Saturday, February 10, 2007

7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day 10: Frankenfish

Rendering my archive useless for ten straight days now it's 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem. It's time for yet another Sci Fi Original, Frankenfish.

This movie actally has some credentials. The director, Mark A.Z. Dippé, directed Spawn. That was a real movie. And it wasn't awful. So, this has some promise.

We start out on what appears to be the bayou. The man in the boat is fishin. Or, at least he's checking fish traps. Until one of his markers moves out of his reach. And under the water. And then he's pulled in. And he;s all bloody! Then he's gone, but his marker resurfaces.

A few days later, the cops find a body. This a chick. A hamicide. Chick covered in chicken blood to attract wild pigs to devour the corpse. (see how I turned a typo into a new word? pretty slick, huh?) One of the cops is sent to investigate another corpse. One pulled out of the water. Something tells me that it's out fisherman.

I was right! Apparently, he's been partially eaten. Officially by acroc, but they determine that the teeth marks aren't from a croc. So, the cop rounds up a biologist and a gun and heads for the place the dude died. The biologist and the cop both think that it's more likely a shark.



It's hard to guage the weather out on the bayou, the cop is wearing 2 shirts and jeans. The biologist is wearing a bikini top. Which, hey, that's cool, China Chow is kinda hot. They meet this dude named Elmer. He's doing that thing where you put your hand in a catfish's hole and wiggle your thumb so that it bites you...what's that called again? Oh yeah, being a dipshit. Elmer takes the cop and the biologist to a group of house boats. There they meet a rastafarian lookin dude... and wow can he "act". He must be someone's friend. The two lines he delivers are just amazing.

They meet the fisherman's wife and learn that a couple years ago a hurricane brought a strange boat, that's when the shit started. The fish disappeared. Shit started dying. She says a curse was put on the bayou. She tried using voodoo to keep it away, but there's only a small circle of protection, and her husband outside of it. She gives them each a magic bag and sends them with Elmer to go see the boat.

It's a fishing boat. Like the kind of thing you see out at sea. And they say it has a chinese crew. Hell of a hurricane. There's something rotting in the hold though, so they climb in. It appears to be our crew. This causes the biologist to toss her cookies into the bayou, where she finds a giant fish scale. So, she wants to leave and as they get back in the boat, Elmer falls out. Elmer laughs it off until something grabs him and drags him off!

Someone is tracking the boat on GPS though. And webcam. That dude grabs a gun and leaves his house. He goes to meet up with another dude. Apparently, there are people trying to find this boat. And they work for a prick who wants to find the boat. He knows about "the cargo" and wants it back. Something tells me that by "cargo" he doesn't mean the dead men in the hold. The prick is getting ready for a "hunt".

Cut to dinner. Apparently the fisherman's daughter went to high school with the cop, and had a crush on him. She then gets into a fight with her boyfriend. The biologist brings her a beer and a "you deserve better" kind of talk...I think that the biologist is trying to *ahem* recruit for the other team...if you catch my meaning...

The rastafarian sees something big moving in the water and decided to investigate a bit more. As he's bending over the dock SOMETHING BITES HIS HEAD OFF!!! Fucking sweet! The fish then attacks the rastafarian's wife's boat, dragging it into the open and flipping it over, launching her into the water where...Ricardo shoots at it. And so does the cop. And just when you think she's gonna make it to the dock, the fish jumps out of the water and kills her. The fish is only a bit bigger than a person. But, for a fish, massive.

The cop decides it's time for everyone to go. Everyone except Ricardo who won't leave. The fish though attacks their boat, so they decide they have to kill it in order to get out. The fish tries to attack Eliza, but the cop shoots it. Again. Ricardo decides to set a trap. A trap baited with bait. And what kind of bait do you use for a big old fish? A smaller big fish. A catfish. And a grappling hook. The fish takes the bait and jumps at Ricardo. And he kills the fucker. Dead. Then he gets to working on cooking it. And he eats the heart. You know, to honor those that it killed.

Oh, but shit! Theres a second fish! And HE eats Ricardo, you know, to honor those the HE killed. And it set Ricardo's boat on fire. Oh well, not like he needed it.

So, the prick arrives at the boat. He doesn't find what he's looking for though. Time to go hunting...or, more likely, poaching.

Back at the floating colony, all hell is breaking loose. The fish is busting through walls. Propane tanks are exploding. Boats are shooting people. And voodoo lady gets her bottom half separated from her bottom half. The pricks hears the commotion, and the fish starts trying to sink the houseboats.

The pricks arrive on the scene. And the fish promptly hits their boat to knock them into the water. And then it launches one of the people into the propeller of the boat. The prick then explains that they're genetically engineered snakeheads. And he's hunting them. And ain't shit gonna stop him. So, they all get on his boat to go kill the fucker. They follow a trail of blood to find the fish.

Meanwhile, Dan the Lawyer Man is starting to sober up, and he's cranky. He's all "you move on quick" and Eliza's all "shut up Dan", then he's all "she doesn't put out as quick as" and Sam is all "shut up Dan"

They follow the blood like a trail of breadcrumbs to the mouth of a cave thing. And they head in, where they find one dead, but there's another one in there. Apparently there were 3, and two are dead, leaving one more. Sam leaves the cave, and swamp thing kills the prick. Now, this one is HUGE. It hits the boat and Dan the Lawyer Man falls out, they leave his dumb drunk ass. The fish follows them, chasing after the boat. And then he gets chopped up in the boat's propeller. Eliza and Sam are covered in fish guts and making out. Dan the Lawyer Man is fattacked by little baby Frankenfish. The end.

I would have liked the story a bit better without the poachers, then it's more of a The Descent meets Jaws kinda thing. And that would be pretty sweet. But Frankenfish was pretty rad anyways. I totally dug this flick. Just the right kind of silly and cheesy. This is a high water mark for Sci Fi because I'm giving it a 7 bowls of snapping turtle gumbo made by a voodoo lady out of 10.

NOTE: If I'm late with a post this week (as in I don't get one up for the day), please forgive me. I'm currently on my way to "the final frontier"...no wait, that was Star Trek..."the last frontier", Alaska. In fact, I'm currently sitting in the airport in Anchorage so I can catch a flight to Bethel tonight. I don't know how much access I'll have until Wednesday. So, if I miss something, I do apologize, but rest assured that by midnight Wednesday (Alaska time) I will be caught up.