CHUM (2026)

3 stars

Plaion Pictures. Digital. 17th August.

Honestly, did we need another movie about a killer shark – probably not, but here it is anyway and with the title CHUM, it sounds like a can of dog food.

The scenes at the beginning – which are straight out of JAWS – and voiceover set up the motivation for a character later in the movie.

We are then at a destination wedding in Malta, between Tina (Alice Eve, also a producer of the project) and Tom (Eric Michael Cole). However there is clearly trouble in paradise – something to do with a job she has just accepted, which doesn’t sit well with Tom’s ethics.

Sadie (Elle Haymond), Tina’s sister and their friends Rachinda (Sarah Siadat), Rick (Johnny Gaffney) and Britney (Lisa Yaro) want to take the ‘happy’ couple on a fun boat trip the day after the nuptials, not knowing about the tensions.

“Never been a shark attack in these waters”, says Captain Mackey (Vince Jolivette) reassuringly. Which obviously will soon change – otherwise this is going to be a really dull movie with folks frolicking on a yacht.

It isn’t long before a fin is slicing through the water. The yacht has its anchor get snagged on something and the captain falls overboard and becomes bloody shark food – thereby disproving what he said earlier!

As luck and plot contrivances would have it the boat ends up on fire, putting all of them in danger but luckily Roy (Jim Klock) arrives in his boat to save them – or does he have another agenda. If you have seen the much better DANGEROUS ANIMALS this riffs off a similar premise – they start to realise things aren’t right when they end up drugged and tied up and Roy is winching Britney out to the water in a cage!

The acting here is variable to say the least – though a script which had five people involved probably doesn’t help, giving them terrible dialogue and some of the action is laughable. The (mostly) CGI shark footage is fairly good and things do get bloody. It is just that the whole affair is an irrelevant addition to the ever growing sub genre of killer sharks.

Steve Kirkham