Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
A freak tsunami traps shoppers at a coastal Australian supermarket inside the building ... along with a 12-foot great white shark.
Bait (2012) is a competently made but formulaic creature-feature that earns points for its genuinely novel premise — a great white shark loose inside a flooded supermarket is a memorably absurd and original setting that sets it apart from standard shark horror. The cinematography makes decent use of the flooded, claustrophobic supermarket environment with some effective tension-building. However, the plot is largely by-the-numbers survival horror with stock characters and predictable beats, the acting is mediocre across the board with wooden performances and thin characterization, and the ending resolves things in a fairly conventional and unsatisfying manner typical of the genre. It's a fun B-movie concept that partially delivers on its premise but doesn't transcend its limitations.