Unseen Terror 2013: Day 12

After a small coastal town is ravaged with a series of violent attacks linked to groups of large barracuda, an ecologist, a town sheriff, and the sheriff's daughter team up to investigate the attacks. In time, they uncover something much more disturbing and larger than they bargained for.


My sincerest apologies: due to attending an out-of-town wedding, today's post is going to shorter than usual. 1978's Barracuda (also known as "The Lucifer Project," a much superior name) is yet another film released following the success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Coincidentally, it was also released in the same year as Joe Dante's "knockoff" Piranha, but has nowhere near the same budget. Barracuda is also the first I've encountered on this year's marathon to be one of the "triple crown" films, in that it stars, was written by, and is directed by the same individual, a man named Wayne Crawford.


And that's about all I can say about this picture, because Barracuda is so utterly boring and bland for eighty percent of its own running time, it gave me nearly nothing to work with for this review. First off, for a movie about killer barracuda, they're barely seen in their own film, considering that most of the film takes place on land. When they are seen, the props look barely finished, and in one shot, I could have sworn I saw a puppeteer's hand in motion. After the halfway point, the barracuda are essentially removed from their own film, and the movie turns into one giant, bad conspiracy theory picture, with several of the products-of-the-70s actors contemplating if there's some deeper secret hidden in this Florida town that they don't know about. One other minor gripe I had which worsened over time was the absolutely unforgivable sound mixing. Perhaps this may been the fault of the print I viewed, but I doubt it. I reviewed the eighty plus old White Zombie earlier on, and that sounded better mixed than this film did.

While Barracuda's twist is admittedly the last thing you would have seen coming, it comes way too late into the picture, and is part of my biggest problem with the movie overall: this is a filthy liar of a film. Barracuda is advertised as a killer fish movie, but in reality is an anti-big business, pro-ecology film. Don't get me wrong, more power to you if you're into that sort of thing. Heck, even I liked Ferngully a little when I was younger, but one glance at a poster such as this, and you're craving voracious killing machines tearing up hapless teenagers and adults in Florida god damn it. Not...whatever this is. So fuck you and your deceiving nature Barracuda. At least Piranha II was honest.



Tomorrow, I'm off to a party with NIGHT OF THE DEMONS!