Customer Reviews

Frankenfish [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

No, despite the title, "Frankenfish" isn't a painful-to-watch monster spoof trying achingly hard to be both cool and funny but failing miserably at both. And despite what the title might also have you thinking, it's not a $10-budgeted filmed-in-the-basement-over-the-weekend student film. It's a surpsisingly well done, at times quite fierce, and thoroughly fun, blast of monster mayhem.

Set in the deep parts of the Florida everglades, the movie involves (as opposed to a re-animated fish swimming forth from a foreboding gothic castle) Chinese Snakeheads (real fish from China, piranha-like creatures who can live for a while on land and will even attack prey on land) who've been genetically engineered by a group of wealthy big-game hunters to grow to monsterous proportions, all the better for them to track down with their machine guns and grenade launchers during the pursuit of their 'sport'. A ship carrying the cargo gets caught in a massive storm and washed up the river into the Everglades where the beasties get free just in time for lunch. And, of course, the 'Frankenfish' have turned out even more lethal than their designers intended. This movie is far from a spoof but it is a little on the campy side, a little on the tongue-in-cheek side, and it's a reminder that, occasionally, a bit of the campy elements in a horror movie don't necessarily have to be a bad thing, as long as they don't go overboard.

The main protagonists in the film aren't the rich hunters. A Florida cop and an Everglades wildlife expert are dispatched into the rivers to do some investigation into the discovery of a washed-up and eaten-up corpse, and end up at a cluster of houseboats where people live year-round in the Everglades making a living off fishing in the rich swamps and streams. It's a likable cast that ends up as the fish's target for buffet of the day, and the bloody man vs. beast action sequences are better and more credible than you might think they'd be. The movie doesn't try to present its creatures as more dangerous than they could conceivably be (taking into account that a regular-sized chinese snakehead is a pretty intimidating little predator, let alone a six-foot one). Ergo, they're not presented as the harbingers of civilization's imminent collapse, but they are extremely dangerous to anyone on or remotely near to the waters they're in. It's like with "Jaws" - the shark wasn't taking down big ocean-liners but you sure didn't want to be out swimming or even on a small sailboat when he was nearby. The balance struck is right, the effects are solid and well-designed, and the whole movie surpasses what pretty well anyone likely thought it could be.

An allout winner and a must-see for fans of aquatic/swamp horror like "Piranha" and the "Anaconda" movies.

Yes I admit that this film is a guilty pleasure and that your only going to like it if you have a high tolerance for crap or just enjoy a bad b-movie. I didn't think the film was that bad it had great lines like (Oh great were fu***ng fish food!) and (Oh my god the house just shot her) and you actually get to see that in this film, as dumb as this film gets I actully enjoyed it. A big game fisherman and a scientist genetically engineer some killer mutant fish for hunting but they escape and are let loose near a swamp somewhere in Louisiana soon the local population are under attack enter the cliche characters including the cool black cop that thinks hes Wesley Snipes and the attractive marine biologist yeah right whens the last time youve seen a hot marine biologist. The film had a lot of gory death scenes and some random nudity that was pointless but made things alot better I guess, the gore is what made it interesting and included a nice decapatation, a woman being torn in half and some guy being eaten so you know its going to be good its almost like a stress relief from work!.

I don't know what form of madness I suffer from that requires me to rent virtually every film from the "animals run amok" genre. Whatever it is, and such an illness ought to have a name, I'm currently passing through the advanced stages. I don't even bother reading a plot summary anymore when I see a DVD case with killer sharks, giant insects, or mutated monsters on the cover; I just rent the sucker immediately. It's likely--extremely, painfully likely--that the movie in question will stink. It goes without saying that the filmmakers lifted most of the plot from Spielberg's "Jaws." Doesn't matter. I'll still rent the movie in question and give it a watch. Such was the case with director Mark A.Z. Dippé's "Frankenfish." Just look at that cover! How could I resist such an alluring vision as that? If, for some reason, the cover is no longer visible, the case for "Frankenfish" shows two hapless looking people in water up to their waist in the foreground while a gigantic, ugly fish sporting lots of nasty looking teeth zooms toward them in the background. Yay! We're about to have some fun! Well, not really, but the movie isn't as bad as some in this genre.

"Frankenfish," set in the mythical land called Louisiana, begins by introducing us to a crack medical examiner named Sam Rivers (Tory Kittles) as he goes about investigating a crime scene. He quickly finds more than he bargained for when a call sends him further into the bayou to investigate a suspicious animal attack in the swamp. Teaming up with a busty scientist named Mary (China Chow), Rivers discovers with some alarm that the victim in question sports bite marks of an unknown origin. Uh oh. Obviously, an investigation needs to take place right away in order to ascertain the cause of death. It's equally obvious that such an investigation will likely CAUSE more deaths, but that's why we're watching. Anyway, Sammy and Mary head up the river...umm, swamp...to track down this nasty beastie. They soon stumble over a few rickety houseboats populated by a group of people from central typecasting. We've got some neo-hippie with a penchant for swamp grass and nekkid livin', a voodoo lovin' African-American family, and a sullen loner. After some tension filled chitchat between all the characters, disaster strikes in the form of a monstrous fish, a Frankenfish if you will, and the movie rapidly descends into "monsters gone mad" mode.

