REVIEW: Blood Surf

Anaconda has a lot to answer for, you know... Number one at the box office for weeks on end, despite being... well, bad. Mind-numbingly awful in a horrible sort of way. And due to that success, dozens of low-budget CGI-laden remakes, knock-offs and re-hashes have been made recently. Giant snakes, giant ocotpi, giant aligators... I'd hate the makers of Anaconda if it wasn't for one simple fact...

I LOVE movies with Giant Creatures in them... especially BAD Giant Creatures. And so, wax down your boards and join me... and let's check out;

BLOOD SURF

Big Eyeballs, thrashing and kicking: Wow, right into the action, huh? Not even a preview of Coming Attractions on the tape! Over a shot of staring eyes, some Generic Extras thrash around in the ocean while fluro-red "blood" fountains up around them. I guess someone in this film will have a Tortured Past(TM)...

"Dax" Miller?: The opening credits roll... I'm still unsure if "Dax Miller" is a stage name, or there's some guy with strange parents... The rest of the cast is also on the "Never Heard of 'Em" list.

Dudes in the sky, early Jaws reference: Y'know, being a crummy Jaws knock-off is one thing... mentioning the better film with your SECOND line of dialogue is just asking for trouble! Anyhoo, our "heroes" (A duo of surf-dudes and their film crew) fly to a tropical island. They're going "Blood Surfing" for a documentary... Hey, he said the title! That's a shot in the Skeeter B-Movie Drinking Game!

Blond pyscho-surfer, slightly-Brit chick: Blond Guy is channelling Jake Busey for the early part of the film. While he does lay off the maniacal laughter and wild grinning later, here he gained instant "Ned" status. The Brit chick was a error in my notes... with her next line of dialogue, I realised she was Australian. (Because shooting in Australia is CHEAP these days, there's a butt-load of Ozzers getting acting roles in DTV films...)

Palm Island, surfing with sharks: Palm Island, huh? Yep, look at all those palm trees! This MUST be the place! Boy, the scriptwriter must have laboured over that one for DAYS! As noted, Blood Sufing is surfing in shark-infested waters. So, that makes ANYONE who surfs in Australia a Blood Surfer, huh? The credits, which had been running T.V style during the opening scenes, finished here. Director: James D.R Hickox. It may be a coincidence, but a James (No middle initial) Hickox is listed in one of my movie guides as the director of Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. Actually, it's probably NOT a coincidence.

Spontaneously-generating waves, floating entrees: On landing their seaplane, the Surf Dudes allow Zac, the sleazy documentary director to head ashore, along with Cecily, the Aussie CameraChick. And then race to boat in on their boards. Like, tubular. The fact that the seaplane is standing on perfectly calm water, and the Dudes ride in some decent-sized waves is a pretty funny visual. Doubly so when they cut to Zac in the dinghy, on glassy seas, "watching" as the surfers ride by via a cutaway to the stock surf footage. We also get a shot of the surfers from below, just so we know there's trouble brewing.

Quick-dry dudes, Sonny & Melba: Boy, Blondie and Surfboy dried off quick, huh? Maybe all the sunblocker waterproofs them? Sonny and Melba are the Asian resort owner who welcome the crew. (Gotta pump up the designated Victim list somehow!)

Blondie=Designated Jar Jar, Squarejawed Aussie Stubbleguy: Man, ten minutes in and I already was willing the Big Monster to eat Blond Dude. And they're only having a few drinks in the bar! Imagine how annoying he'll be in the surf? Meanwhile, Surfboy tries to convince Big, Grizzled Stubbleguy to take them out to a shark-infested island. No dice. (As it's patently obvious that Stubbleguy was the person in the opening flashback)

Misplaced "g'day", pouty girlfriend: Attention, budding American film-makers! "G'day" is a greeting... Not a farewell! Stubbleguys girlfriend (Named "Artemis", oddly... or "Arty" in the final credits) gets all uppity and does the...

