Red Water on TBS:(first horror movie based on George Bush)

Alibi ^ | August 14 - 20, 2003 | Devin D. O'Leary

[woofie]

Shark Bites

Red Water may very well be the first horror movie based on George Bush. I'm guessing it probably won't be the last. Although the film doesn't exactly feature Dubya in a hockey mask slashing up a bunch of teenagers, he does seem indirectly responsible for the numerous corpses on display in Red Water.

See, the film begins with an oil drilling operation in a national wildlife refuge deep in the bayous of Louisiana. Seems some politician somewhere thought it was a good idea to allow drilling in national parks. Turns out such short-sighted environmental policy leads directly to deadly shark attacks. Frankly, the connection between oil exploration and killer sharks is a bit nebulous, but it takes all of four minutes before our first victim is gobbled up, so who's really gonna complain?

Red Water is pure B-movie cheese starting with its cast. Lou Diamond Phillips (The First Power, Bats, "Wolf Lake") stars as an impoverished fishing boat captain who, as it turns out, used to be a hotshot oil rig worker. Who should show up on his doorstep one day but his beautiful ex-wife played by Kristy Swanson (the original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")? Seems she's some kind of biologist or geologist or something, and she needs his help on the drilling platform. On the verge of bankruptcy, our hero reluctantly agrees. Naturally, this leads our cast into conflict with a certain mean-spirited bull shark intent on racking up a respectable body count.

As if that weren't enough, there is also a trio of gangsters (including Coolio--thereby fulfilling the need for every modern horror film to have at least one rap star) looking for some sunken drug money. They're there to add a little bullet-riddled tension to the proceedings (and to give people an excuse to keep going back in the water).

Red Water zips along at a pretty good clip. It rarely bogs down, and has enough gunfights, explosions and shark munchings to keep viewers awake from start to finish. The dialogue is crammed with slang (from "gangsta" to "Cajun" to "oil rig worker") and actually musters up a couple laughs for clever turns of phrase. Make no mistake: This is pure sub-Jaws silliness. The characters are corny. The shark occasionally looks like a malfunctioning ride at Universal Studios. And the script never really bothers to explain what the hell a shark is doing in a Louisiana river. (At first, it looks like he's released from a pocket of natural gas. Later on, he's described as a legendary swamp guardian known as "The Jaws of Death." Eventually, it's just speculated that he's really, really hungry.) Still, Red Water knows what side its bread is bloodied on, and gives exploitation audiences plenty to chew on. Fans of Deep Blue Sea, Anaconda and other "nature gone wild" cheese should eat this made-for-TV monstrosity up.

Red Water premieres Sunday, Aug. 17 at 6 p.m. on TBS.

[woofie]

This is from a liberal weekly free paper (No one would pay for it)in Albuquerque NM

[woofie]

We used to have those shark problems in NM but we got rid of our water a million years ago or so

[Paul Atreides]

(including Coolio--thereby fulfilling the need for every modern horror film to have at least one rap star)

I thought that I was the only person who noticed that.

[CedarDave]

What?! No hurricane coming through the bayous? Sounds like ya gotta have a hurricane to make this movie work.

Speaking of "Red" in film titles, I'm partial to Red October and also Red Dawn (just because I know the countryside). Red Dawn was panned, but it shows what happens when you have gun registration and the controlling authority (legal or otherwise) decides to confiscate the weapons to keep the citizens under control.

BTW, is it still the "Weekly Alibi"?

[livius]

LOL! I had already eliminated it just on the basis of seeing the previews, but now that I realize that it had a "message" (hate the President, hate the President), I guess I can re-eliminate it!

[LOC1]

Actually, the movie is kind of fun in a campy sort of way.

Some of the 'cajun accents are OK and there are a couple of perogues in a couple of swamp scenes. But there never was a single bateau. The water was a lot clearer than ever seen in the Atachaflava Spillway, and much deeper, too. So never mind about a supposed beach on Lake Verret, where there are none. Or a big shark swimming in water that really is not deep enough to keep his back covered.

Now, they could have made a movie about a big alligator in them swamps, with pretty much the same script....LOL.

[A Texan]

I also watch this movie (I like shark movies) and thought it was pretty campy but not too bad. My only question was "isn't this shark full by now." The damn thing ate at least five people in two days.

[Waryone]

This was the most boring shark movie I have ever attempted to watch. By the end, I was hoping the shark would eat every single person in the movie and all those responsible for making it.

I spent most of the movie switching to the Stephen King show on ABC, and I dislike ABC.

There were quite a few B-horror/monster flicks on this weekend. I guess I was too spoiled to enjoy the grade F variety.

[woofie]

I think The Weekly Alibi is now just the Alibi...Why ,I have no idea

[The UnVeiled Lady]

I was looking forward to this movie, it wasn't too bad (I was expecting campy)


BUT THEN.... at the end of the movie the crazy wacko liberal writers went CRAZY. Don't read further if you don't want to know the end...
5
4
3
2
1
all thru the movie, he was about to lose his boat because he couldn't keep up the payments...the shark had a bounty of 100,000 and they decided to not tell anyone and let the $$$ just go. What kind of STUPID liberal would write this?????

[King Prout]

oh, so THAT's what that crap I stumbled over was.

[Bullish]

Lou Diamond Phillips?

That nobody still has a career?

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Red Dawn was panned, but it shows what happens when you have gun registration and the controlling authority (legal or otherwise) decides to confiscate the weapons to keep the citizens under control.

Dude, Red Dawn has NOTHING to do with Gun registration and controlling authority....its about communist forces that invade the United States.

[King Prout]

from the five minutes I saw of this bomb: no, he does not.

[JURB]

This is a common Hollywood horror cliché, which was especially prevalent during the 70s when liberal Hollywood was preoccupied by Paul Ehrlich-inspired doom and gloom. Of course not only was Ehrlich and his "population bomb" proven to be profoundly wrong, but all of those ham-handed 1970s environmental horror movies (where mans proliferation and intrusion into the environment caused natural wildlife to go whacko) were incredibly bad.

The wildlife going crazy meme was much more effective when their was no identifiable cause. Hitchcock's "The Birds" and Spielburg's "Jaws" are perfect examples.

[thegreatbeast]

Saw some of this cheesy offering last night. Eminently forgettable except for Ms. Swanson.

[woofie]

I think the cause of animals going beserk has something to do with fast food

[CedarDave]

True enough -- it was a fantasy film. BUT, the first thing the commies did when they took over was use the gun registration lists to confiscate guns and intimidate citizens. Of course, they didn't get all the guns because the young teenage rebels had to have something to fight for out in the hills. As I recall, the movie ended when a truck hauling food and fresh fruit broke down or was allowed to be captured. It was a set up, as soon as the rebels went for the food, the commies in helos attacked and wiped out the remainder of them.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Dude, your confusing your pro-gun paranoia and the movie. Of course the Commies took away the guns...DUH! What else were they going to do? Thats what invading armies do.

As for the ending...no, that wasnt the ending. Watch it again befoe you try to talk about it

[RightWingAtheist]

I can't wait for the Jabootu folks to get a hold of this one.