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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Thriller-mystery with the barracuda used to drum up interest from 'Jaws' devotees., 23 November 2000

Author: Wilbur-10 from London

****POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILERS***

I was hoping for another corny 'Jaws' rip-off with this film, but after two unknown divers are killed in a long, drawn out, silent opening scene, the plot immediately changes itself into a land-based conspiracy thriller.

The story is based around the town of Palm Cove, where a large chemical plant is the main source of employment. Chemicals are being put into the water supply in an experiment to control the population - they are also leaking into the sea and stimulate aggression in the local barracuda.

There isn't much to get excited about here - a few 'Jaws' links are of minor interest: a labrador chasing a stick on a beach comes across a divers head; sheriff and marine biologist are the two main characters and they have a night search out on the water similar to the one enjoyed by Brody and Hooper.

The film has the look of a home-grown project and the multitude of credits given to the co-directors Wayne Crawford and Harry Kerwin suggest this may be the case. Once it is clear the barracuda threat is only a plot device the films interest level begins to wane.

Whilst production values are poor 'Barracuda' is still fairly watchable and the characters are fleshed out to a reasonable degree ( particularly Lester, the fat useless Victor Buono-like deputy ). This is still as far below 'Piranha' as 'Piranha' was below 'Jaws' though, so while not quite a full-blown turkey its very close.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
So-so "Jaws" ripoff with government conspiracy thrown in, 28 September 2008

Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY

First off, "Barracuda" is now available on DVD (aren't YOU excited?) with "Island Fury", as part of Dark Sky Films "Drive-In" series. And this film was definitely worthy of being a drive-in feature, maybe the opening film for something at least marginally better.

There is a lot of beautiful underwater photography, I can't fault that. But it's not a very EXCITING film, although the occasional barracuda attack does spice things up a bit.

Seems as though swimmers & divers near the little town of Palm Cove, Florida, have been getting torn up and eaten by something, and nobody is sure exactly what or why. Along comes Wayne Crawford, possibly the blandest excuse for a hero in a movie, who has come to test the quality of the water in this area, which is near a chemical plant that may be being used for something other than what the locals think. Of course, the crusty old dude that runs "Jack Chemical", Papa Jack, has his goons harass these folks & Mike Canfield (Crawford) ends up in the local jail. Lucky for him though, Sheriff Ben Williams (William Kerwin, from Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, etc) is a nice guy & doesn't give him much trouble & lets him go. But the town doctor, well, he seems rather interested in why Mike is there and what he's doing.

Also it seems as though the town's people have been getting a bit strange lately, lots of outbursts and odd behavior. And as Mike continues to investigate he finds that the fish responsible for the attacks are barracudas, and manages to snag a couple to check out in the good doctor's lab...which is remarkably well-equipped for a small town, but for reasons other than may seem obvious. And of course, Mike finds something that links the fish attacks & the townsfolk's strange behavior. There are also some shady-looking "developers" hanging around town, all menacing polyester and bad intentions. And as Mike and Sheriff Ben Williams eventually find out, things are not what they seem & there's something sinister going on.

This is entertaining to an extent, and the conspiracy stuff helps raise this a notch about the usual sort of "Jaws" ripoff, of which there were many. Unfortunately, a rather plodding pace and not terribly interesting characters don't help a lot. Still though, I enjoyed this and it's not all that bad. 5 out of 10.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Fond Childhood Memory, 12 September 2007

Author: Steven Nyland (Squonkamatic) from New York, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I still remember sneaking downstairs one June evening when I was about 12, watching the tail end of Johnny Carson and then managing quite by chance to catch BARRACUDA on The Late Show. This would have been in about 1979, and amazingly three scenes stuck with me for the ensuing 28 years: A cute young chick in her swimsuit (identified as one Jill Shakoor, who was cute enough for me to have a crush on all summer after seeing it that one time) playing fetch with her dog in the surf before finding a severed human head, a nauseating roadside diner lunch consisting of fried fish with the eyes still intact (echoes of CHINATOWN, maybe), and the predictably nihilistic paranoid 70s ending where the two heroes are blown away in slow motion by a legion of crooked state troopers.

