The January curse continues with Killer Whale, a bafflingly unoriginal and wildly unconvincing tale of two women fighting for their lives against a murderous Orca. Creature features don’t necessarily have to feature realistic animals — the Sharknado series embraced purposely dodgy VFX, to huge success worldwide — but if the creature doesn’t sell us on the concept, then the characters and/or story must. The two lead performances in Killer Whale are strong, arguably too good for such an inept film, but there’s simply nowhere for these actors to go emotionally once their characters have been marooned on a rock together. It could almost be taken as a metaphor for how director Jo-Anne Brechin, who co-wrote the flimsy screenplay with Katharine McPhee (not that one, presumably), essentially boxes herself into a corner, which only further exposes the massive holes in the story alongside the laughably dodgy backdrop (more on that later).
A not-terrible cold open locates the action in an Orca-themed tourist attraction in Thailand, where the killer whale in question has been stuck for two decades. Recently, her baby died in mysterious circumstances, so now she’s pissed. Unsurprisingly, one of the two workers we meet casually chatting to each other in this opening sequence quickly perishes once she wades into the water to try to find the gigantic mammal. Immediately, this approach doesn’t bode well for what’s to come, not least because the movie is predominantly set out in the ocean rather than in this establishment itself. Was it too expensive to film there? Too awkward? It’s a bizarre decision that does nothing to convince us that anyone working on this ill-conceived movie knew what they were doing.
The focus then quickly switches to a diner where Maddie (Virginia Gardner, of Halloween and Fall fame) is closing up shop for the night alongside her blandly sweet boyfriend, Chad (Isaac Crawley), when an unmasked(!) man holds them up and, in the ensuing skirmish, Maddie suffers hearing damage and Chad is killed. Fast forward to a year later and Maddie’s BFF, Trish (Mel Jarnson, Mortal Kombat), shows up out of the blue to whisk her away for the trip of a lifetime to finally meet this Orca she’s been obsessed with forever. But Maddie is sad that the poor creature is still being kept in captivity. No matter, she’ll soon be free to seek her revenge! Under vague circumstances that are hand-waved away in a later scene, without any further explanation! It’s a crucial detail that, like so many plot points, is told rather than dramatized.
Eventually, these unlucky young women find themselves stuck on a piece of rock jutting up in the middle of the ocean, which immediately brings to mind The Shallows, a considerably more effective creature feature that Killer Whale apes in several notable ways, from the location to the injuries sustained by Maddie and Trish and how they tend to them, and even a subplot about Maddie potentially going back to school to finish her degree. It all speaks to how there isn’t a single original idea on display, while the decisions that were made are baffling in the extreme. Consider the fact that Killer Whale was filmed either in a tank, against a green-screen, or both. We never get a wide shot to showcase how far out to sea the protagonists supposedly are, and the weather is blindingly bright.
The CGI is routinely sloppy even if the Orca itself mostly looks fine. Clearly, Killer Whale was cheaply made, but again that isn’t always a bad thing. Horror filmmakers, in particular, know how to do a lot with a little, but there’s a distinct lack of ingenuity here that bleeds into everything from the pacing to the plotting to the characterizations. A twist midway through is simultaneously jarring and completely nonsensical, serving purely as a means to create dissension between Maddie and Trish when there’s really no need. Considering how well a movie like Hush utilized hearing impairment, it’s also disappointing that Maddie’s disability doesn’t play a bigger role. Unfortunately, Killer Whale frequently makes you wish you were watching a better movie, including Fall, in which Gardner’s character suffers the reverse of what happens to Maddie, since she’s playing the straight man here.
God bless the actor for selling this hokum so hard. Gardner is tasked with repeatedly delivering eyeroll-inducing lines like “you’re trapped too!” with a straight face and she rises to the occasion with aplomb, ably supported by Jarnson, even despite how she inexplicably has an accent sometimes and others does not. Neither performer has anything to be ashamed of; they do the best they can with what little they’ve got and they’re very watchable throughout. As for the Orca, its movements are distractingly shark-like, with the camera often adopting a POV shot from its fin as it goes on the prowl. The conservation message is strong, some might even say heavy-handed, especially compared to the recent Dangerous Animals. Obviously, we also fully support real-life whales attacking 50-ft yachts, which would have been a more interesting premise for the only other killer whale horror movie to date besides 1977’s controversial Orca, but I digress.
The trailer for Killer Whale went semi-viral thanks to some dodgy color-grading that made an especially bloody sequence look more like an unfortunate incident of explosive diarrhea. The moment in question is without a doubt the strongest, and most harrowing, in the entire film but the question of whether it feels earned remains. Brechin and McPhee seem unsure of how to end this enervating saga, with the denouement as confusingly presented onscreen as how the titular Orca is released in the first place. Maybe it doesn’t matter; this isn’t an especially involving or competently made movie and there’s little to distinguish it as a female-helmed project either (the leads spend most of their screen-time in bikinis), which is a real shame because women don’t typically get the opportunity to tackle creature features. The leads are great and the Orca doesn’t look as terrible as it could have, but the soundstage/green-screen stylings, muddled plotting, and confusing pacing, not to mention a complete lack of scares, make this one better left forgotten.
Killer Whale will be released In Theaters, On Demand, and On Digital January 16, 2026.
WICKED RATING: 4/10
Director(s): Jo-Anne Brechin
Writer(s): Jo-Anne Brechin, Katharine McPhee
Stars: Virginia Gardner, Mel Jarnson, Mitchell Hope
Release date: January 16, 2026
Language: English
Run Time: 89 minutes
