Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Coventry Well yes, I spotted the incredibly low rating, read the large amount of negative reviews and took into consideration all the undoubtedly sincere & well-intended warnings of people insisting not to waste my precious time on this horrible dud of a film. But, being a tremendous fan of cheap and trashy B-horror movies, do you honestly expect me to voluntarily skip a film about a giant FISH that eats teenagers?!? I simply must watch junk like "Beneath"; - it's like an uncontrollable stubbornness I developed over a course of 25 years of watching bad movies. One thing I didn't see coming, however, is that I would actually end up liking Larry Fessenden's "Beneath" and, frankly, I also don't understand that it has such a bad reputation. I'm really not the type of person to blame other viewers that they missed the point, but in this specific case I honestly do feel that "Beneath" is misunderstood and painfully underrated. I reckon that most people expect a bad film with a giant fake fish, and then they subsequently complain because it's a bad film with a giant fake fish. I, on the other hand, was all set to watch a bad film with a giant fake fish, but what I watched was an uncomfortably tense and compelling thriller about the fragility of friendship and the destructive impact of survival instincts. And, as a bonus, there's a giant fake fish that eats teenagers! Admittedly there are loads of shortcomings, but the rudimentary idea of "Beneath" is terrific and the behavior that practically all lead characters demonstrate is realistic and plausible, and therefore also utterly disturbing. The monstrously oversized fish only eats people, whereas these so-called friends are the ones killing each other. The ambiguous tagline is utmost correct and clever, in fact, as it states: "They are only friends on the surface". When these six people's lives are in mortal danger, and they should collaborate to survive their ordeal together, all they do is increasing their own chances by trying to get rid of the others. And the giant fake fish? He just waits. I don't have a specific affinity for writer/director Larry Fessenden, but firmly do believe that he made a much better film with "Beneath" than he gets credited for. It starts out as a routine slasher pastiche, with the introduction of six stereotypical teenagers (the cute girl, the jock, the nerd, ...) and even the clichéd old guy (Mark Margolis) warning them about the dangers of the lake, but it gradually turns into a tense survivalist thriller with dark and unpleasant character portrayals. There are some stupid aspects in the script, like the significance of the necklace for instance, but these are compensated by a few ingenious and unexpected deaths and slick plot twists. And, what can I say, I loved the fish! I'll prefer goofy, amateurish-looking monster designs over computer-engineered effects for the rest of my life. The fish-creature in "Beneath" reminded me of the aquatic or alien monsters in charming B-movies from the fifties and sixties; cheap and cheesy, but created with a lot of passion! Ignore all the bad omens and please give "Beneath" a fair chance.

rageinblack I'm one of those guys who like aquatic horror theme a lot. First I've seen the trailer, which looked fun enough, then I've seen this movie here is rated 3.8, I thought it's an ok-ish rating for a monster movie since most monster movies, in general, get bad ratings. No love for the monsters eh? And we definitely need more GOOD aquatic horror movies! Anyway, I know the general public is picky about movies, so I thought if people rated it almost 4, maybe I could rate is a solid 5? And then I watched the movie. With each step further I could not believe the dumbness of the script. I could see my rating drop to 3 immediately and then to 2, but at the very end, I already knew it was a rotten 1. I was seriously mindblown by the dumbness I was witnessing for each move every character did. It was hard to take in and I was wondering why the actors didn't protest? 'Cause they indeed should protest for having to act out such a dumb script.I wanted to go through the movie and point out all the dumb things, but it's pretty pointless at this point, there are too many and much has been already said about them. It was a disaster man, even if the blood effects and the fish prop was pretty cool it could not convince me to give it a 2 ot of 10, and I rarely give such a bad score to a movie, if ever. But I seriously think this was the dumbest movie I have ever seen, all their effort in my eyes was annihilated because of how bad the script was. This movie is an insult to our intelligence! Given the same core elements this movie had, a skillful writer could come up with a masterpiece of a monster movie, but all these elements were wasted here, this felt like someone gave an expensive car to drive to a toddler!! The dumb moves they make are painful to watch, the characters are all highly annoying, obnoxious, unlikable and stupid, I didn't care one bit for them, and to be honest I wanted them to die. The sooner the better, except Johnny, he was likable, but also stupid. The way he dies was ridiculous, for example, could have just flipped the motor so he could untangle from that ridiculous situation he gotten himself into. That whole situation should have never happened in a decent script. In the end, I have to say the whole movie was a torture to watch I couldn't wait for it to be over. I don't do reviews usually, but as I said this was the dumbest horror movie I have ever seen - script wise so I had to write my discontent down. It was so dumb and retarded it wasn't even fun or scary. And It's not hard to realize that basically, all those kids died totally in vain. They could have prevented each and every death if they used their brain just a bit. But of course, the script didn't allow them to do so. For starters, Johnny could've warned the others and used his ax from the very start, so I was so pissed off that they found it later... It wasn't a pleasant surprise at all. Johnny all of a sudden had written DUMB all over his face. Also, they could've perfectly used one row to get the other row on both occasions, and I got to say the reaction of the the character when they fell into the water was incredibly retarded, most of the time they weren't even in a hurry like they were just chilling there. It felt unreal, too much to stand. I don't know how I made it to the end but this was was infuriating!On so many occasions I was expecting Johnny to jump on the fish holding himself to that piece of wood stuck in it and fighting it like a madman to go out like a hero, but it didn't happen... instead he died later, like an idiot. He didn't deserve to die like this. My advice: Stay far away from this movie, believe the negative hype!

