A daredevil group of young friends find themselves surrounded by a trio of fierce and frenzied man-eating great white sharks after the plane they were in crashes into the sea.

Director Jose Montesinos relates the gripping and enjoyable story at a zippy time, takes time to flesh out the characters, delivers some decent gore, and generates a good deal of pulse-pounding tension. Moreover, Aubrey Reynolds makes for an appealing and resourceful damsel in distress as the perky Lindsey while Gina Vitori lends sturdy support as Paige's spunky older sister Paige. However, the painfully cheap and unconvincing subpar CGI shark effects leave a lot to be desired. So overall a pretty good shark horror flick that could have benefitted from better special effects.

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of SyFy's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, SyFy do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

Am well aware, just to make things clear right now, that films like 'Frenzy' are not ones to be taken seriously, have been well versed enough seeing previous SyFy efforts to not expect that. Have seen my fair share of low-budget shark films, and any other kind of low-budget creature film, and will admit to finding some guilty fun in some of them (i.e. the first two 'Sharknado' films). There are definitely worse shark films than 'Frenzy', which for a SyFy shark film is borderline tolerable if still not good at all.

Some of the scenery is semi-decent but that is it in 'Frenzy's ' favour. Even that is wasted by that the rest of the production values are so poorly executed. The lead performances from Gina Vitori and especially Aubrey Reynolds are surprisingly credible.

The acting from everyone else is pretty poor, with the usual mix of overplaying and blandness. Any few attempts to develop the characters results in padded and pointless scenes, development is at best flimsy and it's all overwrought and does little to make the characters endearing or care or learn enough about them.

The execution of almost everything is severely underwhelming, not just being visually cheap and poorly acted and written even worse but what seemed like a decent, and fairly inventive for a SyFy shark film, idea was executed in typical SyFy shark film fashion, with no imagination whatsoever, everything is so ordinary, and only occasional splashes of fun.

Faring worse are the production values, story and writing. 'Frenzy', aside from the scenery, is drably shot and sloppily edited, but it's the truly abysmal special effects that are the worst. As the sharks were made on a low-budget it would have been forgiven a little if it was not great, but when the effects for the sharks look as if no effort was given in making them without looking so goofy and unfinished-looking that is hard to ignore or forgive.

Can say no better about the portrayal of the sharks either. They exude little personality either, no menace, not even any unintentional goofiness. Generally the attack scenes, apart from the odd mild amusement and moments of ferocity, are sloppily edited and devoid of suspense or sense of horror by holding very few surprises. Any gore is cheaply cartoonish and adds nothing, instead being gratuitous.

Writing ranges between incredibly bad to appalling. Any comedy is incredibly forced and is so cheesy it is enough to make the eyes roll in disbelief, while the more serious moments are very awkwardly written and as trite as anybody can possibly go, complete with some truly muddled jargon. The silliness goes well overboard as the film progresses and it becomes intelligence insulting even when one tries to take it for what it's trying to be.

Really wanted to like the story here because the concept was intriguing slightly, but while it starts nicely the further the film progresses the lazier, cheesier and more formulaic it gets, also making the mistake that most SyFy films make of trying so hard to be over the top and stupid but in a painfully predictable and less than fresh way that it becomes tiresome. With the psychological elements, it also tries to take itself seriously, but the credibility-straining and lack of sense makes it difficult to take it at face value and gives the impression the film was not sure what to do with itself. The stupidity gets stale quickly and the film is a little flabby pace-wise.

Summing up, lame but not a disaster. 3/10 Bethany Cox

SURROUNDED is your garden variety SyFy Channel shark flick, no different to a million others. It's not particularly bad - The Asylum it ain't - but it's also not particularly good either. What plays out is overly familiar and lacks in decent and likeable characters, leaving the experience a bit of a slog rather than a pleasure. This is a film aimed squarely at the Instagram generation, with a bunch of attractive but bland characters stranded at sea and surrounded by killer sharks. The direction isn't too shabby, but the constant flashbacks really break up the momentum and make it feel disjointed at times, and the CGI sharks look awful.