If you think I just gave away the whole movie rest assured that there's a LOT more going on here than meets the eye, even on a threadbare budget that barely afforded a dune buggy for the hero to drive around in during the big climax. As a matter of fact, this movie has a bit of everything: JAWS ripoff, environmental "nature strikes back" thriller, a newspaper investigative editor on the trail of a hot scoop, government corruption intrigue, a few girls in swimsuits, PG rated but still somewhat gory barracuda attacks, a doctor who may be mixed up in a military chemical warfare experiment, men in black government assassins with chirping silencer equipped pistols, intriguing underwater photography, a greedy chemical plant owner with a somewhat retarded son, goons menacing people with shotguns, a touch of summer love romance, and an amusing parade of late 70s fashions & hairstyles that is exemplified by the hero's striped rugby shirt -- remember those?

Nearly 30 years later now I managed to track down a foreign language subtitled VHS of the film and was pleasantly amused to find out that while BARRACUDA is a home-brew vanity project of sorts (written in part by Wayne Crawford, directed in part by Wayne Crawford, produced in part by Wayne Crawford, and starring Wayne Crawford under his clever early years screen name of Wayne David Crawford, who is still at it these days with favorites like 2002's SNAKE ISLAND) it's actually a pretty competent little low budget "Regional Horror" effort made in and around Pompano Beach, Florida, that managed to anticipate THE X-FILES 20 years before Chris Carter debuted his creation, including an ominous electronic synthesizer music score by Klaus Schulze. Someone had their thinking cap on when they wrote this.

We get the scruffy looking post-doctorate grad school teacher marine biologist hero-type trying to get to the bottom of a mystery of why the local barracuda population has suddenly turned to attacking humans, teaming up with a reluctant local sheriff (Hershel Gordon Lewis favorite William Kerwin), the requisite Fat Cop deputy (longtime supporting heavy favorite Cliff Emmich), the sheriff's sweetie pie 19 year old daughter (Roberta Leighton, looking fresh), and the local newspaper editorial staff (Wayne Hackett, along with future gay porn actor Scott Avery as his, ahem, assistant) with the town doctor (the late Jason Evers, whom Star Trek: TOS fans will recognize as Scalosian leader Rael from "Wink of an Eye") implicated by shady connections to the mystery which -- get this -- involves creating a "hypoglycemic condition" within the townspeople via the chemical waste produced by the corrupt chemical plant owner (ubiquitous bad-guy expert Bert Freed in another priceless role) that is really the front for a government run chemical warfare experiment on creating hostility & disorder within a civilian population.

In other words the movie has almost too much going on, with the at times gruesome barracuda attacks just a red herring to involve viewers in a mystery that explains itself from the back to the front: Events in the final ten minutes cast ominous light over actions from the body of the film which seem at the time to have little bearing over the story (people arguing for no reason, a seeming addiction to bottled water, the doctor doling out odd looking blue tablets for the slightest ailment), but by the time the pieces all fall into place the heroes have been effectively condemned by their mounting paranoia, with only one possible conclusion.

So here's a movie who's ideas are actually bigger than the production itself. The cinematography is rather pedestrian with no real grabber moments -- aside from the three big barracuda attacks, which occur at roughly 20 minute intervals -- and none of the acting will make anyone forget about Brando's monologue about nearly being a contender. A couple of the sequences are lifted directly from JAWS, most notably a dinner table discussion followed by late night scuba mission that is as close to plagiarism as it gets. But the story being told is convoluted enough to help the film amount to more than the sum of it's parts, and rewards patient viewers with a taste for regional low budget horror with something that's quite out of the ordinary ... in spite of how ordinary it appears to be.

