Trimark Video | Review by Dan Taylor
Bog
(Dax Miller) and Jeremy (Joel West) are
"blood surfers," extreme sports
nuts who travel to shark-infested waters
to ride a few waves. After ladling in some
chum and slicing the tops of their feet,
that is.
Documenting the dangerous
antics of the two surfers are big-breasted
camerawoman Cicely (Kate Fischer) and hat-wearing
lamoid Zack (Matt Borlenghi), her producer/financier
boyfriend who hopes to peddle the resulting
show to a television channel.
As the foursome flies
into Palm Island, director James D. R. Hickox
(brother of WAXWORK director Anthony Hickox)
hints at what's to come by having them discuss
a certain blockbuster shark movie while
the theme evokes just enough of the infamous
JAWS score to jumpstart our memory banks,
but not enough to get them sued. Then again,
do you need foreshadowing when a flick is
called BLOOD SURF (aka KROCODYLUS)? I think
not.
Desperate to have his
stars surf the waves at a notoriously shark-infested
beach, Zack arranges transport with Sonny
(Cris Vertido), a local who charters adventures
with his wife Melba (Susan Africa) and big-breasted
daughter Lemmya (Maureen Larrazabal). Had
that crew bailed there's always Capt. John
Dirks (Duncan Regehr) – a low-budget
Quint complete with scruffy beard, crazy
eyes, and theme-appropriate flashback sequences.
It should come as no surprise that Dirks
used to run charters around the island,
too, but the last one didn't turn out so
well. All his clients were eaten by, well,
I think you know what they were eaten by.
Of course, I might've
picked Dirks just for the presence of first
mate Arti (Taryn Reif), a thin, wisp of
a blonde with a predilection for shaking
her tailfeather in bars and taking off her
top whenever the mood strikes. Like hourly.
Arriving at their destination,
Bog (who has the good looks of Dean Cain
and Ben Affleck) and Jeremy don't fail to
deliver and surf up a storm as CGI sharks
shadow their every move. The sequence is
pretty ambitious for such a low-budget outing,
and can even be watched along with production
storyboards on the feature-packed, cheap-as-dirt
DVD (more on that later).
Upon reaching the relative
safety of the shore – though not without
a shark scare in which Zack shows his true
colors, which appear to be yellow and, um,
yellow – the adventurers pair off with
their respective love interests: Sonny and
Melba, Cecily and Zack, Jeremy and Lemmya,
and Bog and The Surf. We know Bog loves
The Surf because even though the waters
are shark-infested and we were treated to
a giant, unexplained, explosive spray of
blood and sea water he's itching to ride
those waves as the sun goes down.
And it's here that BLOOD
SURF kicks into gear. Hickox croc-teases
us through the first 30 minutes or so, placing
our leads in peril, offering up glimpses
of giant shadows and scaly tails in the
watery depths. But, up to this point, he
never pulls out all the stops and delivers
the price-of-admission sequence we're all
looking for.
Don't fret. By the time
the script by Sam Bernard and Robert L Levy
strands our crew and brings the 90-year-old,
31-foot creature designed by John Carl Buechler
(GHOULIES, MINER'S MASSACRE) out of the
water, BLOOD SURF hits the accelerator and
doesn't know when to let up.
Several quality twists
and sequences follow, including: "Big
Mick" (as the croc is referred to)
tossing a victim in the air like a peanut;
jungle booby traps right out of a 1980s
cannibal flick; use of the great "Damn
you to hell!" line uttered by a dying
croc-snack; explosions, suspension bridges,
croc-eye closeups, female bonding, and even
a little "croc-teasing" that gets
the juices flowing, even in a giant, scaly
reptile that's pushing a hundred years old.
If you're a fan of the
science-gone-awry/big-monster flicks that
clogged video store shelves in the 1980s
and 90s, BLOOD SURF is a more-than-worthwhile
purchase or rental. It's no surprise that
director Hickox cut his teeth working on
entertaining schlock like MASTERS OF THE
UNIVERSE, WAXWORK and his brother's HELLRAISER
III and WARLOCK 2. The flick shows a genuine
affection for the exploitation genre, delivering
bared breasts, blood, guts, out-of-leftfield
twists and explosions aplenty.
The ultra-cheap DVD
(less than $6 from deepdiscountdvd.com)
even includes bonus materials like raw footage
from the shoot and production storyboards
that can be viewed separately or during
key sequences. Far more entertaining than
big-budget hogwash like VAN HELSING, BLOOD
SURF is one of the most enjoyable B-movies
I've seen in the last year.