Spontaneous Boobie-dance: Yes, for reasons best known to Arty, she shakes her groove thing in the bar. To make him jealous, or just for some gratuitous T and A? Anyhoo, for some reason, this makes Stubbleguy finally tell Surfboy where the island is.

"Zac"=hatguy, "Marty'(?)=Obvious cleancut survivor. RGBS!: I tried to work out names, here. Zac was the Evil Capitalist Director who wears a goofy hat. Surfboy was the one I thought of as Marty for a few minutes. (Because I'm sure that's what Blondie called him...) I THINK the breasts belonged to Arty, although with the lighting and angle, it could have been any couple necking at the end of the pier. The surfboys ogle, then pass out, being all partied out and stuff.

Swab my deck! Jeremy. "Dog"="Marty"?: Next morning, the Surfers are woken up by a mop-wielding local girl. (Sonnys daughter... what ARE the odds?) Blondie is officially Jeremy, although I was still confused as to the nomeclature of Clean-Cut Surfboy. (The end credits call him "Bog Hall"... I think I prefer Marty, but we'll go with it...) To add to the name-confusion, I then had to try to work out Local Girls name. The closest I got was...

Lamington?: Which is a small, cream-filled sponge cake covered in chocolate and coconut for those who've never been Down Under. Lamina was probably more accurate, so we'll go with that.

Boat fulla munchies, RGBS (Minor): And so, the surfers, the two-person film crew, Sonny, Melba and Lamina sail off... watched by Captain Quin... uh, Stubbleguy. Arty does a little topless sunbathing, proving to be an A-cup. (Makes a change from over-inflated silicon, I suppose!)

Flashback!: Yep, I guess Stubbleguy IS the guy with the Dark Past...

Prayer meeting, stock footage waves. We arrive at the shark-infested beach fairly promptly. (Maybe it's just a three-hour tour?) Sonny leads them in a prayer... and not the "Please, Lord, get us out of this crummy movie!" one I expected. We now see that mammoth breakers are rolling into shore. Except for where the boat is moored, of course... there it's perfectly still. I nearly laughed myself silly when Cecily remarks, "They're rolling all the way into shore!" The Surfdudes break out the chum, quickly attracting some sharks. (The odd Hollywood variety that always swim with their dorsal fin above the water for dramatic effect.)

Slice 'n' Dice! CGI! Tuna Attack!: Jeremey and Bog hit the waves, after slashing the tops of their feet with a knife... Because they're EXTREME! Cue the Surfing Footage, along with some VERY fake CGI shark fins persuing them. And then came a pure moment of Champange Comedy... the underwater shot. Where they're being chased by a badly-montaged "shark"... that looked so much like a Killer Tuna I had to stop the tape until the giggles stopped.

Cameralady in peril! Depth-charge shark.: The SurfDudes make it all the way into shore. Where the "waves' have turned to ripples. Meanwhile, the sharks decide to snack of CameraChick Nibblets. Bog does a Baywatch to save her, while "Zac", her supposed boyfriend is only concerend with the footage. Prediction: He's a Zac-which... Suddenly, "something" attacks the sharks, resulting in one exploding in a fountain of bright red blood. (Bum bum BUM!)

Dog/Bog/Marty goes surfing, Blondie & Lamina go to see temples.: I was still confused over Bogs name, as you can tell. For "Go to see temples", read "Go forth and sin"...

Zac & Aussiechick swap spit, stock footage monkey: Boy, she got over her near-death experince pretty fast. I noted the monkey, because, well... there's ALWAYS a monkey in these Stock Footage Jungles! Even though they're supposedly somewhere near Australia, which is not exactly the Monkey Capital of the world...

Stock footage sea snakes, Melba takes dip. SHADOW!: Now, if Sonny KNEW he was taking thoses Meddling Kids out to a shark-infested lagoon, WHY would he let his wife go swimming? Especially after that randomly-placed shot of venemous sea snakes? Ooh, wait... forget the sea snakes... there's a Big-Ass Shadow chasing Melba! It's BIG MONSTER TIME!

