Blu-ray Review: Bait

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews

Sharks are scary. Sharks in an environment where they shouldn’t be are even scarier. Bait, the new Australian “shark in a supermarket” movie, uses this universal truth to mine good, hearty thrills despite a low-budget and often ridiculous execution.

Xavier Samuel, the star of The Loved Ones – the long-delayed Australian horror film that finally saw release on American soil this past summer, stars as Josh, a young man haunted by personal demons, sharks. When a colossal wave hits his Australian beachfront community, the supermarket Josh is working at is flooded – trapping him and a carefully woven band of not-quite-strangers. Fate has a funny sense of humor when it comes to the survivors picked to brave the shark-infested waters that have invaded Josh’s place of employment. There’s his ex-fiancé and her new Singapore sweetheart, a juvenile delinquent and her estranged cop father, and two gunmen who had been in the process of robbing the supermarket when the wave hit. Now this disparate group of shark bait must work together to find a way out of the supermarket, avoid being chewed on by the twelve-foot great white sharks that are cruising the frozen food section and sidestep the mired of other minor calamities wait around every corner.

Director Kimble Rendall makes the most out of his limited resources by giving the film a winking sense of humor without falling into the trap of parody. Sure the computer effects used to bring the sharks to life are kind of cheesy but Rendall embraces this by having the binary beasts perform stunts so ridiculous, so over the top audiences won’t be able to help but cheer along as if they were watching a show at Sea World. The movie knows it can’t fool you into believing its sharks are real so it settles for convincing you the reality of the sharks isn’t as important as the drama they create.

By accentuating his computer effects with some great practical gore effects, Rendall mostly aovids the overwhelming display of shoestring-budget computer-wrought carnage that most modern shark thrillers (and there are quite a few too!) fall victim to. Bait is goofy fun but it keeps up the pace to the point where audiences will laugh with the movie instead of just laughing at it.

The movie wastes no time splashing blood across the screen, keeping the pace of the opening act brisk and to the point. The film knows why audiences are watching a movie about sharks in a supermarket and it keeps the story moving as quickly as possible to get viewers to the creamy nougat center that they came for. While the film loses its footing for a moment immediately following the supermarket’s flooding – spending perhaps a few too many unnecessary minutes establishing the sprinkling of non-shark-related threats that threaten the survivors – Bait does not take too long to find its way back onto the high-speed rail that will carry it through to a ridiculously simple yet fitting conclusion.

Where the movie really succeeds is in the teeing up of gloriously stupid deaths for its cast of walking, talking chum buckets. The survivors seem to know their purpose in life is to be eaten and they are more than happy to make things easier for their finned attackers. From a dude who constructs a suit of armor out of shopping baskets that, in the end, serves no other point than to create an inescapable death trap for the suicidal simpleton to an obnoxiously Australian criminal whose overuse of Aussie slang and an exaggerated accent are almost as ridiculous as his sense of self-preservation, Bait stocks its cast with a great selection of cardboard cutouts – perfectly suited for cheering on their death by shark. After all, nobody wants to see characters you care about die via shark attack. By keeping its cast half-witted and borderline annoying, the director keeps the proceedings light and fun. Well, as light and fun as you can get with Julian McMahon lurking in the corner of every frame like the sour-pussed Thomas Jane stand-in he is.

Bait is exactly the movie you are expecting – full of not-too-slick computer effects, stupid characters doing stupid things and – most importantly – a really fun sense of danger around every turn. Bait is not the “shark in a supermarket” movie we need but it is the “shark in a supermarket” movie we deserve.

The film is presented in a 1:78:1 aspect ratio in 1080p high-definition. The soundtrack features an Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track. The image is crisp and the colors really pop. The film’s cinematography is not exactly high-minded and the special effects are noticeably cheap when seen under the scrutiny of high-definition but Bait‘s Blu-ray transfer more than gets the job done. The disc comes with a bonus DVD copy of the film as well as a 3D Blu-ray presentation. This reviewer did not have access to a 3D television in which to try out the 3D transfer.

The only bonus feature is a Storyboard Gallery.

Anchor Bay Entertainment presents Bait. Directed by: Kimble Rendall. Starring:Xavier Ssamuel, Phoebe Tonkin and Julian McMahon. Written by Russell Mulcahy and John Kim. Running time: 93 min. Rating: R. Originally released in 2012. Released on Blu-ray: September 18, 2012. Available at Amazon.com.

Robert Saucedo is an avid movie watcher with seriously poor sleeping habits. The Mikey from Life cereal of film fans, Robert will watch just about anything — good, bad or ugly. He has written about film for newspapers, radio and online for the last 10 years. This has taken a toll on his sanity — of that you can be sure. Follow him on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500.