‘Killer Whale’ Review

Stars: Virginia Gardner, Mel Jarnson, Mitchell Hope, Ron Smyck, Mia Grunwald, Aliandra Calabrese, Isaac Crawley, Scott James George | Written by Jo-Anne Brechin, Katharine McPhee | Directed by Jo-Anne Brechin

When Jaws hit cinemas, it unleashed an entire wave of aquatic imitators, from sharks to piranhas and just about everything in between. Oddly, despite Orca being one of the better-known spin-offs, killer whales have largely stayed out of the animal-attack spotlight. Killer Whale, directed and co-written by Jo-Anne Brechin, attempts to correct that — and while it has moments, it ultimately feels like a missed opportunity.

The story follows two female friends on a getaway designed to help one of them cope with the loss of her boyfriend. Their trip places them near a SeaWorld-style attraction that has quietly dumped a captive orca, responsible for previous deaths, back into the ocean. Unfortunately for our leads, they end up trapped in a circular rocky outcrop with the very same animal. What follows is a Shallows-style survival setup, with an orca that has understandable reasons for holding a grudge against humanity.

The performances are solid enough, and the film does succeed at times in making the orca feel threatening, helped by its vocalisations and the inherent intelligence of the species. There’s also a commendable attempt to inject empathy into the creature, even highlighting the real-world fact that wild orcas have no recorded fatal attacks on humans.

Where Killer Whale falls apart is in execution. The visual effects are ropey, but worse are the fake-looking virtual backgrounds, which are on display far more often than the orca itself. The dialogue is clunky and overly expositional, the plot is painfully predictable, and the script is riddled with logic gaps that are hard to ignore. Most frustratingly, the film never truly exploits what makes a killer whale more interesting than a shark: intelligence.

There’s some entertainment value here if you approach Killer Whale as a flawed, slightly goofy watch, but this is far from a standout entry in the animal-attack genre.

**½  2.5/5

Killer Whale was released in the US on January 16th. There’s no currently scheduled release for the film here in the UK.