Swim (2021) Review – A Flooding Basement Full Of Shark Movie Clichés

Welcome to Knockout Horror. We are in the middle of January and we are checking out summery horror movies all month to try and remind ourselves that the wet and cold winter won’t last forever. Let’s start with the shark themed thriller Swim (2021).

Another floater from Tubi

Swim follows a fairly simple plot. Lacey (Jennifer Field) is heading out to a summer rental house to spend a week away with her “kids” by the sea. This is a tradition started by Lacey’s father, Noah (Andy Lauer), who is making the journey with them. When the group arrive, they notice that some much-needed repairs on the house haven’t been completed. Meaning the basement is flooded just as a vicious storm is rolling in.

What originally starts as a relaxing getaway quickly turns into a complete nightmare. As the family are forced to fight off a bloodthirsty shark that has made its way into their basement.

It’s probably easier for me to get the good parts of this movie out of the way with first. Swim seems a little higher budget than most of these shark movies so I guess that is a plus point. I was relieved to see the 2.39:1 aspect ratio and everything was presented pretty nicely, at least to start with, anyways. Sharknado director Anthony Ferrante is attached as a writer and perennial terrible movie director Jared Cohn directs. 

Jennifer Field is an extremely experienced actor and she seems pretty committed for the first 20 minutes or so. A fair amount of work has been done on the set and the actors obviously endured a decent amount of grief in the pool which they deserve praise for. Brett Hargrave spends a lot of the movie in a less than supportive bikini top… That’s gotta be a plus point for many, right? Daniel Grogan has leading man looks and bags of potential and that’s really all I can come up with. I just don’t know, I am really reaching here. This movie is awful!

So much to criticise

This is just one of those films where you find yourself poking holes, ad nauseam, because there are so many holes to poke. It really is one thing after another. If I point out everything, the review will be 3,000 words long so I will highlight some of the more egregious things.

The first thing that strikes you is the age difference between the actors. Jennifer Field and Joey Lawrence play the parents here but Field was only 40 at this point and a young looking 40 at that. She looks incredible; closer to her early 30s in fact, and way too young to be the parent of 18 and 16 year old kids.

“This is just one of those films where you find yourself poking holes, ad nauseam, because there are so many holes to poke. It really is one thing after another.”

Especially when said 18 year old is Brett Hargrave who looks mid to late 20s and Daniel Grogan who you could place anywhere between 20 and 25. On top of that we have an, at the time, 56 year old Andy Lauer playing a geriatric bag of bones who can’t walk up stairs without huffing on an oxygen tank. It’s extremely jarring. The problems just keep on coming, though.

Dialogue and effects are awful

Dialogue is laughable. The actors quickly seem to lose interest in the movie and the performances begin to wane within 20 minutes. Lauer is particularly guilty of this and, frankly, came across as though he was improvising for most of the movie. I am fairly sure Field had to prod him every now and then to remind him to act. Much of this is down to the terrible script but I also think the confusing plot pacing and awful story was partly to blame.

Shark effects look awful. There are massive issues with scale with the shark changing size continually and the CGI is garbage. It is never once intimidating. The shark is dumb, even by shark movie standards, and there is no tension at all.

“Shark effects look awful. There are massive issues with scale with the shark changing size continually and the CGI is garbage. It is never once intimidating.”

The sets are pretty terrible, as well, looking like they are built out of foam that will fall apart any minute. Many scenes suffer from being poorly lit which causes massive ripple shadows on every surface and light glare at numerous points.

And the issues go on

The camera work is poor and the shot loses focus repeatedly. With the director often more interested in capturing Hargrave’s boobs in mid-bounce rather than what is happening elsewhere. Something that provided my fiancée and me many laughs throughout but wasn’t exactly good for scene setting.

Continuity is a big issue with things moving around between shots and retakes being messily edited together. The scene where Lacey talks to her son as she puts things away in the fridge is a good example of this. Mics and mic packs appear in shot. At one point hanging out of Hargrave’s top and being clearly visible in her shorts. When the mic packs are not visible the sound quality takes a notable dip. On top of that, many of the scenes are dark beyond all comprehension or hidden behind the haze of far too much rain.

Obviously much of this movie was filmed in a pool. So, by the time the movie draws to a close, everyone looks varying degrees of miserable. I can’t even imagine how much of a stressful shoot this was. The director clearly doesn’t have a good handle on things and I imagine scenes were shot repeatedly. 

“Continuity is a big issue with things moving around between shots and retakes being messily edited together. Mics and mic packs appear in shot.”

The actors are constantly soaked while wearing little to nothing. I can only imagine the entire thing was a close brush with hypothermia. I would never judge the actors for the performances they put in here as making Swim must have absolutely sucked. It’s a bad movie, it is poorly made and it looks like the performers were aware of this fact as they made the movie.

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