GORIED TREASURES has been reimagined as a column with every entry focusing on random horror movies that are deserving of the spotlight. Be it indie, foreign, or simply something that is underappreciated by the masses, the goal is to put these films on everyone’s radars.
And, with Shark Week this month, now is a great time to look back at some “fin”-tastic gems.
Creature
Dir. Stuart Gillard
1998
Watch: Rent
Creature is worth seeking out despite it being made for the small screen. Based on Peter Benchley’s more obscure novel White Shark (later retitled Creature), the two-part TV event took some liberties with the source material. The antagonist was meant to be an amphibious human, but director Stuart Gillard and screenwriter Rockne S. O’Bannon took some liberties. In their defense, a humanoid shark is a lot more menacing to watch than a mere merman.
Twenty-five years after an experiment goes terribly wrong at a government facility in the Caribbean, two scientists get involved with a local shark hunt. Everyone believes a great white is responsible for a resident’s death, but it’s really the work of a bio-engineered, military-sanctioned monster who has been kept a secret all these years. It’s now up to them to stop the beast, or else more of its kind will be created.
Craig T. Nelson (Poltergeist) and Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) head up this battle between man and man-made. With its drawn-out runtime, there is certainly more talk than action. The characters are indeed stock, but they help fill in the gaps until the titular foe shows up. And that is where the miniseries excels. The late and great effects wizard Stan Winston and his team were responsible for the impressive creature’s design and suit. The monster is a sight to behold and easily Creature‘s biggest draw. Otherwise, the horror serial could have benefited from an abridged version that curtails the human drama while emphasizing all the mutant shark goodness.
The Reef
Dir. Andrew Traucki
2010
Watch: Stream
After thrilling audiences with Black Water, Australian director Andrew Traucki followed up with The Reef. The plot is similar to that of his previous film: a group of very unfortunate people is stalked by an aquatic predator. Yet this time around, the obstacle is a ravenous great white.
The Reef is as cold as the ocean. The characters are cut off from urban conveniences and assumed safety like in the director’s last movie. They succumb to not only the shark but the elements in their rawest form. That inescapable sense of hopelessness is entirely felt by the audience; the moments of relief are rare and bittersweet.
The vérité approach to killer shark horror has been done before — Open Water stunned unprepared audiences with its bleak story of people being stranded at sea. Although not as entirely grim as the aforesaid film, The Reef yields harrowing smaller sequences. There is a lack of big and memorable setpieces like in Black Water, but the suggestion of something dangerous lurking below the surface is more terrifying than actually showing it.
Bait
Dir. Kimble Rendall
2012
Watch: Stream
We think Australia is a dangerous place to visit because of movies. The Outback, saltwater crocodiles, a variety of lethal snakes — the Land Down Under isn’t an ideal tourist destination in films. Great whites can be found there, too, but unless you’re a surfer or swimmer, you can easily avoid them by sticking to dry land. Of course, a movie like Bait says otherwise.
This 2012 movie was shot in Queensland and largely takes place in familiar surroundings: a supermarket. After some backstory on why a former lifeguard is now a clerk at the very same store, we zip to the present where a tsunami suddenly hits the coastal setting. Displaced great whites then end up in the flooded supermarket along with the trapped staff and customers.
Although Bait leans more towards action than straight-up horror, similar movies like Deep Blue Sea prove there’s a fine line between the genres. The movie’s ridiculous scenario is inspired by real-life accounts of animals relocated by forces of nature. Even so, you’re required to suspend your disbelief. The shark attacks border on funny in spite of Bait playing things mostly straight. Regardless, there is a lot of fun to be had here.
The human drama tends to be sappy, dull, or both. The bereaved main character is reunited with the one that got away, a father looks to understand his rebellious daughter, and random store robbers pad the list of potential victims. The scenes with the sharks are exciting and well-staged, though. Probably more so if you can catch this one in 3D. With big-budget, natural disaster movies becoming less common these days, something like Bait is always appreciated.