By Mark Young
There’s never been a shark attack in these waters….
Shall we get the obvious out of the way first? It’s not Jaws, and it doesn’t claim to be anything like the main man of shark films. If you have seen the trailer, then I don’t think there is a lot of mystery left in how the story unfolds, apart from the end. Chum, is ultimately a tale of revenge against a force of nature that is Indiscriminate in when it strikes. If you are paying attention, the voice over at the start basically spells out what is going to happen. All that is left is the journey we are about to take in order to get to the end.
Like a lot of films like this, we have the introductory exposition, in this case a shark doing its thing to a young couple. It’s not a lingering demise, its literally a case of wrong place at the wrong time which is something you could probably attribute to most if not all attacks. This is backed off by the entry of the main players, in this case Alice Eve’s Tina and the wedding party. There is the younger sister, the influencer and a bunch of others that you hope will have some form of peril befall them (because we are all here to support the shark, right?) and obviously its not a wedding without some form of drama. The film, realises that it needs to cover a lot of ground quickly pulls the worst offenders together and drops them onto a sailing trip for the day and things go wrong quickly in short order. If setting the boat on fire isn’t bad enough, it is literally a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire once the rescue turns up.
The rescuer is ‘gasp’ Roy, looking to even the score using the unlucky wedding guests as bait and works his way through the assembled cast. The shark itself is a mixture of ‘live’ footage and CGI, using quick cut editing at the point of impact and to be fair because its done that quickly it looks good. It’s the live acting that drops the ball here. Lines are delivered with the merest of energy with those involved looking unmoved by their impending fate.
The story itself cribs from 47 Metres down, The Shallows and Deep Blue Sea amongst others with only some of the good work displayed by those. The idea itself is a sound one, like a modern day twist on the Quint character who just happens to practice mass murder. It’s the execution of it that lets it down, which is a shame and to be honest I don’t want to go down the route of crucifying it for fun. If shark movies are your thing, then check it out, you might find something here to your taste.
Chum will be available for digital download from the 17th of August.
Bloody Flicks 