Bad Fish (film): A poor attempt at an indie horror film

I've said it many times before and I'll say it again: Horror films are the most difficult type of films to make good even with a big budget. So often, lower-level directors will attempt to break through in this genre with what they consider to be "something different" because if they hit on something that resonates with audiences, they can make a ton of money the likes of which Blair Witch was able to do all those years ago with their nausea-inducing shaky "masterpiece" that I absolutely hated but audiences flocked to like nothing I have ever seen before.

With Bad Fish they were going for something similar and despite a rather unimpressive budget they manage to do a couple of things right but ultimately what we end up with is a bit of a mess that could have been a lot better if they had changed a few crucial aspects of it.

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The film begins in a way that I actually quite enjoy with some sort of preview of some event to come with a pregnant woman walking down to a nice looking beach and then dropping to the water and screaming. She looks distressed and we cannot tell if she is being pursued or if there is something else that is getting her all worked up. She drops to her knees in the water and screams with some pretty decent musical score overplaying the entire scene. We then get thrown back in time (although it doesn't tell us that) to some establishing shots of a seaside town as the opening-credits roll and a rather decent song that is akin to a film intro that a production with much more money than they had playing. This impressed me and it was a "so far, so good" situation as far as low-budget production is concerned.

Unfortunately, this is really the only high point of the film and it deteriorates from this point forward.

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I don't want to spoil the film because for horror fans that enjoy lower-budget things this movie could be something that they might want to see. Yes, it is something a bit different and yes, it does have some good elements to it but they really miss the mark in one of the most important parts of gore-oriented horror films in that the death scenes and the scenes where the monster is actually finally revealed to us are quite poorly done and it makes me wonder exactly how low their budget actually was.

There are parts of the film that had me believing that they were using their money wisely but if my extensive history with low-budget horror has taught me anything, even bad horror films with poor acting will normally have the whole blood and gore aspect of the film nailed down and at the minimum, this will be impressive in the end. How they managed to do this part of it so poorly, is something that I find quite perplexing.

The story is that a seaside town whose economy depends on their fishing season isn't getting any bites at all from their potential catch and the townspeople are very concerned about this. To make matters worse a captain returns from going out to sea with a frantic call to the sheriff stating that his two crew mates were pulled from the boat and murdered. It is all a bit "fishy" (sorry) because when the police turn up the captain is drunk and he has blood on himself and there is blood all over the boat. The police, predictably, accuse him of lying and being drunk and take him into custody. When the captain gets cleared of wrongdoing, which isn't a process that is explained very well, they turn back to the problem surrounding the lack of fish and bring in a marine biologist named John to help understand the process.

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Jonny Lee plays John and while it should surprise no one that we have never heard of this guy, he does a pretty decent job in a film that almost certainly had very little money to pay him for the role. The rest of the actors in the story do a decent job as well including most of the extras which is something I always find refreshing and surprising about films of this nature. There are some problems with the sets and the script, which has massive holes in it and aspects that just seem to be wasting time to get this thing up to 90 minutes. For example: John is looking for some old captain who experience a similar misfortune to the aforementioned captain who had his crew killed at sea, and the local folks tell him that he can be found at this particular bar in town. The townspeople warn John that this bar is a really rough place and that a lot of trouble starts up at said establishment. When John goes to this bar despite the warnings it is the opposite of a rough place and the folks that are in there are all really nice people. The place is clean and doesn't at all resemble the sort of joint that the locals would be warning is a rough and tumble sort of dive-bar. I know this is a minor detail but in the story they constantly refer to this bar as being a troublesome part of the community but when we finally get to it, it's quite a nice place not to mention the fact that John had already been to this bar by accident earlier on in the story and I really just can't understand why they tried to weave this into the story at all.

I think they kind of realized "oh shit, we had people state earlier in the story that this bar was a dangerous place but it doesn't seem dangerous at all" and then they later, once it is no longer relevant anymore, have John go back to this bar again in an unnecessary scene and have him get into one of the most absurd fights I have ever seen in any film. This appears to have been put in after the fact to try to tie up some loose ends of the script. I suppose it is funny, but it's just kind of stupid.

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There are other problems such as the fact that one of the main characters is a resident of the Oregon fishing town named Abby, who is played by someone named Abby in real life (what are they doing?) and she is meant to be irresistibly beautiful as far as the story is concerned yet the actress is not really good-looking enough for this sort of thing. Both me and my friend were chatting online while we watched it and came to the same conclusion about how "she isn't very hot" and hell, neither of us are exactly getting calls from magazines for modeling shoots but we are not in a film that refers to our character as being really pleasing to the eyes. She is just some normal looking middle-aged woman in my mind. No offense Abby, but you are a 6/10 and if the script calls for someone to be absolutely stunning, well, the casting director if there even was one, is either a relative of yours or is trying to bang you. Excuse my crudity, but that is really how it feels.

I do want to point out that there is one particular scene that is done extremely well and I wish that someone had told the director that during filming and I wish they had utilized this tactic more in the film. In one scene the assistant to John the marine biologist is going for a run on the beach. At this point in the film we are not entirely aware of what the evil is that exists in the movie and while this woman is jogging on the beach with headphones in we get a look at something that is intentionally out of focus and barely visible behind her gaining on her. They switch camera angles constantly but every time we return to a shot that is up close on the runner's face, we can see something gaining on her in the background. This creeping death scene is wonderfully shot and fills you with dread as it is taking place. You can tell that "whatever that is" is going to catch up with her eventually, but we never get a good enough look at whatever it is to get a good idea of what or who it actually is. This was perfectly done and it by itself is worth watching this over. If only they had utilized this film tactic a great deal more than they did, this film would have gone up in value in my mind a great deal.

Unfortunately most of the movie is just bad though and when we do finally get the big reveal about what the evil is, it all just kind of seems dumb and unrealistic that nobody in town would be aware of what the issue is because once it is revealed, it seems as though a great many of the people in this quaint town were in on it. The hapless sheriff is constantly accusing everyone of being drunk but hell, maybe that is a real problem in this town... beats me!

Should I watch it?

In all honesty, probably not. Now that I have seen the trailer I notice that the one scene I had a ton of praise for well, most of it is in the trailer so perhaps they were aware of the brilliance of that one particular part of the movie. They also reveal a ton about the plot, I would say more than they should in that trailer.

There isn't much reason to watch this and I think the internet community agrees with me since the IMDB rating is 3.3/10. The only reason why anyone should watch this is to see a director that did a decent job with very little money and the actors are definitely above average considering the small budget they were dealing with. For most people, this movie will not provide enough scares or unique aspects of anything to remain entertaining. This would only be for people that can appreciate poorly-made horror films that ALMOST hit the mark.

_{since this film was just released in theaters recently, albeit only regionally, this movie cannot be legally streamed anywhere. It can be purchased at Fandango, Microsoft, Amazon, and others}