Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Lining up the gooey The Beast In Me to watch on Netflix,I started looking for a second Creature Feature to see. Going to my local CEX,I found what looked like a short a sweet shark tail,which led to me dipping my feet into the swamp. The plot:After an attempted robbery of a tankard goes wrong,the contents spill out into swamp water. Spilling out near the alligators of the swamp,the contents turns out to be a shark,who kills all the alligators. Seeing people turn up half eaten, Gator Shack restaurant owner Rachel Broussard gathers her family and friends to sail out and find the alligators. Nearing the major alligator swamp, (who all have tracking devices put inside them) Broussard is horrified to find no sign of the alligators,and all their tracking devices hoovering alone in the water.View on the film:Swimming in a SyFy channel movie swamp,director Griff Furst & cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore do well to give the Creature Feature terror scenes a real crunch, with the practical effects and gallons of blood bringing out an over the top atmosphere that makes up for the iffy CGI moments. Always keeping the shark near the pesky humans,the screenplay by Jennifer Iwen/Eric Miller and Charles Bolon offers up a deep-fried plate of Southern terror,oiled up by charming thumb- sketches drawn of all the people in the town,who become drawn to finding out what is in the swamp. Setting her sights on the beast with a harpoon gun, Kristy Swanson covers the flick in dollops of thigh-tapping Southern sass as the tough fighting Broussard,who wants to return the swamp to a shark-free zone.

Picked this, and MONSTERWOLF, up for £3 each in Tesco- and watched SWAMP SHARK tonight expecting something awful. Surprise! It's actually aces. I admit, I was attracted mainly by the magnificent creature on the box art; which looks exactly like my shark-obsessed six year old had won a competition to draw the scariest shark he could imagine, and then have it made into a film. It looks like nothing on Earth- and predictably the movie itself never reveals it in the same type of glory. Ordinarily, this would annoy me, but the sense of fun the film radiates more than makes up for this disappointment.The characters are engaging, the cast seem to be having a great time with some good material, and even when the titular beastie isn't around the movie continues to be interesting and enjoyable, buoyed by the script, performances and direction. Yes, the cgi is less-than-stellar- of course it is, but it really doesn't matter one jot. And the fact that they use some good old fashioned rubber sharkery at times just increases the fun.One or two gory bits, but nothing that's going to offend the younger members of the family unless they're particularly squeamish, no nudity and no swearing means it's a pretty good bet as an entry level horror film for parents like me, keen to hook their offspring on the genre.Yes, not all of it ties together, and one specific thread (the younger sister and her nerdy chef admirer) is left unresolved, but the sheer shock of picking up a three quid movie that gave so much back completely negates any misgivings I may have had over this.Oh, and the Cajun soundtrack is brilliant. I want the album now (or at least its inspired me to go buy some of the type of music featured) and the DVD menu screen is not only a visual delight (the cover-creature in full-body magnificence) but the looping music track is great too!

This was horrible. A predictable story, like Jaws and all similar type flicks. 2nd rate actors, with poor Christy Swanson, at the age of 40+ pretending to be a 20 year old with a boyfriend half her age. She is cute, but out of shape, excluding the plastic surgeries. A shark that swims at 100 miles an hour and small for the damage it causes is terrorizing a little town in Louisiana. Predictable situations. Teenagers who party, have sex and drink and fall victims to the monster. There is no significant gore, just some laughable decapitations, etc. This is an extremely low budget, made for TV, movie that will likely not satisfy you. It is watchable, if there is nothing else on, but it will remind you of films from the 40's, the only difference being that in the 40's the special effects were better.

