Director: Jonathan Zuck
Screenplay: Joe Leone & Jonathan Zuck
Based on a story by: Dick Grunert, Ryan R. Johnson & James Kondelik
Starring: Alice Eve, Jim Klock, Eric Michael Cole, Elle Haymond, Sarah Siadat, Robert Grose, Lisa Yaro
Country: USA
Running Time: 87 min
Year:Â 2026
BBFC Certificate: 15
At their destination wedding in Malta, it’s clear the new bride and groom (Eve & Cole) are already far from living in marital bliss. A surprise boat trip for the wedding party doesn’t help, especially when the catamaran is targeted by a great white shark, the inept passengers scupper themselves, and a timely rescuer turns out to be a man obsessed with revenge on the shark who killed his wife five years earlier (Klock).
I’ve reviewed a fair few shark movies for this site over the years and, let’s be honest, some of them have not been very good. Within those not very good shark movies there’s still often been plenty to enjoy and, given I host a podcast at least partially dedicated to aquatic creature features, they always led to enjoyable discussions within which we’d find moments to celebrate and applaud from these movies.
It seems we’ve finally met our match with Chum, a film utterly devoid of any reason to recommend it. The story is hackneyed and derivative of far superior work, most notably Sean Byrne’s excellent Dangerous Animals. The dialogue is robotic and awkward, and is delivered with as little emotion or motivation as possible. The visual effects are messy and forgettable. Even the end credits song is grating, but in an inoffensive, soulless kind of way. It’s a bad film, plain and simple, easily amongst the worst I’ve reviewed here or covered on the podcast. The only two moments of levity I experienced throughout were most likely unintentional, one coming from a character accidentally, and impossibly, launching themselves quite some distance by failing to move an anchor, and the other being a brief second of excitement when Alice Eve’s character looks like she’s going to ride a shark, only for her to get off again immediately.
These were all my opinions even before, after a little digging, it became evident that generative AI was very likely used in the forming of this film. Finding this out should not have been a surprise, and it did confirm my thoughts on why Chum should be forgotten and ignored by anyone who appreciates art, even if that art is just occasionally bad shark movies. As the saying goes, the worst bad shark movie made by humans is infinitely better than anything made using AI.
On a recent episode of the Empire podcast, the latest Renny Harlin shark movie Deep Water was described as a “death knell for cinema”. My far more positive review is here. To the hosts of that show, whom I’ve respected for many years, I just have to request that before they heap such scorn on a film with actual characters, plot, emotion, and at least one spectacular action sequence, maybe go watch Chum instead. Except I don’t request that, I wouldn’t wish this travesty on anyone.
Chum is available in the UK on digital download from 17th August 2026 through Plaion Pictures.