Killer Whale review – watery peril horror turns captive orca into angry BFF-threatener
Sharks have had plenty of airtime in horror/thriller movies, so on some level it’s refreshing when a film points the finger in a different aquatic direction: step (or swim) forward, the killer whale. Unfortunately Ceto, the cetacean villain of the piece, isn’t enough of a presence here to make the film much more than briefly diverting – it never approaches the terror of a serious landmark movie such as Jaws, nor the ridiculous deliciousness of a silly but thrilling movie like Deep Blue Sea. For the most part, it’s actually a relationship drama between two BFFs, albeit two BFFs stranded on a rock in their bikinis and hoping not to be eaten.
Maddie (Virginia Gardner) is introduced as a waitress/cellist with big ambitions for her musical career, until a robbery at her diner robs her of her hearing and also dream man, Chad (Isaac Crawley). A year later, she’s recuperating on a restorative vacay with college friend Trish (Mel Jarnson), a beautiful social media influencer studying gene editing for her PhD. Apparently, killer whale Ceto is something of a touchstone for Maddie and Chad, and Maddie is cross to discover that Trish has planned for Maddie to visit Ceto in captivity at a waterpark. However, after the girls meet Josh (Mitchell Hope) and get drunk, the trio agree to break into the waterpark to say howdy.
To cut a long story short, they end up marooned on a rock in the middle of the ocean with an angry killer whale between them and safety. There is some fun to be had with lines such as “Maddie, don’t, that’s Chad’s cremation stone box”, and the film piques a certain sense of curiosity as to how the pair will or won’t make it out of the situation, even if there’s not enough dramatic heft here to make you actually care what happens to them. On the horror front there are a few problems, not least the extremely limited amount of characters. A small cast means there are only a few kills on the cards, so the characters’ drama has to sustain our interest between the set pieces – a task with which it unfortunately struggles. There are a couple of decent plot twists and reveals, but not enough to stop you from checking out until the next bit with the whale comes up.