The middle part of 2011 is proving to be a good period for the SyFy channel and their originals. Earlier this year SyFy's 51 (see review here) and BEHEMOTH (see review here) were promising, but both failed in their respective executions. BEHEMOTH promised a huge, planet-destroying creature but simply gave us a lazy, Lovecraftian-influenced beast who was attached to a mountain. But then last weeks ICE ROAD TERROR really surprised me with how fast-paced, gory, and fun it was (see review here), and now SWAMP SHARK, premiering on Saturday, June 25th at 9pm (ET/PT), once again proves that when the boys and girls over at SyFy really wanna make an entertaining flick, they can do it.SWAMP SHARK stars the original BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Kristy Swanson as Rachel Broussard, the owner of the Gator Shack restaurant located right next to the swamplands of the Atchafalaya Basin. She runs the restaurant with her younger sister Krystal (Sophie Sinise, Gary Sinise's daughter) and her older brother Jason "Swamp Thing" (Jeff Chase). Everything's going really well as the town prepares for their yearly big event, Gator Fest, until crooked sheriff Watson (Robert Davi), who sells illegal exotic animals (??!!!?) accidentally releases a shark into the swamps. Yeah I know; it's a silly and completely absurd set up, but it actually fits the entire campy world created in SWAMP SHARK. Swanson is one of the first people to spot the shark and instead of balling up into a panicking, hysterical woman, she grabs her hunting rifle, a boat, and anyone else who believes her and goes out to hunt down the swamp shark. I loved Swanson's character and since her best known film is the original BUFFY, it would've been hard seeing her as anything other than a butt kicking hottie.And what self-respecting SyFy Original would forget to include some kind of 1980's pop culture reference? Not too worry; SWAMP SHARK has Baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs as a red neck deputy. I would've like to have seen him in a bigger role, but his role is pretty fun.One of the people Swanson recruits to hunt the shark down is Charlie (D.B. Sweeney; where's he been?), a mysterious man hanging around the town. Their first hunting party doesn't, as you can imagine, go very well and they loose their boat and are forced to regroup. But in the meantime the town is preparing for Gator Fest and the shark has really gotten a taste for human flesh. Of course we get tons of nods to the granddaddy of shark films (and arguably all "giant creature" flicks), JAWS, but everything in SWAMP SHARK is done with such a fun spirit that you just sit back and go along for the ride. Davi's sheriff Watson is so sleazy that you can't help but smile every time he's on screen. The man knows there's a shark in the swamp (because he's the one that accidentally released it) but does nothing to try and fix the situation. He doesn't send out a hunting party and he doesn't prevent people from swimming in the swamp even after the dead bodies start piling up (in pieces). I loved Davi's character and it's nice to see he still "has it"!!And maybe I'm just getting completely desensitized to bad CGI, but I thought the shark looked pretty good!! SyFy actually exhibits some restraint and doesn't show off the beast at every opportunity. We see flashes of it here and there and get teased way more than SyFy usually does. Of course there's the standard, "must have" scene of the shark jumping out the water to kill someone. This is the best look we get of the shark (until the final reel) and it was actually pretty cool looking. The body count could've been higher for my tastes, but the killings we do get were well-filmed. Director Griff Furst (who also directed last year's flaccid SyFy flick LAKE PLACID 3), takes his time here and sets up some pretty suspenseful kill scenes. And if you're like me you'll wonder why the two twenty-somethings, who wanted some privacy to have sex, took a canoe out into the swamp not 20 feet away from their friends. Sex in a canoe? Hey why not!!And just like in ICE ROAD TERROR, we get a little more blood than the usual SyFy Original. We get to see a lot of post-attack, ripped apart torsos and appendages, and we're privy to a lot of blood spraying all over various cast members. Yeah people, this one is pretty fun. Maybe it's because Summer's here? Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for a fun "beast attacks" flick? Or maybe it's just because the people over at SyFy are putting in some time and effort into their scripts!! But writers Charles Bolon, Jennifer Iwen, and Eric Miller give us a fun, light- hearted, and fast-paced script that despite the holes in logic keep you interested up to the end. And just wait until you see how they finally kill the shark!! I thought we were gonna get a very JAWS-like ending, but the writers took a hard left turn and gave us something original, fun, and very bloody. Nice job.A great cast who're obviously having a really fun time, a solid script with some originality in it, and some well-crafted death scenes make SWAMP SHARK a really entertaining and fun summer flick. SyFy has renewed my love of the "attacking beasties" summer flick and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us next!! Catch SWAMP SHARK this Saturday, June 25th at 9pm (ET/PT) on SyFy. Seriously!!