Bait

★★★

(2012)

This supremely stupid B-Movie blood fest has just enough gusto to make you forget the world for 90 minutes and revel, unashamedly  in the ludicrousness of it all. The concept; A tsunami hits a coastal Australian town and a handful of survivors find themselves trapped inside a flooded supermarket with a couple of pissed off 12ft great white sharks. Perched on-top of the freezer cabinets and trapped in the multistory car-park  the 2 groups, including a couple of criminals, must use anything they can get their hands on to out-wit the prehistoric eating machines.

A man, haunted by the death of his friend and future brother-in-law, a cop and his kleptomaniac daughter, a crim with a heart and a dumb blonde couple straight out of an American slasher comedy (complete with "handbag" dog are among the cast of misfits.The twists are simple, the characters (including Xavier Samuel and Martin Sacks) are so flimsy they could actually absorb water and the special effects are often laughable. The cleverness of Bait comes in its straight faced playing of the scenario and with some endlessly inventive set pieces and a load of pretty smart foreshadowing.

Sure, its like reading a gore filled version of a text-book on basic exposition sometimes and annoyingly for some reason, the actors deliver most of their lines in cringing affected pseudo American accents but some smart set design and a tightly run ship from Cut director Kimble Rendall miraculously makes Bait a hell of a lot of fun. Where most "don't go into the water" genre pictures in awe of the masterful pot-boiling tension of Jaws go for boobs and blood, Bait is ever so slightly more balanced and serious and all the better for it.

Watch it with a group of mates, don't think too much and let the shoddiness of it all wash over you; It's technically, tastefully and artistically questionable in nearly every way possible but if you can look me in the eye and say you didn't have fun, you'd most certainly be lying.