Frankenfish

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For the fish, see GloFish.
Frankenfish123
Directed by Mark Dippé
Produced by David Hillary
Written by Simon Barrett,
Scott Clevenger
Starring Tory Kittles,
K.D. Aubert
Music by Hot Wheelz
Distributed by Columbia-TriStar
Release date(s) 2004
Running time 84 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Frankenfish is a 2004 creature horror movie dealing with genetically engineered fish in the bayou. The film was based on the snakehead fish incident in a Crofton, Maryland, pond. It is one of two movies based on the incident, the other being Snakehead Terror.

Contents

[edit] Plot

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This movie begins with a fisherman pulling up and emptying crab cages from the riverbed. While checking on his cages, he notices a buoy bobbing and drifting. Reaching out to catch it, he is quickly dragged into the water and savaged by an underwater presence.

Medical examiner Sam Rivers, and biologist Mary Callahan, are sent into the deep bayou to investigate the death. Having grown up in the area, Sam is immediately comfortable in his surroundings, while Mary is noticeably less sure of herself. They happen across an older man, Elmer, noodling for catfish in the swamp canals - he captures the fish by making it bite his fist, then lifting it from the water. While Sam is impressed, Mary looks disgusted.

Together with Elmer, Sam and Mary travel further up the river to a community of floating houseboats and stilt houses, populated by fishermen and a hippie couple. They meet Gloria, the wife of the deceased fisherman, a voodoo seer who claims her protection has been keeping the community safe. But also in the house are Gloria's daughter Eliza and her semi-boyfriend Dan, who seem to be trying to help Gloria move out. Gloria explains to the investigators that a boat washed up river a few months ago and ever since then, strange things have been happening.

Elmer agrees to take Sam and Mary to the boat, which they find damaged and decaying along the bank of a canal. Sam and Mary explore the interior while Elmer waits nervously in the canoe outside. Mary identifies the former crew as Asian (due to the cuisine choices still strewn about the cabin), and they discover the remains of the crew in the hold. The smell from the rotting corpses becomes intolerable, and Mary rushes back out to the edge of the boat to vomit. Still upset, Mary clumsily knocks Elmer from the canoe as she scrambles from the damaged boat, and within moments, he is dragged screaming down the canal by an underwater presence. Horrified, Sam and Mary flee the scene in the canoe, unaware that they have triggered a homing signal on the damaged ship. On the mainland, an Asian man notices the signal and informs his superior, who relays the information to their affiliate and employer, a wealthy bounty hunter.

Back at the boathouse village Sam and Mary join Gloria, Eliza and Dan for dinner. Sam is delighted to recognize snapping turtle as a main ingredient in Gloria's gumbo, while Mary and Dan are less pleased to learn what they were eating. Gloria's dislike of Dan is obvious, and after some bickering, Eliza goes out onto the porch for some fresh air. Mary joins her, bringing a beer and asking her about her relationship with Dan. When her negative impressions of the relationship are confirmed, she suggests Eliza deserves someone who'll value her and treat her well. But when she reveals herself as that person, Eliza politely turns her down. They go back inside, and the chemistry between Eliza and Sam makes it clear she is already interested elsewhere.

Meanwhile, one of the hippies has heard noises while smoking on his porch. When he goes down to investigate and leans over the edge, a monstrous fish leaps up out of the water and bites his head off. Shrieking, his girlfriend attempts to escape the houseboat on a smaller canoe, but the fish flips her out into the water, and devours her. Frightened, the group tries to get into the boats to flee, but the fish destroys them all. Eliza bravely hauls herself along a laundry line to the hippies' bouseboat in the hopes of starting the engine so they can all escape, but she finds that the hippies had spent more time stockpiling pot than maintaining their engines. On a neighboring stilt house, Vietnam veteran Ricardo baits a large multi-pronged hook using an entire catfish, and manages to land one of the freakish frankenfish on his porch. Nearly as big as a full-grown man, the fish can breathe air as well as water (due to a vestigial lung sac) and hops forward viciously biting at his legs. Ricardo manages to kill it with a shotgun blast to the head. But in vengeance for its murder of his friend (the first fisherman to die), he tears out its heart and barbecues it, intent on eating it. As he takes his first bites, a second frankenfish leaps from the water and devours him.

While the others panic at what they've seen, Mary declares that she has an idea on how to get off the boat. But before she can explain, she is killed by a shotgun blast to the side of the head - Ricardo's shotgun having reacted to being left in the still-burning fire from the barbecue. The same fire also propels a burning propane tank into the hippies' boathouse, causing an explosion that sends Eliza into the water. Dan has become increasingly useless with panic and beer, but Sam dives in and rescues her. At the same time, a frankenfish leaps from the water and bites off Gloria's legs. By now, the fish has begun attacking the boathouses, punching holes in them to make them sink. As they settle in the canal, they come to a rest tilted only a tiny bit above the surface of the water.

At this point, the bounty hunter and his crew arrive in a fanboat and are immediately attacked by the fish. Knocked out of the boat, they swim quickly to the relative safety of the sinking stilt houses. The hunter explains that the fish are genetically engineered snakeheads, which he claims are a delicacy in China and one step further than genetically engineered salmon. He's also thrilled to have the opportunity to hunt something no one's ever seen before, let alone hunted. Sam, Eliza and Dan have no choice but to join the hunter in pursuing the fish - staying behind on the sinking houses is no longer an option.

The crew follows a trail of blood from the wounded fish back to its den. The hunter forces Sam at gunpoint to enter the lair first, to retrieve the fish. Another hunter mutters nervously about the possible size of the thing, and once they see the tip of the fish, apparently asleep, Sam refuses to go any further. He flees the den as behind him, two hunters are quickly dispatched by a frankenfish at least twice as large as the ones previously encountered. Dan, Sam and Eliza quickly leave on the fan boat, chased by the huge frankenfish. Dan falls from the boat during the chase, but scrambles up onto a mudbank. Realizing they will not be able to outrace the monster, Sam drives the fanboat up onto a stand of tree stumps. Unable to slow its momentum, the massive frankenfish launches directly into the whirling blades of the propeller and is destroyed. Thrilled to be alive, Sam and Eliza kiss happily in the water (still covered in "giant fish brains".) They start to go back the way they came, reasoning that Dan might still be alive. But the final shots of the film show Dan lying stuck in the mudbank, helpless as he is attacked by dozens of baby frankenfish.

[edit] Soundtrack

"No One Can Hide", performed by Hott Wheelz, is the credit song with the memorable lyrics:

“ this thing's a giant piranha.
another reason I won't put one foot in the wata		 ”

[edit] Cast

(in credits order)

[edit] External links

Languages