Review - Frankenfish

You know when you see a movie titled Frankenfish, you are in for a real treat . . .

Of course, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be one of those happy little treats I would feel good about later or one of those treats that was ultimately going to make me loose my lunch. Luckily for me, it was one of those happy little feel good treats.

Much better than I expected in fact, I was pleasantly surprised by a multitude of aspects in this film. The story, if you didn’t look to long and hard at it, was pretty solid. The actors were all decent, with the exception of Matthew Rauch (playing Dan – a very spoiled white lawyer type) but that could be a trick because I think his character was just supposed to be that darn annoying. The atmosphere was right on for a creepy, no way out type of feeling. I mean, come on, they were trapped miles from nowhere in the middle of a river on houseboats with gigantic genetically mutated man-eating Chinese Snakehead fish. And the fish are hungry . . . The effects weren’t too shabby either.

So here’s the story, Sam Rivers (Tory Kittles) is a medical examiner in a sleepy Louisiana town who ends up getting called to the deep swamp to check out a strange and unexplainable animal attack on a local. Having once been a local himself, the powers that be figure he will have more luck with the swampfolk than just about anyone else. He takes along biologist Mary Callahan (China Chow) who not only offered a ying to Sam’s yang but she also had quite the multitude of clothing changes.

They meet up first with Elmer (Muse Watson) whose specialty is fisting giant catfish (yes I know how that sounds, but it is true, I swear). He brings them back to his little floating community where the rest of the residents are hanging out – some more literally than others.

Elmer accompanies the duo to a boat that floated into the area after Hurricane Katrina. It seems as though according to Gloria Crankton – widow to John Crankton (Eugene Collier) Frankenfish’s first victim – this is when the evil came into this area. At the boat, they unwittingly activate a homing device as well as catch the attention of aforementioned Frankenfish.

After Frankenfish (or should I say Frankenfishes) has chowed down on the locals and their visitors, the man that had these little devil spawn engineered for his own big game hunting pleasure, Jeff (Tomas Arana) shows up to collect his specimens.

And what of these Frankenfish? They looked just a tad bit cheesy but really not that bad to be honest. I found it very cool how they just seemed to have that one track voracious mind, to eat everything that moved. They even decapitated a 12 foot alligator along the way, now how cool is that?

Best line of the movie by far – “The house shot her!” Mark my words, that’s a classic line right there . . .

Directed by
Mark A.Z. Dippé (as Mark Dippé)

Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Simon Barrett
Scott Clevenger

Cast (in credits order)
Tory Kittles ... Sam Rivers
K.D. Aubert ... Eliza
China Chow ... Mary Callahan
Matthew Rauch ... Dan
Donna Biscoe ... Gloria Crankton
Tomas Arana ... Jeff
Mark Boone Junior ... Joseph
Reggie Lee ... Anton
Noelle Evans ... Bobbi
Richard Edson ... Roland
Muse Watson ... Elmer
Steve Ritzi ... Pilot
Ron Gural ... Coroner/Sheriff
Eugene Collier ... John Crankton
Sean Patterson ... Abrams
Raoul Trujillo ... Ricardo
Marco St. John ... Chief
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mitch Bryars Jr. ... Locations Manager