Shark Movie Review: Jetski survival horror film 'Shark Bait' roars with terror
In short – and at just 81 minutes long it is that - Shark Bait delivers on tension, is a neat spin on a tired premise and gives us a great looking shark, and that’s it. All this film’s shark does is swim, eat and give us the best shark movie of 2022.
No shark film is JAWS (1975), it doesn’t need to be, and we wouldn’t want it to be. We just want to be entertained, thrilled, raise our legs off the floor at the right moment and be impressed by the shark we see on screen.
Plenty of shark films from 2022 failed to adhere to that, with The Requin (2022) not giving us enough shark action, nor did Blood In The Water (2022) and The Reef: Stalked (2022) was more of The Reef: Stumbled as it just failed to deliver the excitement of the original.
Coming into 2022 I’d have bet money on that film being the best of the year, but roaring in via jetski was Shark Bait to take that crown. So, here’s why Shark Bait was the best and most fun shark film of last year.
One minute they were having a wonderful time, and bam! Once the jetskis have smashed together – an almost unlucky 13 minutes into the film - and the partying teens were a dazed and broken mess - this is where things started to get interesting.
The preceding film is basically them partying and hatching their plan to ‘borrow’ the jetskis and then roaring round on them and being generally annoying and unlikable.
Post jetski crash, cue horrible injury that sends plenty of blood into the water, from that moment on it is shots from sea level and plenty of underwater images of bodies treading water, slowly but surely preparing us for the shark.
Once they are all clinging to the single floating jetski the camera pulls back to emphasise who alone they are out on the ocean, then cutting away to show their shoes, bottles of beer and phones being washed away by the tide, eradicating any evidence that they were ever there, meaning they won’t be missed as no one knows they are there.
Normally, in these films we are seeing people stuck at sea in a small boat or an inflatable lifeboat but there was something about a jetski that seemed to leave them more exposed, especially as not all of the party could fit on it, leaving several of them having to tread water.
The film has a sensible ludicrousness about it, and if you buy the inevitable jetski crash then the rest does unfold logically.
Director James Nunn was also the second unit director on 47 Meters Down and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged – two of the better received and realised shark films of recent years - so little wonder he knows a thing or two about constructing effective shark action.
Writer Nick Saltrese (Hollyoaks, EastEnders) populates Shark Bait with the usual cast of annoying idiots out to have fun and make bad choices, which includes no life jackets (not that Quint from JAWS would recommend them), one who can’t swim and the revelation that one of the guys was cheating on his girlfriend with another of the stranded party, when photos are founds on their only phone. Awks.
It's then dropped in the water in the squabble and raises the tension further, making that jetski seem even smaller. It’s when this dropped phone is retrieved that we get our very first fleeting appearance of the shark some 23 minutes in, and it’s great as it looms from the background and swims through the frame unnoticed.
There is no big dramatic fanfare or fuss, it is almost blink and you’d miss it, but it is a hugely pleasing moment to see such an understated but tense introduction, giving it a real air of authenticity.
One of the group splits off to try and get help, swimming back to where they saw a moored boat, sure enough we see a fin surface not far behind him but what follows keeps us guessing who will be the first victim, and helps keep the tension and dread buoyant.
There are some really nice effective shots of the submerged white features of the great white gliding past the people hanging on the jetski, it looking real, effectively evoking the nightmare fuel shot ahead of the estuary victim getting killed in JAWS.
There is also a neat twist on a victim being dragged by a shark, as another is dragged at the same time as their hair is caught in the watch bracelet of the initial victim as it dives below the surface.
It’s certainly not something I’ve seen in another shark film and is another example of how Shark Bait cleverly ratches up the tension in ways other recent shark films haven’t. Clearly some thought has gone into the shark set pieces.
Most of it takes place in beautifully shot broad daylight – Malta doubling for New Mexico – but we also get a scene at night as well, which is yet another effective set piece and again ratches up the tension.
Whilst it is in no way breaking any new ground in what it delivers, it puts something of a fresh spin on them.
There is a nice moment of foreshadowing though where a homeless local man with no legs is collecting money, and we all know what happened to his legs from the bite marks on his stumps. Plus, for those not paying any attention at all, he tells us. The young stranded spring breakers and we are never in any doubt that the shark circling them later in the film is also the same that took his legs.
It's only Nat (Holly Earl) – who hesitates to join in the jetski escapade and also shows the amputee some compassion – who is likable and a safe(ish) bet to make it as final girl. We don’t care for them like we do with Brody or Hooper in JAWS, or Blake Lively’s character in The Shallows, but we aren’t meant to.
In these types of sharksploitation films we’ve come here for feeding time, which is no different than going to see a Scream, Final Destination, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday The 13th film.
We want and anticipate them being served up as smorgasbord, and that makes this particular shark film more of a stalk and slash piece – which in turn makes it more like the teen boat sequences in JAWS 2 (1978).
Brisk at just 1 hour and 21 mins, effective shark attack scenes prevail and interest is sustained throughout Shark Bait, meaning I was hooked, it easily making it into the small pile of shark films that sustain repeat viewings and is smarter than the average shark b-movie. And (spoiler alert) we even get a shark that is allowed to live.
It may get increasingly absurd as it progresses, but I for one enjoyed this fast and sometimes bumpy jetski ride that served its riders up as shark bait.
To paraphrase Quint, I’ll never get on a jetski again, the film doing what JAWS did for night swimming and JAWS the Revenge did for banana boats.
Words by Dean Newman
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