Animal attack movies are a popular genre, one that often plays into the primal fears that humans have of the natural world around us. We might be the most intelligent animal (in our own way), and the best at using tools to exploit the world around us, but we're far from the fastest, toughest, or most dangerous if we came face to face with many of the other inhabitants of the planet. Films that strip humans of our advantages and put them at the mercy of the natural world remind us just how fragile we are, and how brutal nature can be. The more popular films in this genre can vary wildly in tone and style, from the incredibly serious and well made Jaws to the absolutely ridiculous and schlocky Snakes on a Plane. Chum, the latest entry in the shark attack genre, fails to be either, and ends up delivering a movie that's at best completely forgettable, and at worse insulting in its quality.
Chum begins with a couple having a romantic evening in a small cove somewhere in the Mediterranean, soaking up their love for each other. When the woman goes for a swim whilst her husband goes to grab some more drinks disaster strikes when she's attacked by a shark and ripped to pieces. Cut to five years later and we join Tina (Alice Eve) and her new husband Tom (Eric Michael Cole) as they celebrate their luxurious resort wedding with friends and family. However, it soon becomes clear that there's trouble in paradise as they spend their wedding night apart and argue with each other first thing in the morning the next day. But we've got little time to explore this marriage that's falling apart less than a day in as their friends drag the two of them out onto a boat to celebrate and drink out on the ocean.
Despite Tina being unable to swim (an important plot point that vanishes towards the end of the film), the two of them agree and the group piles onto a party boat and heads out to sea. As the trip goes on the friends begin to realise that Tina and Tom are having trouble; but before they can try to help their friends patch things up their boat is attacked by a great white shark, their captain gets knocked overboard and loses a leg, Tina ends up in the ocean, and the engine catches fire. As chaos ensues and the shark bears down to kill the group is rescued by Roy (Jim Klock), the husband from the opening scene who's spent the last five years trying to become Quint from Jaws.
Roy saves the group before their boat explodes (though no one bothered to bring the injured captain along with them), and they think that they've found safety. As they settle onto Roy's boat, waiting for him to bring them back to shore they all begin to pass out, having been drugged by their rescuer. When they wake up they learn that Roy is hunting the shark that attacked them, and that he's found the only bait that will work at attracting it is human blood. Now the friend group must contend with a crazed captor who's feeding them to the shark one by one in his desperate attempt to kill the animal that took his wife's life.
The concept of Chum isn't on the surface (no water pun intended) a bad one. I realised part way through watching Chum why I thought it sounded somewhat familiar is that it's pretty much the plot for last year's Dangerous Animals; though Chum lacks any real creative chops to stand apart, and ends up feeling something like a cheap knock-off.
A large part of this goes to the script and acting. Despite having the recognisable Alice Eve attached to the film Chum feels like it's made with first-time or low budget stars. Dialogue is stiff and clunky, and no one is able to really delivery it well. From the attempt at a deep and dark narration from Roy at the very beginning 'The sea takes what it wants and leave the rest for us to pick up the pieces. But I am not the sea. I am a man. And a man does not forget.' to the wedding speech in the very next scene that feels like nothing but cringe, to the friend group that talks to each other like they learned to act from watching porno films, there's not a single line in Chum that didn't come across like it was being delivered by someone just having learned how to talk.
I wasn't expecting high level acting from a film such as this, but when what's supposed to be the triumphant moment of 'Let's kill this son of a bitch' as the survivors take down Roy makes you roll your eyes at how bad it sounds you know that there's a problem. Though my favourite line of the film was when one of the captured friends says they've not seen the shore for hours, yet the shore has been present large in the background the whole time, and is literally behind them as they say it. That moment actually managed to get a genuine laugh out of me, though I suspect it wasn't the intention.
Worse than the bad script and laughable acting, however, is the film's visual effects. CGI in cheap horror films is never going to be good, and I didn't go into Chum expecting any, but I noticed throughout the film that there was a surprising lack of consistency to the shark effects, as well as the blood when characters were attacked. In years gone by this could have been chalked up to bad visual effects artists, but today it's more often a sign of something more insidious, AI. The film doesn't credit any visual effects artists, which is absolutely shocking on its own. It does however credit Tunnel Post, a company that states that it uses AI in it's effects work and filmmaking.
And thus any amount of credit or good will that Chum may have somehow had goes out the window as it joins the sadly ever increasing ranks of films that are turning to AI effects and artwork to create their finished product. If your film cannot exist without the use of AI don't make your movie. AI is theft, it's destructive towards the environment, it takes wages away from actual workers, and if this film is any example, it's not even being made to crate anything worthwhile. Chum is a bad film, even before the AI generated shark rears its crappy looking head. Chum isn't any kind of masterpiece that's going to change the world so the use of AI can be overlooked, it's a bad film that I would find shocking to learn actually entertained anyone. With AI being used in the effects department I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the bad script also made use of AI in it's creation as it would explain how bad it is.
Chum could have been a fun, schlocky film that managed to entertain despite a low budget and bad acting. As it is, Chum is dull and uninspired. The acting feels phoned in, the script is shaky, it relies on AI to deliver a terrible product, and honestly, the choice of having the one Black actor be the first of the group to be used as bait, locked in a cage by a murderous white man felt both racist and sexist too. If you're desperate for a shark attack movie and you've literally seen every other one made you could watch Chum, but even then I'd still advise going and rewatching something better instead.
Chum is available on digital download from 17th August 2026.
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