adrift’. The attempts at characterisation were perfunctory at best with one pair a brother and sister with the added baggage of a former pair of lovers reunited for the trip. There were some touching moments of bonding and sacrifice but for the most part you are tapping your watch waiting for the shark to show up.

The five members of the cast were fine but there wasn’t much for them to do apart from scream a lot. The leader, who looks like former Rangers striker Nacho Novo, had the most to do in keeping the group together but the two womens’ scripts must have read ‘Aaaaarrrghhhh!’ for 20 pages.

The shark was well realised and the IMDb states it was a real one. You can see the joins as it bashes through our heroes however and the kills were a bit soft, mostly happening underwater with a change of the water colour the only clue that you are one more body closer to the end.

The film ends somewhat abruptly with a couple of captions serving to end the story and whether this was due to budget constraints or the magic 90 minutes being hit I’ve no idea - I’m not that bothered either way! It was competently made and had enough to have me stay to the conclusion but it was just so familiar and unmemorable that I’ll probably see it again in a year and be unaware I’ve been there before.

THE Tag Line - Don’t Lay Your Hands On a Copy. 45%

No.86 : The Breed (2006)

The Breed at the IMDb

Feeling a bit wuff? Well then, ‘The Breed’ may just be the film for you.

We open with a young couple on a yacht having a super time in the wide blue sea. They spot an island and decide to have a look - Huge mistake! While the bloke ties up the boat the girl runs off to find a bar but instead finds a big fence with ominous looking equipment poking out from within. She heads off but is soon chased by an unknown assailant and is quickly caught and pulled off camera by an unseen but snarling attacker.

We then cut to a group of college kids in a seaplane heading towards the same island. We learn a rich yuppie type has inherited the house that some of them holidayed in as kids, and they’ve brought some friends along for some pre-exam partying. After some unnecessary but highly enjoyable frolicking about in bikinis we get down to business as a blonde hottie gets nipped by a stray dog. A medical student tells her she will be OK as rabies will take a week to develop, but she’s soon getting horny and ‘feeling great’ which is usually movie shorthand for ‘possessed by monsters’.

The bloodied bloke from the yacht appears to warn them that ‘the dogs don’t want you here’ before being mercilessly chomped by a pack of mutts that look more ‘Crufts’ than junkyard. The kids take refuge in their cabin, after one gets an arrow in the leg from a friend who’s not so much ‘Green Arrow’ as ‘Crap at Archery’. The kids recall a local attack dog school (on a deserted island?) but it was closed down after a rabies outbreak - could these be refugee mutts driven insane by a strain of rabies? And why are the dogs drawn to the bitten girl, even after she puts on clothes and starts to get all weird?

These are some smart poochies and once they send the seaplane out to sea they terrorise the kids as they try to outsmart the ferocious Fidoes. As you’d expect the kids start to get picked off in a variety of dog based methods including an inventive ‘death by merry-go-round’. Soon we are down to three survivors and they manage to get an old car working - where better to head than the dog experiment laboratory? Who will survive and will the bitten maintain their ‘doggy instincts’ and will they be house trained?

‘The Breed’ is a workmanlike thriller with nothing new to say but it’s still good fun all the same. The premise is slight with the synopsis basically being ‘sexy kids fight killer dogs’ but you can’t say it is aimed at the high brow market. The cast are mostly unknowns with only Michelle Rodriguez being a familiar face and indeed body. This works well as you’ve no idea who is likely to survive given the low star profiles on offer.

The threat level is mild throughout with a severe biting the worst fate offered. To get in the range of the jaws a few unlikely scenarios are worked into the script with a handy zip line offering plenty of dangling opportunities. The origins of the threat are barely touched upon with a rack of test tubes offered as definitive proof of evil scientists at work.

The dogs themselves seem well trained but lack any real evil or frothing jaws. They take a few hits themselves with a few hot dogs thinning their numbers. Obviously they can’t hurt real dogs so their actual deaths happen off camera with whines and whelps dubbed on to show it’s one up for the good guys.

This was a fast paced 90 minutes and it certainly kept my interest. The film offered mild peril, some bikinied lovelies and a few inventive deaths - you could do a lot worse!

THE Tag Line - Doggone It’s OK!  68%