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The plot is a shameless ripoff of Fatal Attraction, WB-style. Ben Cronin is a high school senior who has it all: A hot girlfriend, an athletic scholarship that will send him to the Olympics, and even a bad boy past that makes him irresistible to stupid teenage girls. Since he's also horny and looks like Jesse Bradford, he decides to throw it all away by boinking the new girl in school, "Madison Belle," the minute she gets off of the bus. (Seriously, a character in this movie is actually named "Madison Belle.") But it seems Ben has picked the wrong girl to mess around with, as little Maddy is not all that she seems. What's a girl in love supposed to do when her man dumps her? Not since bunny boiling became a national pastime has lovestruck obsession been this must fun.

I found a lot to love in Swimfan. Since the story is completely predictable even if you've never seen Fatal Attraction, you can just sit back and enjoy the cliches. The film looks great, all the teens are hot in that barely-legal-but-they-still look-like-kiddie- porn sorta way, and I even liked the inane nu-metal soundtrack. Director John Polson doesn't seem to have any idea of what he's doing, but it only adds to the train-wreck hilarity. I defy anyone to argue away the warm and fuzzy feeling of the never-ending stream of dialogue howlers, all of which seem to include the word "love." "She doesn't love you like I do, Ben!" Madison screams incessantly, "No one will ever love you like I love you!" Wait, she can't stop: "You love me, Ben, I know it! Youuuu loovveee meeeeeee!" (Note to Erika Christensen: Get a new agent, lest you end up in Swimfan 2.)

Alright, alright, I know it probably seems like I'm being too hard on Swimfan. But hopefully anyone reading this who might be remotely related to this movie will realize that it is all done out of love. Someone once said that they'd rather see a movie that tries to be good than one that that can't help but be bad, but I dunno. I think the world needs bad movies like Swimfan. They're fun, endlessly quotable and remind us of why our lives aren't nearly as tragic as those who get stuck in bad movies like this. For those who diss Swimfan, I say you just don't understand what's so great about bad cinema. I weep for you.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Lame movie, nice transfer. (Is this a trend?) Fox Home Entertainment has elected to include both 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and a poorly cropped 4:3 full screen version of the movie here, split across a double-sided disc. Alas, each side is only single-layer and both versions include extras, so I wonder if some of the problems present couldn't have been solved if they just dropped the full screen version altogether? In any case, both look quite good if far from perfect.

Befitting a dumb MTV movie running low on borrowed style, the film relies heavily on filters and pumped-up contrast. The print is pristine and colors nicely rendered, but for some reason much of the film is seen through green filters, giving everyone that pasty I'm-about-to-throw-up Exorcist look that isn't particularly appealing. While blacks are dead on, contrast is a bit overdone; detail suffers in the darkest scenes, and overall the transfer looks soft. Often a low bitrate results in a lack of definition and sharpness, which may be the culprit here. I also noticed a slight bit of haloing in the image, although compression artifacts are not a problem. Overall, pretty good, but not superior.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Also not quite reference-quality is the included Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. It's certainly topnotch in terms of dynamic range, as the soundtrack is filled with nice and warm highs (especially the all-too-brief cello interludes) and some powerful low bass. However, the mix feels very front heavy with little rear presence. I liked the sense of separation across the front channels (even if the music is balanced a bit too loudly in the mix) but the surrounds should have been much more prominent. As it is, not bad, but not a knockout, either.

Also included are French and Spanish 2.0 surround dubs, English and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

In the grand tradition of bad movies that get more supplements than they deserve, we now present to you Swimfan! Fox Home Entertainment has sported for a nice little shower cap full of extras, obnoxiously split across two sides of the disc.

First up is the new screen-specific audio commentary with director John Polson and actors Jesse Bradford and Erika Christensen, which is available on either the widescreen or full screen versions. I gotta hand it to the DVD format; since it has gone mainstream, it seems every movie gets a commentary now, no matter how stupid. But as much fun as this bad movie is, so is this bad movie commentary. All three seem to love this "genius" movie, and Polson takes it absolutely seriously. I genuinely admired the enthusiasm of all three (even if Christensen's puzzling interjections rarely seem to have anything to do with the movie), so fans should love this. Polson is informative on some of the tech aspects of the flick, but the real joy here is laughing at how silly they all sound discussing this one as if it is high art. Quite amusing.

Up next are no less than 10 deleted scenes (on the widescreen side only), although most are mere scene extensions. Since nothing in the film is very good, don't expect the deleted scenes to be very good, either. Polson, Bradford and Christensen all come back to provide commentary, but the quality isn't up to snuff. All are presented in non-anamorphic widescreen and look like they were taken directly from the AVID output.

Flip the disc over on the full screen side and you'll find the appropriately-titled The Girlfriend from Hell. This 10-minute full frame featurette is pure fluff, but it's quite funny. The production value is shoddy; it looks like it was shot on a 20 year-old VHS camcorder, and features all the main cast and crew discussing their "method." At least this time they admit it is just a Fatal Attraction ripoff, but geesh do they take their camp seriously!

Rounding out the Swimfan experience is a theatrical trailer for the upcoming thriller 28 Days Later. Oddly, no trailers or TV spots are included for Swimfan.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts