Review: Chum

I’ve stated many times both on the podcast and in written reviews that I’m a sucker for any movies involving sharks, which dates back to my dad taking me to watch Jaws back on its release in the 70s.

There have been good, bad, and “so bad they’re good” shark movies that I’ve watched since then, and unfortunately, Chum falls firmly into the ‘bad’ section.

The narrative is a simple one; a group of friends go on a celebration boat trip, celebration turns into disaster, friends are rescued from the water by a lone fisherman…who turns out to be a psycho wanting revenge on a shark for killing his wife, so he uses the friends as live shark bait.

The problem(s) with Chum is not that it’s a story we’ve all seen before…I can forgive that in a movie if it is done well enough. It’s that it’s all a bit…well, crap really.

The acting is subpar, the tension is non-existent, and there are plot holes so big that it’s a wonder the A.I. shark didn’t get sucked into them. Yes folks, A.I. effects seem to be the progression from practical effects (‘Bruce’ the shark in Jaws), to human crafted CGI, to now soulless A.I. generated imagery.

It’s not just the shark that A.I. created for this either, and the rest of its ‘work’ is just as distracting. Filmmakers (and anyone else working in the creative industries)…please keep A.I. out of what you do.

Thankfully it’s a lean 87 minute movie, but it’s definitely one for shark movie completionists only.

Available on UK Digital Platforms from 17th August.

Review by Dave from a streaming link kindly supplied by Plaion Pictures via Strike Media.