Have You Been Watching...? Maneater (2022)

 

There are movies that are good, and there are movies that are bad. Maneater, a recent entry into the “Sharks are bad, m’kay” category, is a whole new category all of it’s own. 

I enjoy creature feature movies, where there’s a monster wiping people out left, right and centre. 1975’s seminal entry “Jaws” took this very subject and turned it into one of the most frightening and intense movies ever. Even though, shockingly, the antagonist only appears in the film for a total of about 5 minutes, the rest of the film is taken up with an increasing sense of dread. But that's a different movie...

Maneater follows Jaws' opening scene with the first death happening quickly, although in Maneater’s case, it’s within seconds of the film starting. Thus begins one of the strangest movie experiences I have ever had. 

The cast is led by ex-Neighbours cast member Nicky Whelan (Pepper Steiger, when she trod Ramsay Street in the early 2000s), as Jessie a woman whose wedding is cancelled but goes off on the honeymoon anyway with a bunch of her pals. Interestingly, while they all act like kids on spring break (and at one point Jessie herself is even called “kid”) none of them look under 40 (Whelan is actually 41) which makes the decisions and actions of the characters unbelievable. Even suspending belief, although we are told various things about their backgrounds, none of the cast act anything more than bland and one-dimensional. 

Unfortunately for the movie, the budget appears to have been non-existent, and the shark appears in terrible CGI and rubber form. In one scene the cast are gathered on the boat, with it’s crew, discussing the various sea life they can observe. Sadly for the viewer, the camera remains on the cast throughout the scene. Whether this is scripted this way or not, it results in the viewer hearing what’s being seen by them, but not getting that experience. Not only that, the scene drags on and becomes somewhat uncomfortable and painful to watch.

As our shark starts gnawing its way through our cast, it’s quite easy to tell who is going to be next and there are no surprises. In fact, the best and only surprises are the deaths of our cast that DON’T happen by being shark treats. One of them, a character whose hands tend to flap a lot, is dispatched in such a way that I found myself laughing out loud at how hilariously funny it was. Another disoatched body makes a fleeting re-appearance, but our cast do NOTHING to assist, even CPR. One of the cast survives it’s encounter with the shark only to be tended to by the worst first-aid in history, that I expected the character to beg the shark to come back and finish the job. It would be quicker and better.

Needless to say, the movie ends with sharky meeting a sticky end. However, that’s not the end of our movie. Oh no, not only have we endured 90 minutes of this, our movie ends with the promise, or rather threat, of a sequel in a scene so forced it feels like it was made simply to bump up the runtime.

So, while some movies are good, and some are bad, Maneater falls into that rare category of being neither. It firmly belongs in the “ridiculous” category. After 90 minutes, I didn’t love it, yet I don’t hate it. 

It just….exists.

Year: 2022

Availability: to buy or rent from digital retailers

Rating: 2/10