David R. Ellis's dimensionally enhanced thriller doesn't knock off Jaws so much as it reconfigures Deliverance, with a slight nod to Friday the 13th. The sharks have less bite than the demented rubes who torment seven nubile coeds (a/k/a shark bait) out in the remote nowhere of the Louisiana bayou. How did a fleet of ferocious finned carnivores wind up in a lake, even one that's salt water? That question doesn't provide as much to chew on as the film's depiction of Southern-style town-versus-gown dynamics. All such fine points, however, disintegrate into a digital feeding frenzy — and not a very good one at that. Ellis, who made a splash with the equally formulaic if wittily titled Snakes on a Plane, wallows in B-roll clichés. The one name actor of the lot, Donal Logue, adds a pinch of quixotic charm as the yahoo sheriff — until, that is, he gets a little too chummy with the big fish.