RGBS, RGSexScene (Tanlines?) : Oh, my mistake. It's time for Lamina to whip off her top and seduce Jeremy. (While joking that she's only 15... yes, we all love a good statutory rape joke, don't we? Especially since Lamina, like Arty, has the breasts of a 15-year old!) The next thing you know, they're thrashing away in what's either a tiny lake, or a rockpool that's migrated inland. Lamina, despite wearing nothing but a bikini during the entire film, is displaying tanlines from a full swimsuit. Two words, B-movie actresses... "Sun Bed".

Odd Attack target, Deep Blue Sea for Sonny: Yep, Melba's in the water, so the Big Monster attacks the boat. Melba makes it aboard, killing my "Melba Toast" pun, before Sonny gets eaten off-screen. Presumably in the same spring-out-of-the-water way as Samuel L. Jackson in "DBS"... the handrail he was leaning on is still unbroken, anyway.

Sex & Violence, movie tunring into a soft-core: We cut between the inland humping and the on-board munching. Jeremy even takes a turn on top in one shot, allowing us a view of his blindingly white backside. Thanks, dude... I DIDN'T need to see that...

RGBS, croc on the rock: And suddenly, night has fallen. (And I MEAN suddenly, as the director gives us a sped-up, time-lapse shot of the sun setting every night.) Lamina takes a topless stroll to the waters edge to cool off. Strangly, the couple, who were on a rolling plain, are now in the jungle, next to the coast. That's some ENERGETIC shagging to cover that much distance! Suddenly, Lamina looks up to see the BIG MONSTER! (SPOILER: It's a Giant Crocodile... Not much of a spoiler, as its picture is all over the video box, but you can't say I didn't warn you...)

Rent-a-storm, teleportation, sarcastic Zac: Where DID that storm roll in from? It was a beautiful summers day a few hours ago! Jeremy discovers Lamina is missing and goes investigating. Once shot later he's got the gang with him. (Blood Surf: The Star Trek Years!) They find some clothing, but no Lamina. Zac blows it off, effortlessly overtaking Jeremy in the Most Irritating Character Stakes. Bog decides it's time to bail, but...

The boat is toast: Yes, our Big Monster has sunk the ship. Zac couldn't care less what's happened to Sonny and Melba, because his camera is still on board. Yep, he's a Zac-kebab! Incidently, we're 35 minutes in, and only 4 DV's are still alive on the island. How will they stretch the runing time out? Badly, as it turned out...

Rapidly-Appearing Corpse Trick: Bog swims down to the boat to retrieve the camera... and anyone who's seen Jaws in the last twenty years knows what pops out at him. Looking good, Sonny! By the way, the Rent-a-Storm has ceased after a token 3 minutes. Why did they even bother?

Godzilla rip-off: And I'm talking the U.S Godzilla... As Bog returns to land, the Big Croc attacks the pier, causing a Delayed Pier Explody. (The one where the boards explode upwards a bit at a time, allowing the heros to run ahead of it to safety.)

POV Chase, cellphones and pirates: And we're off and running! The surf gang are persued through the jungle by a Low-Level POV shot until they reach a clearing. Where they stop and talk things over. I guess the crocodile got tired or something, because it fails to burst out of the undergrowth and eat everyone. Zac pulls out the ol' Motorola, but can't get a signal. (He needed one of those transistor radios from King Kong vs Godzilla... they had GREAT range!) And suddenly, a group of inexplicably Mexican pirates burst out of the bushes and capture them. Okay, we've got some new DV's..

Booby trappers, Godzilla reference: The pirates cuss a lot while Zac acts like a pompous creep. Okay, he's Croc-Chow, we GET IT ALREADY! The pirates show off their booby-traps... large, spiky, spring-loaded tree trunks. If you're guessing that they later use the booby traps to kill the Giant Croc, you're obviously far more logical than the scriptwriter was... At length, the pirates haul the gang to their mammoth boat.

