Razortooth (2007)

Plot
Four college students head down to a swamp in a small Southern community in order to gain extra credits by helping a scientist with his research into Asian swamp eels, which are threatening the local eco-system. However they soon find out that, in an attempt to make the eels sterile, the scientist has in fact created a giant mutant eel which has an appetite far greater than the fish in the lake and is soon eating it's way through the local population.

Review
Here we go again! Another straight-to-DVD creature feature flick comes crawling out of the swamp, bringing with it a pungent smell of nasty swamp water and squelching it's muddy feet all over the ground. Razortooth is the ultimate craptacular mix of two of the most over-populated creature feature sub-genres: the giant snake flick (come on, an eel is a snake in all but name) and that of the aquatic creature sub-genre (you really struggle to find suitable monsters except sharks in this genre). This means that there are double the clichés, double the possibilities and double the rubbish. You'll see eels do things you could never dream of. You'll see special effects so bottom grade, that it's like watching a game of Pong after playing on Gears of War. You'll see a never-ending supply of stereotypes foolishly hang around the swamp. The list is endless. Needless to say that Razortooth is hard going for those of who us who have been weaned on this sort of staple creature feature diet. There's just no story left to tell in these films anymore. Simply swap the creature and you've got an entirely new film.

Right from the opening scenes of the eel munching it's way through a group of cops chasing after some escaped fugitives, the film becomes more of a endurance test than an actual pleasure. How many times have you watched your favourite film? Have you got to the stage where you can recite lines of dialogue and you know the exact scene that is coming up next? Well watching Razortooth for the first time almost feels like you're watching your favourite film for the 50th time. Dialogue is predictable. Characters do what you expect them to do. The film pans out in the precise manner that it should do and why is that? Because it's so predictable and you've seen this before, just under names like Frankenfish and Sea Beast. I keep watching them because there's an odd one or two that actually do something slightly different with the material. But to find that gem, you've got to sift through way too much rubbish. So go on then, roll out the creature feature character clichés please..........wildlife expert and local authority figure team up to stop the eel. Check. "Southern" community stereotypes including the trailer trash clan, the gun nut and the fat redneck who just eats Southern fried chicken. Check. A couple of jocks, a nerdy girl and a nerdy guy. Check. Loads of random townsfolk to provide fodder. Check. The scientist who has created a monster and is trying to protect it. Check. There's just no one to root for - the two leads are more bothered about rekindling their marriage than they are trying to kill the eel. Give us some sympathetic characters we can associate with and then maybe you have room to work with the script. The dialogue is terrible and at one ironic moment, one of the students says that "I've seen this movie before." So have we, mate! The moment in question is probably the highlight of the film for me as it spoofs a scene from Tremors (where they pick up the old farmer's hat and find his severed head lying underneath). Being that the highlight is from another film, it's a sad indication of how little I enjoyed this.