Movie Review: Bait 3D (DVD/Blu-ray Combo/ 2012)

When Peter Benchley's remarkable novel Jaws was adapted for the screen by Steven Spielberg, no one could ever look at going in the ocean the same - much less the bathtub. Naturally there were knock-offs that took the template of Jaws, like the Italian cash-in The Last Jaws (The creators of The Last Jaws even stole the soundtrack!!).

It wasn't always the shark film either that tried to duplicate the success of Jaws. Joe Dante's fantastic Piranha (original) is a good example of that. We do though occasionally get a fun new spin on the shark film - like with Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea. The Aussie creature feature Bait has some similarities to Deep Blue Sea but it thankfully brings about a few original turns. Anchor Bay has just recently released Kimble Rendall’s Bait 3D on the masses of shark movie enthusiasts and will not disappoint those looking for a departure from the Sy Fy Channel cheese-fests.



After a massive tsunami literally wipes out a beach-side town down under, a group of shoppers inside a supermarket do everything they can to survive while being isolated in the building. The chance of drowning among some Hostess Cakes from aisle 17 are very high, but so is getting gobbled up by a few ferocious sharks that found their way into the stores.

Of course you can’t have enough drama going on in a flooded supermarket with roaming sharks.  In the midst of this disaster we have a handful of criminals causing chaos and making any chance of escaping that much more difficult. Nip-Tuck star Julian McMahon co-stars along with Xavier Samuel from The Loved Ones as two of the supermarket survivors fighting these toothy beasts. Both put in nice performances, as do the majority of the cast.

Bait 3D suffers at times from some poor CGI but as a whole it really is a surprise at how genuinely enjoyable it is. There are enough original ideas, a solid acting core and generous shark grue to please. Recommended.