Zac is soooo dead! Multi-cock guns. Air Crocodile!: Ahh, time for a long scene where the Greasy Pirate Captain (GPC for short) proves to be a Stereotyped Horny Sleazebag. Zac practically offers Cecily to him as payment for a trip home. (Way to pick your boyfriends, Cecily!) The SurfDudes are having none of that, so the pirates act all manly, cocking their guns a lot. (Meaning the deck should be covered with expelled shells...) But, just as GPC is about to have his way with Cecily, the Giant Crocodile launches itself out of the water like a scaly Michael Jordan, eating GPC's brother. The guano hits the fan and within seconds everyone's in the water following a Boat Explody.

Aussieguy arrives. (Crowded deserted island!): Stubbleguy rescues the Surf Gang, while everyone else is presumably eaten. We have to presume, because the budget is too low to show any Pirate-Munching scenes.

"He wasn't hungry... He wanted to kill!": Hey, when did Cecily become a Giant Crocdile Expert all of a sudden? And isn't she talking a load of bollocks?

Anaconda-esque boat trip coming up!: Yes, StubbleGuy informs us it's a long way back to Palm Island. I enisioned them puttering along, having people picked off occasionaly... But I was wrong, meaning this film may have been unoriginal, but at least not predictable.

Zac's all sweaty and panicky... EAT HIM!: yes, Zac WAS ticking me off... why do you ask?

Barrels! Flashback, Quint=John Dirks, backstory.: Hey, his ship is just like the "Orca"! Too bad he AINT Robert Shaw! StubbleGuy (Dirks) and Bog talk so we can find out his Tragic Past. Tour boat operator that watched a Giant Crocodile eat five kids? Oh, THAT old story! I was actually changing my opinion of Dirks here.. from Captain Quint, to Captain Ahab.

31' long, 3000 pounds. Boy, that's an accurate measurement, huh? The "thirty-one" feet, especially. Can't really imagine Dirks swimming past it with a tape measure, can you?

Morning at Gilligans Island, "Big Mick" speech: Morning dawns... and Dirks has done the dirty on us! The boat has presuambly done a big circle overnight and we're back at the island. Everyone freaks, except Dirks, who's calmly preparing to harpoon Ol' Scaly, and Zac. Zac, being the Evil Capitalist, has seen dollar signs in a documentary about the killing of the croc. Which he names "Big Mick"... why? Probably a Crocdile Dundee reference, unless McD's is slipping in a subtle plug.

Croc takes the bait, stupid Cameragirl, Slow-mo croc: Big Mick (As I shall call him now, just to confuse people that just skim my reviews) arrives on cue. Dirks harpoons him, so Cecily dives in to get some footage of him. This just doesn't seem the most sensible course of action, especially since she's doing it for a boyfriend who was quite willing to let GPC rape her the night before. After some fairly ludicrous underwater shots, Big Mick breaks free, of course. Cecily bails, managing to out-swim the gargantuan creature. Huh?

Exunt Jeremy: Jeremy goes to Cecilys rescue, and dies a heroic, though still pointless death. Cecily puts all the blame on Zac. Uh, remind me, who WAS in the water again?

Ramming spped! (Jaws 2 visual) Dirks beaches his boat on a reef, in pretty much the same way Roy Schneider did at the conclusion to Jaws 2. Okay, make that EXACTLY the same way!

Alkaline water? Same bluescreen shots: The boat is going down, so Dirks orders everyone off. He also tells them to find "Fresh water... it's so alkaline it burns salties like acid." Excuse me? I'm no scientist, but that sounds VERY suspect to me... And the cheap factor cranks up here... they keep using the same blue-screen shot of the crocdile swimming past. Well, dreams are free and special effects are expensive, I suppose.

