Judging by Swim, lunatics are running The Asylum
Over the years, one of the richest sources of bad shark movies has been the SyFy original movie but as their output has declined, who is there to keep movie studio The Asylum in business? Step forward Tubi, the free to watch streaming service. Shark Bait may be their most recent offering but the streamer first dipped its toes in the pre-chummed water with Swim and in terms of bad shark movies, it’s a bravura debut.
When the Samson Family arrive at their rented holiday home, they’re looking for a peaceful and relaxing vacation. Husband Hudson (Joey Lawrence) is delayed but wife Lacey (Jennifer Field) and Lacey’s father Noah (Andy Lauer) – whose surname is also Samson so either her maiden name was the same as her married one or Hudson and Lacey are brother and sister? – arrive with the kids Charlotte (Brett Hargrave) and Tucker (Daniel Grogan), a high school swim champion and get settled in just as a severe storm hits the resort and floods the house. But water isn’t the only thing pouring into the basement – a hungry shark is on the prowl.
Swim isn’t in any kind of hurry to get to the action, so we’re treated to extended time with the Samson family – and what a treat it is. The acting is shockingly bad and the dialogue has the ring of a screenwriter who’s seen words written down but never heard them spoken out loud by real human beings. The entire ensemble is bolstered by some definite performance choices, particularly from Jennifer Field who seems to spend the entire movie with her mouth open although her performance gets even worse when she’s required to emote beyond being shocked. Perhaps its because she’s missing her husband while on vacation, which would explain the bizarrely subtextual unpacking the groceries scene where she seems to have bought a lot of cucumbers and eggplants for a family vacation.
Even she is eclipsed, though, by the performance of Andy Lauer, a clearly fit and healthy fifty-something actor inexplicably cast as a frail ninety-year-old with only the most cursory attempt at old age make-up. His infirmity acting is one of the lowlights of the entire movie and he’s also responsible for one of the (unintentionally) funniest moments of the film where shark attack victim Becky (Addison Bowman) is brought in and the grandad, a retired doctor instructs her to take “nice breaths” (presumably instead of “deep breaths”) but it sounds like “nice breasts”. Creepy for a ninety-year-old, creepier for a fifty-year-old pretending to be ninety. You could maybe attribute it to some sound issues during filming, but given all the dialogue seems to have been ADR’d, that won’t wash. Oh, and if you’d ever wondered what a plumber in a bad shark movie played by Tracey Morgan would be like, Timothy Jones gives you a fair idea.
Beyond the writing and acting, Swim doesn’t fare any better in any other aspect of filmmaking. The vacation home is a multi-level clifftop home yet somehow once the storm surge breaches the basement, the sea continues to rise through the house in defiance of the laws of nature and physics. Mind you, it does seem to be an area of coast where people can be in obviously waist deep water in one shot only to suddenly be treading water in deep ocean in the next so maybe the laws of nature and physics have been overturned by a local ordinance. Even then it seems improbable that only a single house would be flooding even if the basement is tiny and yet people can’t spot a 10-foot shark in waste deep flood water. Perhaps it’s because the shark antagonist is one of those polymorphic species that only appear in bad shark movies, arbitrarily changing size, shape and colour.
There are many, many more points that illustrate how stupid this movie is but maybe it’s best summed up by the moment where one of the characters asks “why is there a shark in the house?”. It’s a stunning moment of lucidity that comes close to breaking the fourth wall because that’s what the audience is asking too.
