You'd think that a direct-to-video monster flick from the director of the disastrous Spawn movie wouldn't be worth spit, surprisingly enough you'd be wrong as Frankenfish turns out to be a pretty snappy 84 minutes of entertainment that turned out much better than it has any real right to.

Medical examiner Sam Rivers (Tory Kittles) is sent into a small swamp-side town after a fisherman gets killed while out on the water (shown to us in a typical fashion as the angler leans over the edge of the boat to check his traps and is dragged into the murky deaths to his doom). He has to team-up with biologist Mary Callahan (China Chow) and together they have to investigate to find out what kind of creature was responsible.

This leads them deep into the bayou where they stumble across various clues and start to take a liking to one another. Their research leads them to a far-flung community of houseboats located deep within the swamps where they have to team-up with the eccentric residents when it turns out it's all the work of a genetically engineered northern snakehead (a combination, it looks like, of a crocodile and piranha) that's taken to picking them off one-by-bloody-one.

Frankenfish could have easily been another boring creature feature (sort of like all the ones the Sci-Fi Channel cranks out) and once director Mark Dippe calms down on the unnecessary camera movements of the first fifteen minutes it really starts to gather steam. The script by Simon Barrett and Scott Clevenger actually does a good job of defining the characters and building up good relationships between the residents of the houseboats (almost every character here is likeable), but it also doesn't forget to pile-on generous amounts of blood and skin.

In fact, the script is one of the biggest "pluses" going for the movie as it's better written than most other films of this type and despite a slender subplot involving some shady business types hunting it down (which is forgotten for most of the mid-section before showing back up to explain just why the beast is loose) and a finale that feels a bit too rushed, it's a decently written flick that knows its limits and has fun with them.

Another drawing card for Frankenfish has to be the various monster attacks as they offer some mild excitement as people are beheaded, thrown into the giant fan on the back of a fan boat, and munched on. There's also a surprisingly unexpected death which, unfortunately, is followed by a scene that contains a bit too much coincidence.

Dippe keeps things moving, the acting is all-around solid, the last shot amused the Hell out of me (and, of course, sets up a sequel), and I enjoyed my time with the movie - which is a relief since this was my second "bayou horror" in the past few months (the other being the shoddy Man-Thing). (Chris Hartley, 1/16/06)

Directed By: Mark Dippe.
Written By: Simon Barrett, Scott Clevenger.

Starring: Tory Kittles, K.D. Aubert, China Chow, Matthew Rauch.