Scott LeBrun A gaggle of teenagers who've just graduated high school go on a rural excursion together before they all head their separate ways. They end up on a boat, on a lake, and at least one of their number, Johnny (Daniel Zovatto), seems to know the score. He's heard "legends" regarding the place. As it turns out, this dumb bunch ends up stranded on the boat - which develops leaks - and franticly trying to make it to shore when a goofy monster fish shows up and, every so often, gobbles up one of them.It's a shame, really. You expect more from writer / director / editor Larry Fessenden ("Habit", "Wendigo") than this kind of cheese ball entertainment. It seems as if he's trying to rise it above most of the efforts in this genre by ruminating on the idea of the depths to which people will sink when it comes to saving their own worthless lives. How much does friendship and family count for in such a situation?Negating whatever honest intentions Fessenden may have had is the fact that this is one truly despicable bunch of jerks. This is the kind of movie where you root for the monster, by default, to eat everybody because there's not one human character on hand that's tolerable. Zeke (Griffin Newman) is one of the worst because he's a walking cliché: the kind of film geek / aspiring filmmaker who stubbornly insists on filming everything, the kind of guy who drives this viewer right up the wall.The acting is pretty bad from most everybody concerned, which doesn't help matters. The young cast is amateurish, with just one old pro present: veteran character actor Mark Margolis ("Pi", 'Breaking Bad'), who has just two scenes.The design for the monster fish is, as was said, rather goofy, but the visual effects are better than one might expect; the fish actually feels like a physical presence in the movie. And there is a smattering of amusing gore throughout.This isn't one that this viewer would really recommend, unless you have a high tolerance for bad writing and bad acting.Four out of 10.

egneedham This movie was absolutely awful. I just don't know what to say, but I'll try to list a few of the reasons to not watch this movie. 1. The entire movie, they are the same distance from shore and do not get closer. 2. At one point, they "realize" that they were paddling in circles (in a 200 yard wide lake). 3. They decide to throw people overboard to buy time. After throwing one body and two "friends" overboard, they realize they can make oars out of the seats of the boat. What the hell? 4. Two of the three friends thrown overboard somehow survive only to be later killed in a irritating, nonsensical manner. 5. One of the "friends" gets rapped up by a slow moving rope that is powered by a tiny trolling motor. He falls over and struggles helplessly like in Austin Powers, where the guys yells stop and gets killed by a steam roller. Comedy? 6. How did they even get to the middle of the lake? It doesn't make sense that a monster hungry for human flesh would ignore the large group of loud people until they made it to the center of the lake. 7. The creature eats and eats without needing more than a few minutes to digest the bodies of a person half it's size. How many people does it take to fill that monster's belly? 8. The acting wasn't bad, but the reasoning behind each character's thought process didn't make sense. I feel bad for the actors involved since they actually weren't bad...