Beneath the Surface

Right, well I very, very rarely - as in actually almost never - read reviews of a movie before sitting down to watch a movie. But I really wish I had done so before sitting down to watch the 2022 movie "Beneath the Surface" from writer Paul W. Franklin.

I was lured into watching "Beneath the Surface" because of the movie's cover/poster with the shark, the bloodied water, a burning wreckage and a distraught woman in the water. Talk about false advertisement, because this had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the actual contents of the movie. Well, sure there was a shark in the movie and a woman in the water, but that was about it. And the movie didn't have the thrill and excitement in it at all which was displayed in the cover/poster.

Nay, this was definitely not a shark movie. Instead, I was sitting down to watch a murder mystery, and not a particularly good one at that. The pacing of the movie was rather slow, and the storyline itself was, well truth be told, bland and sort of bordering on being pointless. So no, you're not in for a great movie experience if you sit down to watch "Beneath the Surface" from directors Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews.

Now, I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress in "Beneath the Surface", and that was actually one of the better things about this ordeal of a movie. And while the actors and actresses had very little to work with in terms of script and properly written characters, then the acting performances in the movie was actually fairly okay.

I managed to suffer through all of "Beneath the Surface", but I wasn't particularly entertained, much less enjoying the storyline. So I can honestly advice you to not waste your time, money or effort on this movie, because it simply isn't worth it.

My rating of "Beneath the Surface" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

The story is a mysterious one. It is told in present day with a flashback to 3 months earlier when an incident occurred. If you've ever been drugged and thrown into shark infested waters you'll definitely relate to this movie. If this scene existed then the bit where Jaws was on the psychiatrists couch telling the tale of the nasty fishermen trying to catch him, it would bring a tear to your eye. Best actor goes to the VW beetle car which was stunning character with big shiny wheels. The movie is watchable. It's nothing to do with a typical sharks in the water eating people other than the two people the shark did actually eat. You can tell from the cover that there was a shark though so that's not spoiling it. I think the shark as a framing device could have been any such event in which two family members were killed in a devious way. I doubt the movie will appeal to many people who looked at the cover like I did and though yay I like shark attack movies like some people like zombie movies. I mean if you've seen one zombie movie you've really seen them all. They're the stupidest genre of movie ever and oh so boring. Some people might not like shark attack movies and this is falsely representing itself as such a movie when it clearly isn't on. For what it is I think it's a pretty good low budget film that lets the story unfold in time. You are lead along a path till the final conclusion.

Where to start. This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The story was so weak that I am sure a bunch of 10 year old school kids could have written a better script.

The acting was nausiatingly poor. And I will name and shame them: Georgie Banks, Stephanie Lodge and last but not least Matthew Marcelis. It doesn't matter about the rest of the cast because they were immeterial, but the lead three were just terrible.

All in all the story, the dialogue and the acting was stupid. Like in many of the contributions it wasn't too hard to figure out who did what and where from pretty early into the movie. I am not sure but I am willing to bet the budget of the movie could not have exceeded 10,000 British pounds sterling!

Don't usually do these, but feel the need to warn people that might make the same mistake I did. I enjoy shark attack films. This is not a shark attack film.

It's boring, poorly acted, poorly written and poorly executed. The plot is predictable and any attempts at twists and surprises can be seen a mile off. The 'big reveal' can be figured out around 15 minutes into the film. I only persevered to prove my suspicions correct. I wish I hadn't. Please don't waste your time. It's genuinely the worst film I've ever seen.

Beneath the Surface is a very low budget drama dressed up with a minimal shark theme to make it more marketable. Once you get over the disappointment, it's not a terrible movie, but it's not the least bit original aside from the bait and switch scam to convince you to put the time into watching it. It's basically a not-very-clever murder mystery. If you're looking for the next Bait or even the next Sharknado...keep looking. This ain't it.