These fish are mean mothers! They can soar through the air like trained gymnasts, breathe air when necessary, and have the ability to pursue their prey out of the water. And they don't like these people or these houseboats. Predictably, the characters have no way to escape from these monsters, so they have to use their wits to survive until help arrives. When someone finally does show up, it's about as far from help as you can imagine. It turns out that some bored big game hunter imported a bunch of these fish from China and then had them genetically altered. Of course, they escaped and quickly began to breed in the river...umm, swamp. It's this hunter and some of his cronies who arrive to clean up the mess. One thing leads to another as many people die in horrible ways. Since "Frankenfish" is a genetic monster gone mad movie, we also must have the scenes where humanity reasserts its control of the natural world. How this happens is quite amusing, if completely illogical by orders of magnitude, and evokes memories of that Saturday Night Live sketch in which Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child ground that fish up in the blender. Roll credits.

"Frankenfish" does have a few things going for it, things that set it apart from the typical "Jaws" ripoff. One, the movie has China Chow and K.D. Aubert, two cuties who if nothing else provide the audience with the requisite eye candy so important to the success of these types of films. Two, "Frankenfish" is massively gory. We see screaming flesh torn to shreds, ripped in half, punctured with bullets, and generally abused in delightfully saucy ways. Mutated fish don't worry about making a mess when eating their prey, apparently. Three, a character actually kills one of the monsters, tears its heart out, grills the dripping mess, and then proceeds to eat it as a form of revenge! Alas, what's good finds its opposite in what's bad, and "Frankenfish" frequently fails to rise above several obstacles. One, it's a ripoff of every creature flick we've ever seen. Two, the dialogue and the reactions of the characters to the unfolding carnage easily scale the heights of stupidity. Three, and the most important, the CGI effects used to depict the monstrous fish look like CGI effects used to depict monstrous fish. Don't get me wrong; the fish here look light years better than the cheesy rubber objects seen in a movie like "Piranha," to cite one example, but they still come off as pretty schlocky.

Extras on the disc are limited to a bunch of trailers: "Resident Evil: Apocalypse," "Frankenfish," "Asylum of the Damned," "Boa vs. Python," "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital," and "Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid." Overall, I'd give "Frankenfish" a solid three stars. It's stupid and derivative, but it's also entertaining and gory. I can think of many films in this genre that are far, FAR worse than this one. If you can't resist the lure of mutated beasties seeking revenge against humanity, if you can't pass up seeing another movie with killer sharks or giant insects, "Frankenfish" is must see viewing for you. All others should proceed directly to "Jaws" and give this a pass.

Well lets see I walked through the video store and was hard pressed for time.Someone was talking an isle over about this movie to his girlfriend so I listened in.At first my eyes rolled then I thought it can't be that bad.....Or could it.After I began watching the first guy getting killed I stayed to see what happens next.If you liked Pirahna then you'd like this its total Roger Cormanish.It has alot of comic book feel to it and when the fish jumps and crawls on land its actually cool.The SNAKE HEAD fish can live on land.Its not a great movie but its good enough to watch again and again.Just a little recap on the story line. The police are baffled by a dead body and call on an expert for help.What they find lurking in the water is far more what they expected to see.These fish are a result in chemical altercation to make the hunting more enjoyable.The hunters become the hunted.I loved the ending too!

This was reminiscent of the Anaconda movies, but in a way I had a better laugh and enjoyed this one more than the movie it was trying to copy. Yes this is a cheesy movie, but there's nothing wrong with a little horror flick on a rainy Saturday night as you watch it with someone who's also in a mood for a laugh.

Basically this is a fish turned ingenious monster gone bad. They look like giant carps and they fly, walk and break pretty much all the characters into gazillion pieces. The fish were mostly CG graphics but they were so big, gross and monstrous looking that I didn't mind at all. I enjoyed this as a rental but I don't see myself making this a purchase, in that manner this movie was a fun hour and a half with some blood, gore and humor thrown in.

The characters were pretty solid in their roles as they really tried to outsmart the colossus. A young Denzel Washington look alike playing the wise medical examiner along with China Chow who played a biologist get stranded at Louisiana swamps at a tiny house on the water type of a community consisting of about 6 people. They get surrounded and hunted down by the fish, and their battle was pretty entertaining to watch. They were almost as mice in a cage waiting to be eaten and we couldn't wait to see who was going to make it and who was gonna be chunky delight for Frankenfish.

Cheesy, breezy, monster animal flick. Not bad, enjoy.

