Barracuda (1978)

Directors: Harry Kerwin, Wayne Crawford

Writers: Harry Kerwin, Wayne Crawford

Composer: Klaus Schulze

Starring: Wayne Crawford, Jason Evers, Roberta Leighton, Cliff Emmich, William Kerwin, Bert Freed, Harry Kerwin, Rick Rhodes, Matt King, Robert G. Noe, William Roundebush

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You Can Almost Hear The Screams! as the water below becomes a CHURNING DEATHBED of FLASHING TEARING TEETH!

Plot: The quaint seaside town of Palm Cove is home to upstanding citizens, good ol' fashioned southern hospitality and a deadly rash of barracuda attacks. The town sheriff (William Kerwin) and a young marine biologist (Crawford) join forces to discover that the culprits are none other than the local chemical plant and its odious managers. but little do they know that the scheme runs much, much deeper.

My rating: 4.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

This looked like one of the many JAWS (1975) clones that littered the drive-ins during the last half of the 70s but it's not.  It's too bad, too, because it might have been much better if it had been. The acting is sub-standard (surprise!) but serviceable, as you would expect for this kind of picture.  That's all OK if the movie wasn't 98 minutes long and filled with dull spots.  The story itself is alright, covering the same ground so many other pictures have done before and since.  The score sounds like it's for a low budget cheesy Italian horror movie which adds just a little bit of fun.  Blood and gore?  Zilch.  Nudity?  Bupkiss.  Those two ingredients would have gone a long way in helping this picture entertain, that and cutting the running time a bit. The only thing I dug was the surprise ending.  The reason all of this shit is going down is pretty neat ONLY because you don't expect it.  As a plot resolution, it's common.  This is a great example of exploitation because the posters promise a completely different film and at the end, you're the one that was exploited.