7/10

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Not so bad (I really appreciate it!), 15 June 2000

Author: Gustavo Krieger Vazquez (krieger-3) from Curitiba, Brazil

I bought this movie because I really thought it would be terrible. I imagine something like "Spawn of the Slithis", or "Nazi Surfers Must Die", but this movie turns into a good one after all. In the beginning, the plot is very silly - barracudas eat people. Amazing. The filming under water, with the barracudas waving their tails while eating the limbs of people is laughing. But... in the middle of the movie the barracudas disappear, and the story, although with poor acting, is interesting. In fact, X-Files is very close to that. And the end is a lot better than one you could expect from a movie called "Barracuda".

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Okay for what it is., 1 October 2008

Author: Scott LeBrun from Winnipeg, Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Folks venturing into the ocean by the small town of Palm Cove are being gobbled up by the title animals. This aberrant animal behavior is followed by aggressive behavior by the human locals. Biologist Mike Canfield (Wayne David Crawford), testing the waters, figures that the local chemical plant may be responsible with the amount of pollution that they're creating.

As another of the "Jaws" knockoffs to emerge in the late 1970's and early 1980's, this watchable Florida-lensed B movie is played dead seriously. Helping to set the mood is really somber and sometimes creepy music by Klaus Schulze.

However, the animals don't play as big a part in this movie as one might expect, as conspiracy thriller elements take over and a generous portion of the movie takes place on land. It ends up plodding a little too much with not much in the way of excitement. The acting is variable. Crawford, a likable enough if colorless type, presumably got the hero role because he also co-wrote the movie. Veterans Jason Evers ("The Brain That Wouldn't Die"), William Kerwin ("Blood Feast"), Cliff Emmich ("Halloween II") and Bert Freed of countless films fill out supporting roles. Evers has a particularly bad scene where he's required to emote and he can't pull it off. Sexy Roberta Leighton, as Kerwins' daughter, has some appeal; what's mystifying is watching her almost throw herself at a not particularly attractive man and seeing a ridiculous lack of interest on his part!

The fish attack scenes are decent, and the surprising last second bummer ending ends the movie on an effective note.

Overall, it's a far cry for Joe Dantes' "Piranha", released the same year. It's on the bland side, but provided you aren't too demanding, it's not all that bad for a routine B movie.

6/10

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Lying not-so-low in the weeds, not going to ambush anyone, 25 November 2008

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

The main reason why I often enjoy imitations and cheap rip-offs more than the original they're inspired by is because the people behind it are so much more shameless and extravagant with their ideas. Spielberg's landmark classic "Jaws" spawned a copious number of imitations and suddenly nearly every type of sea animal – whether genetically altered or not – at one point during the seventies got depicted as an unstoppable killing machine. Not just every possible species of sharks, but also piranhas, octopuses, whales and even barracudas. This one, however, isn't exactly the "Jaws" rip-off you'd suspect it to be. If anything, it's actually more of a "Piranha" copy and not nearly as trashy and/or mindlessly entertaining as I hoped. The script tries to be a little too clever, creative and mysterious even though the outcome of the story is pretty obvious right from the beginning. I, for one, think the writers/directors duo Harry Kerwin and Wayne Crawford perhaps should have opted for a cheesy good old-fashioned creature feature rather than a pseudo-intellectual piece of eco-horror. "Barracuda" nevertheless opens promisingly with moody underwater images guided by creepy musical tunes, immediately followed by a scene of two divers getting virulently attacked by the titular creatures. There's something fishy – pun intended – going on in a little coastal town. Simultaneously with a couple of bizarre and unsolved diving accidents, a marine biologist discovers dangerous chemicals in the water, probably coming from Poppa Jack's plant nearby. Likely, the chemicals turn the barracudas into ravenous killers and even appear to negatively affect the townspeople that consume locally caught fish. The middle-section is intolerably boring, mainly because you're completely unprepared for the switch towards a slow and talkative film, and "Barracuda" eventually ends as a full-blooded political conspiracy thriller. The killer barracudas don't even get mentioned or shown anymore. This is a textbook case of misleading – or even downright false – advertisement, really. The alternate title for this film is "The Lucifer Project" and at least that one immediately gives a far more accurate small description of what to expect. Of course, the title "Barracuda" accompanied by a bloody drawing of a sharp-teethed fish devouring a human head attracts a lot more horror fans. Shame.