Surfer Zac, lame death scene: So the gang high-tail it across the reef. Except Zac, who spots Bogs surfboard. How the hell did THAT get out to the reef? Last time we saw it, it was on the beach! What, does it have a homing device or something? Zac takes the cowards way out, deciding to surf to shore. And BANG! He's a Zac-Snack! In literally five shots! He sees the board .He's on the board. The croc rises up. Blood sprays up. Everyone looks over and kind of shrugs. Even Cecily. He annoyed me for an hour, and THAT'S IT? No kicking, no thrashing? I feel hollow!

Captain Quint's legless again! Time to bump off Dirks, as Big Mick smashes into the boat. Yes, Dirks DOES go down Micks gullet legs first! Admittedly, he did crunch Dirks in half, so it's not a COMPLETE rip-off...

Dog/Bog instantly goes back, Unidentified Lumpy Thing Attack!: Look, Bog, boat or beach... just pick one, okay! I have no idea what the lumpy thing was that floated up and hit him... although he said "Thanks, Billy" to it. Maybe Dirks owned a Big-Mouth Billy Bass? On land, the girls make a run for it, untill...

Violence to Women!: Oh, look, it's the return of the Greasy Pirate Captain! He KO's Arty and puts his sleazy sights on Cecily again. However, he's so stupid he's forgotten about the location of his own booy trap, allowing Cecily to get him with the...

Pointy Branch of Death!: My, what a charming visual... the sight of a dead GPC appearing to fellate a spike will stay with me for years! Cecily revives Arty, telling her "You were kinda hit by a bad joke."... Did this script make sense to ANYONE?

Rope Bridge, random running, POV shots: Man, that's a BIG ropebridge for this so-called "deserted" island! They flee from Big Mick until...

Plastic Croc Attack!: Mick looks even faker in broad daylight than at night! The girls have found a fresh-water lake, so Mick stops chasing them. (Which is lucky, as it's REALLY obvious he's only an immobile rubber model, which probably only extends a foot into the bushes.) Cecily and Arty taunt Big Mick, wiggling their boobies at him and laughing. Jeez, why not have a gratuitous lesbian kiss and REALLY tick him off! Mick twitches non-too-threateningly, leading to...

The Worst Pun of the Year!: Cecily: "I think that's what you call... croc-teasing!"... *rimshot*

Stand-off, set charges and taunt the croc!: Bog shows up with explosives. (There was some dialogue that explained where they came from, but I can't exactly remember, four days later. I'm assuming they were on Dirks's boat. They set charges around the old temple, then offer Big Mick a bridge. Mick is too lazy (And plasticky) to come get him some, so Bog calls him names. Eventually, Mick gives chase.

Boom! Wild assumption: The gang dives into a handy cave and blow the charges. Half the temple lands on Micks head, so they decide he's dead. How stupid ARE these people? Arty stops to kick Big Mick in the head. CRUNCH! Oh, wow, he's NOT dead! What a plot twist! Cecily and Bog flee, because, as Bog puts it... "I have a plan!"

Slip sliding away, "Plan"=wild coincidence: Bogs master plan involves running down a long, slippery slope, grabbing the worlds Most Conveniently-Placed Vine and swinging over a cliff. Meanwhile, Mick slithers down the same slope, flies off the cliff and implaes himself on a big, pointy rock. That's the lamest Big Monster Deathscene in many a year, methinks...

Bad final puppet: Dead Big Mick is so latexey it's just sad...

Clinch, Pan left to....: ...NOTHING! I rewound this last scene before the fade-out a dozen times... water, rocks, music has a sudden Dramatic Chord, fade out. I expected to see something moving in the water... but if so, the sequel will be called "Blood Surf 2: Killer Ripples!"

The End, Jaws surf guitar: Fine, steal John Williams Jaws theme and turn it into a bad Beach Boys number... So long as the movie is over!


Skeeters Summary: Pretty bleeh, really. Just a TV Movie quality Big Creature flick, average to hammy acting, and some fairly laughable effects. But PLEASE... Ease up on the wacky coincidences... and if you're going to have a character as annoying as Zac in your film, at least bump him off properly!