And i taught this movie would be boring,, cheap effects ...but i was
pleasantly surprise at how good the monster fishes looked and the way
they got and ate some of their victims... Ok, the acting was not top here,
but ive seen much worse lately.... I would say 85% of the movie is great, and the rest could have been better.....and wow...i love the ending...
For the creature movie crowd....this one must be seen.
Enjoy

"From the director of Spawn"!! Boy if that doesn't have you throwing this one in your shopping cart, I'm not sure what else will.
Frankenfish has a medical examiner and a wildlife specialist(hot of course) going deep into the Louisiana bayou to investigate mysterious deaths, and find themselves in a standoff, along with a small group of folks in houseboats(the young females all hot of course), against large mutant fish.
Not an original bone in it's body, but is certainly fun if you like this kinda thing. And considering the amount of these kinds of films on the market these days, many folks like this kind of thing.
Strangely enough, I was expecting something a tad different from a film called "Frankenfish". Maybe something a bit more tongue in cheek or schlocky. Frankenfish is schlocky no doubt, but it actually plays it more straight faced than you'd think a movie called "Frankenfish" would.
Like I said, there's a ton of these kinds of films out there, and if you dig em, Frankenfish delivers the expected "goods" of this subgenre.

Although the plot is indistinguishable from countless other killer animal flicks, FRANKENFISH is a step above the usual direct-to-video releases. Sam Rivers is charged with uncovering the truth behind a recent rash of animal attacks in the Louisiana bayou, which brings him and a group of locals face to face with the genetically-engineered monstrosities swimming just beneath the surface! The production qualities far exceed the subject matter here, as it offers competent filming along with its mid-budget sets, action, and gore. Despite their purely digital creation, enough effort has been made to allow the creatures to manipulate and interact with their environments, bringing with them some sense of believability. The FX team has also done a solid job in giving the fish a unique and realistic design, while the make-up artists have managed to squeeze in a bloody decapitation, countless bisections, and a fisherman frappe through the blades of an air boat. FRANKENFISH won't be winning any awards in the near future, but it is one of the better films of its kind to hit the DVD market in recent years.

-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies

FRANKINFISH

Have you ever seen a movie and thought "man that was a far out there concept", and then thought "hey that was actually entertaining". Well if you have ever thought that then chances are you were talking about this flick right here. This movie despite having a funny yet horrible name is just one of those fun out there type of creature features in the same vein as "Lake Placid" [the first one]. I remember seeing this movie the first time on the Sci-Fi Channel and thinking man I have to buy that.

The story is your basic loose genetically enhanced animal that tends to have a taste for human flesh. To be more precise it is about a medical researcher and a biologist investigating a situation out in Louisiana after a body turns up mutilated in the swamp. Now as much as that sounds like Lake Placid it really is not, but this could have been a better sequel perhaps then the one that came out. Once out in the swamp they meet the people who live on the water, and well the fish start their attack at that point. From that point on this movie kicks into high gear and I really mean that, the kills in this movie are awesome. There is even a point in this movie that I think is the best death by shot gun ever, or at least the most surprising. This is not just one of those over the top b movies it actually makes sense at times, even the acting is for the most part up to par.

Tory Kittles is pretty good in the lead role and makes for a believable hero, though at times he seems to be trying to hard. K.D. Aubert is just as good as the "please rescue me" damsel in distress, but she is quick to turn on her actual boyfriend for the lead. China Chow is on the same level as the previous two as she gives a pretty decent performance, and is involved in one of the best moments of the movie. Matthew Rauch is by far the most entertaining actor on the film as the egotistical cowardly city boy, he is actually the most believable person on the entire film. His character is hilarious and is really how most people would react, absolutely the MVP of the movie. Donna Biscoe, Tomas Arana, Mark Boone Junior, Reggie Lee all deliver great performances as well.

Writers Scott Clevenger, Simon Barrett came up with a really entertaining film and director Mark A.Z. Dippé really delivered with their idea and crafted a pretty entertaining movie. This is not a classic film but it is a cool movie, it is full of cheese and is a true b movie but it is a good flick. Watch this on a Saturday afternoon or night and grab the pizza.

1) If you're alone, and miles from civilization, don't stick your finger and/or hand in murky water.
2) When going on a trip into the remote wilderness, there must be at least one hot woman (China Chow) on the trip.
2a) There is an inverse relationship between how bad the movie is, and how much clothing the woman has on.
2b) If the movie is very bad, then 2a) holds true...unless the hottie quotient is raised (which happens in Frankenfish)
2c) If the movie is REALLY bad, then there needs to be obvious T&A.
3) B-Actors may live, but it's a guarantee that C-Actors are going to die horrible, contrived deaths.
4) Whoever acts like a dick is going to learn a vicious lesson about karma.
5) At least on of the disgusting death scenes has to be completely hilarious (happened over 5 times in Frankenfish).
6) Bad acting is a must
7) There needs to be at least one "c'mon!" moment, in which the characters do something so stupid that the viewers are forced to yell out in protest.
8) The bad guy will die by his own actions.
9) There has to be one unexplained, completely forced hookup of some kind. (Honestly, if a mutant fish was killing everyone around you, would you be thinking about sex?)
10) The climax has to be the most ridiculous moment imagineable, with some convoluted, idiotic plan to defeat the bad guy. And despite the fact that the plan has roughly the same odds as virginal teenager at a hillbilly wedding, the plan inevitably succeeds.

All that said, this movie is hilariously good. It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it is. A few of the actors aren't bad, and the CGI is not as horrible as I would have expected.

If you want to sit around with friends and crack jokes at the expense of a bad horror movie, look no further than Frankenfish.