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"The ocean is a very hostile place.", 23 November 2008
Author: Backlash007 from Kentucky

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

~Spoiler~

Barracuda is NOT the movie you think it is. It is not a rip-off of Jaws and it is not as much fun as Piranha. There is only one scene really of Barracuda even attacking people. What this actually is is a government conspiracy movie that is a bit boring. The government is tampering with the water supply of a small town with a form of rage serum. These aren't the rage infected zombies from 28 Days Later however. These poor townsfolk just get upset and yell at each other. The serum also leaks into the ocean and that's were the barracuda come in, briefly. The movie vaguely reminded me of Halloween III only it's not as much fun. It has the same silent, suited men stalking around that were in Halloween III, and the bad guys win. That was the best part of the film: seeing the heroes get blown away in slow motion, Sam Peckinpah style. So, in closing, creature feature buffs should stay away.

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Heart would be displeased, 20 October 2008

Author: movieman_kev from United States

Some hippies team up with a sympathetic sheriff and his bleeding heart daughter to investigate an evil (aren't they all in these movies?) chemical plant who's adversely affecting the native barracudas in this lame "Jaws" clone. The ferocious fish themselves take a surprising backseat plot-wise, the real focus of the movie is some claptrap about a government conspiracy. As that plot is pretty inane, the whole film suffers for it and becomes tediously boring because of it. Co-written and directed by Wayne Crawford, who'd have a later hit with "Valley Girl" and the equally ridiculous but more fun (in it's own campy way)"Snake Island". You would do better to give either of those two a rent and skip this one.

My Grade: D

Dark Sky DVD Extras: Vintage ads for various drive-in food; and Trailers for "Bonnie's Kids" (features nudity), "the Centerfold Girls", "Part-time Wife" (features nudity), "Psychic Killer", & "Eaten Alive". The DVD also comes with 1983's "Please don't eat the babies" (AKA: Island Fury)

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Bore-acuda., 18 March 2008

Author: ba.harrison from Hampshire, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After clocking Barracuda's suitably trashy Jaws-style poster art, I took the bait and settled down for what I hoped would be an entertaining exercise in B-movie schlock horror. Unfortunately, rather than the cheesy monster-fish movie that had been promised by the publicity material, the film turned out to be an incredibly dull conspiracy thriller in which 90% of the action seemed to take place on dry land.

Set in the sleepy coastal town of Palm Cove, this dreary yawn-fest stars Wayne Crawford as Mike Canfield, a marine biologist who helps the local police in their investigations after a series of vicious barracuda attacks on local swimmers results in body parts washing up on the shore. Mike traces the problem back to the local chemical plant, whose waste products are polluting the ocean and affecting the sea-life, but certain unsavoury types are out to hide the truth—at any cost!

Poorly directed, totally devoid of suspense or terror, and relatively gore free, this film will definitely disappoint those looking for a cheerfully cheap Jaws knock-off. The shoddy direction, endless scenes of chit-chat, and particularly cruddy fish attacks will leave you wondering why anyone would have parted with good money to make this film, or to watch it.

The only positive thing that I can say about Barracuda is that it does end on a surprisingly downbeat note with the death of its two 'good guys'—a small touch of originality in the closing moments.

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4 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Hungry barracuda terrorize a small town, 25 April 2002

Author: almatz

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Come on...The bad guys win in the end! how bad could any movie be, where the heroes are blown away, IN SLOW MOTION, by the evil empire of sludge lords? rent it. watch it. love it.

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