If combining murderers and sharks sound intriguing, skip “Chum” (2026) and watch “Dangerous Animals” (2025) unless you want to watch acting that sounds as if all the dialogue was dubbed in English. A group of friends give a wedding present, partying on a catamaran, to a recently married couple whose union is already on the rocks. When they run into some trouble, a fisherman, Roy (Jim Klock), picks them up, but he has ulterior motives. He plans to use them as bait to kill a shark. While there are knowing winks of humor, the quality of the script and the acting is so bad that even sticking to the “Sharknado” franchise would be better.
I was actually excited to see “Chum” because I just watched and loved “Pitfall” (2026), which James Kondelik directed and conceived the story. Kondelik has a story credit along with Dick Grunert and Ryan R. Johnson, but Joe Leone and director Jonathan Zuck wrote it. Kondelik appears to be a better collaborator with a smaller team because while it features his style of having a huge ensemble cast then whittling it down and replenishing numbers in escalating scenarios, none of the characters are remotely interesting, and the execution features the now notorious feature that Matt Damon tattled about, i.e., Netflix’s instructions to making movies: inane dialogue and lots of flashbacks to show the audience what happened earlier. The runtime is less than ninety minutes. If you cannot remember what happened seconds before, stick to TikTok, which I love.
“Chum” begins with Roy’s narration of his motivating backstory before the scene is illustrated. Then a news story signals that climate change is causing sharks to occupy areas where they normally do not feed. Cut to the wedding reception of Tina (Alice Eve) and Tom (Eric Michael Cole), who looks miserable and appears to be related to Phil Dunphy from “Modern Family.” Once you meet their friends, it kind of makes sense because these people could be replaced with cardboard cutouts. Rick (Johnny Gaffney) likes spending tons of money, flirting with and making out with Rachinda (Sarah Siadat). Rachinda’s name does not even get used until deep into the predicament then a salient fact gets disclosed: she has an allergy to something. It is germane. Britney (Lisa Yard) is a self-absorbed, selfie taking, spoiled friend who is very man centered with no man. In another draft, Britney and Rick would have made a better pair, but then Rachinda would have zero defining qualities, and it would be harder to make Britney into the worst friend who deserves to be the titular shark snack. If this movie was truly campy, there is a version where Britney calls Roy a racist because he chooses her to be the first thrown in the shark tank, but she is the third onscreen death so progress? Rick actually could work if Simon Rex decided to slum it and make this movie. Sadie (Elle Raymond) is Tina’s younger sister, and she never passes up an opportunity to tell Tina that she is the worst person in the world because Tina is an ambitious woman, the worst monster of all. Everyone should go no contact with each other. No one seems to genuinely like anyone.
Anyway, these friends are the worst because is it normal for friends to bug their just married friends the morning after the wedding to hang out? More importantly, Tom and Tina do not want to go. Tina cannot swim. “Chum” gives the impression that these people barely know each other. There is no chemistry with any character, and the scenario feels as if it was written for a younger crowd. Tom and Tina are having a conflict because they are lawyers, but Tom is some sort of environmentalist lawyer and man of the people (then how is he in a relationship with any of these people), and Tina is about to get a promotion to partner at her firm if she can find a baby seal, club it then wear it’s still bleeding skin to work or something like that. The real example is related to climate change. So she must give up her career or her marriage, which seems as if it would be an important issue to settle before the wedding, but pish posh. Details!
In a world where the audience is invested in the health of these two crazy kids and the sister dynamic, it would be possible to appreciate that this ridiculous scenario will bring them together as a family and make them fight for each other except that the plots twists and turns require Herculean levels of disbelief. The shark will eat any number of people who fall in the water except the family members regardless of location and duration of submersion . Sure, the shark succeeds if you are just standing too close to the edge of the ship but hang out in the water for two to three business days as a member of the family, you are good. It is possible that the slew of writers deliberately aimed for camp, but only the editors should pat themselves on the back for having a few great moments such as when in all the hurly burly, Roy does not rescue Captain Mackey (Vince Jolivette). When the survivors ask about his well-being, editors Ethan Maniquis and Dan Riddle quickly cut to the shark chomping down on the captain, and it is genuinely hilarious because it is so stupid. Also the cat sound!
Besides the climate change theme, “Chum” toys with an eat the rich theme and class warfare between Roy, the blue-collar psycho, and the wedding party, but it never really works, and if it did, then the movie’s lesson would be weird. Let’s not devote any brain cells to deeper analysis just this once. Here is one conversation between the unhappily married couple. “I will never be the burden of a man.” “You are who you are, and I am who I am.” Soap opera writers are clutching their pearls at the real horror, these conversations.
If “Chum” has one thing going for it, Eve got a second chance to strip down like she did in “Star Trek Into Darkness” (2013) and show off her assets, which allegedly she did not find sexist the first time and was proud of being a baddie. She also gets a couple of solid licks in against Roy and manages to squirrel away the best lines, which are rarer than a four-leaf clover in a parking lot. Is Eve a sufficient reason to watch this movie? Nope.
“Chum” could be the worst movie of the year. It makes “Deep Water” (2026) seems Oscar worthy in comparison, and there are far better shark movies than “Deep Water.” If it was deliberately made to be bad so the audience could laugh at the absurdity, the humor is uneven. It could be watched ironically, but with so much good content in the theaters, it would be a shame to watch a movie to make fun of it instead of to sincerely enjoy it.
