PIKE

"We're gonna need a bigger plate."

I saw a couple of kids fishing near a bridge by Stroud canal Sunday afternoon and asked them if they’d caught anything. They hadn’t, but they told me excitedly that they’d seen several pike swimming close by in the reeds. I asked them what would happen if they actually caught one—would it bite? Would their lines snap?

They weren’t sure, but they seemed fascinated by the prospect—like a younger version of Captain Quint and Matt Hooper in Spielberg’s Jaws.

That got me thinking: maybe it’s about time we had the Jaws equivalent for pike. Since then, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a canal-themed horror movie featuring these spike-toothed fish—and what it might look like.

According to IMDB there is a new completed short called 'Pike' (2025) about a couple of kids who try and catch a mythical pike in their local pond but as it hasn't been released just yet I'll continue to riff on my own hypothetical version. I'm sure theirs will be much more mature than my trash popcorn approach.

I believe all you really need for this to work is a quiet English canal, a few unsuspecting anglers, and a predator with teeth like broken glass. The movie could open with a father teaching his young son to fish on a Sunday afternoon, with disappointing results. The bobber drifts. The boy waits. Nothing bites—until he suddenly feels a strong tug on his line.

Excitement turns to horror as a mutant monster pike erupts from the murky water, thrashing in a frenzy. It quickly becomes clear the boy's hooked onto something much bigger than he can chew, and in the chaos the child's foot is torn open. The father, panicked and furious, beats the beast back with his shoe.

But the damage is done. The boy is scarred. The father swears vengeance.
He will catch it. He will kill it. He will fry it.

Word spreads quickly through the canal-side towns: a bounty is declared. Suddenly, the banks swarm with rods, nets, and rival anglers—each one hungry for glory (and maybe a little revenge of their own). But this is no ordinary fish. It’s faster, meaner, and hungrier than anything that’s ever taken bait.

And so it begins.

An obsession with revenge—and all that it en(tails).

The lines are cast. The competition begins. And in the reeds, the pike waits.

I’ll admit it may need a little more flesh on the bone, but I reckon this could be the next Piranha—if not quite scaling (pun intended) the heights of Jaws.

I’ve even got the theme song for it.