Shark Week: 24 Hours of the Best & Worst Sharks in Film, Part II
Shark Week is an ongoing, weekly series dedicated to the education and preservation of one of nature’s oldest, most efficiently evolved species.
Nah, just kidding. It’s about people getting eaten as fast as possible. Each week, I’ll be documenting my journey through 36 of the best and worst shark-based films Hollywood has to offer. I’ll watch each film at various playback speeds depending on how good or bad I expect that film to be. Consequently, my comprehension of the plots may vary but chances are there wasn’t much of one to begin with. Here we go again.
Last week left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Not that I don’t like watching bad movies; I’m a horror fan and that kinda comes with the territory. My problems lay squarely in the bastardization of one of the greatest movies of all time. This week is the point where I actually expected to get into the truly awful bottom-of-the-barrel movies, but you know what? I think things are about to look up.
#5: Shark Exorcist (2016) - Sp. 2.5x, Run - 28 min
dir. Donald Farmer
I’m not even going to try to understand what is happening in this picture. A nun is casting some sort of spell over the water because she’s looking for revenge, I think? She kills some girl and sacrifices her to the shark demon, which is a better-looking shark than the one from Jaws 3, and then basically we move on.
Three friends are looking for a good time at a water park when they realize they’re actually going to some municipal reservoir or something. Oops. Ali won’t be denied, though, because she’s here to have some fun, so she goes for a splash while her friends ignore her. They, meanwhile, are busy telling each other what good friends they are to Ali and so miss her getting chomped. She survives, though, and goes to the hospital. Meanwhile, a redhead clairvoyant investigator is faking her way through a career while some other girl is out to prove she’s a fraud.
At this point, I think Ali may actually be possessed by the shark, which makes me wonder about the title. I was expecting a priest/marine biologist to be exorcising demons out of sharks to stop them from eating people? I feel like a movie about exorcising a shark from a human body should be called Shark Exorcism, maybe. Not that semantics is a priority here. I digress. Ali is definitely the shark because she chomps a dude in a pool. Random witchcraft scene in a cemetery—how does this town have so many occultists? Also how many characters and plot threads are going on at this point? I’ve genuinely lost count.
There are multiple instances where the script calls for a girl to flirt with a guy and without fail, it amounts to poking each other a lot. I love it. This is the kind of thing I am here for. Of everything going on in this movie, this is where the gold is. If anyone is keeping track of Jaws puns, “We’re gonna need a bigger cross” isn’t the worst one I’ve heard. I don’t remember how the movie ends, but there are post-credit scenes, but I also don’t remember what those are. This movie is bad. Very bad. But to its credit, it’s not Jaws 3-D so.
#6: Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2015) - Sp. 2.5x, Run - 33 min
dir. Jim Wynorski
I feel like I’m beginning to hit my groove. I can’t imagine a world where a movie called Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre disappoints. The titular penitentiary is small. So small it could be mistaken for a state park ranger’s office, and sure enough, just behind the correctional officer you can catch the going rate for a campsite at this particular facility. Still, SWPM boasts the best-looking shark in this marathon since Jaws 2. I’m not kidding.
The villain here is a fracking company, which inadvertently releases a prehistoric beast from...somewhere? Luckily for us, those frackers are the first to go when they get T-boned on the way to Miller Time. Again, I’m not kidding. They are on their way to Miller Time. Meanwhile, a chain gang from the prison makes their charming appearance ready for a hard day’s work, only taking one quick slow motion water break/wet T-shirt contest. One of the prisoners is allowed to wander off by herself because they don’t run too tight a ship and consequently, she gets chomped.
On the way back to the prison after the missing woman is presumed to have escaped, the van is ambushed by an actual attempt at a prison break, leading me to believe this prison isn’t all that secure. The conspirators force the rest of the gang to come with them as they make their escape, some confusion ensues, and one of the guards escapes the prison escape and promptly gets himself chomped. A pair of FBI agents investigating some deaths get into a stone-faced discussion of pop art in the form of a glass Coca-Cola bottle that will one day look great in the agent’s minibar.
Back at the fugitive’s hideout, they find a copy of A Tale of Two Cities, the sole intention being the repurposing of the opening line. This stuff is gold. Another of the prisoners goes for a stroll and shamelessly breathes visible breath, making me question whether or not they are actually in Arkansas. For this and other crimes, she is pursued on a brief chase before being chomped. The FBI agents find some clues, the prisoners bicker around and then big reveal, that one from before actually crawled her one-legged self back to the hideout before biting the big one! So now they all know something is up and Big Red, mastermind of the jailbreak, decides they need to go out and investigate rather than getting out of dodge. Some leaps of logic give them the evidence they need before capturing a pair of geologists who are more than happy to explain everything they know, which is everything.
Now everyone is realizing they gotta jet but they find out that the sharks (there’s more than one now) aren’t restricted to water (shallow or otherwise) because they are actually graboids and no one is safe on open soil. Mulder and Scully are having a snack when they get a call from -ohmygodthesharkisoutside- their supervisor about a lead and they leave to check it out. Having the shark show up undetected in the background was an unnecessary detail that most filmmakers wouldn’t have bothered with, so I appreciate that. Content with giving these investigators no more than a single short scene in a row, it’s time to check in on the hideout where they are creating an elaborate human-blood-and-gunpowder mannequin to lure the sharks in before escaping out the back. This—the only logical thing they could do at this point—only sorta works and one of the geologists gets chomped. He does get a nice eulogy from one of the women, though: “He gave his life,” to which the guard responds, “I know.” Touching!
They descend into a cave system that has a convenient footpath along with accent lamps, so eventually they explain there’s phosphorus in the limestone. Good enough for me. A surprising amount of runtime passes before they find an exit and are able to float to safety in an inflatable raft from the prehistoric sharks that wreck Jeeps and swim through solid earth. I’ve spent way too much time on this movie already. But I am considering going back and watching it at normal speed, full disclosure.
#7: Jurassic Shark (2012) - Sp. 3x, Run - 29 min
dir. Brett Kelly
First of all, huge missed opportunity here as Jurassic Shark ISN’T actually a copy/paste plot from Jurassic Park, rather we again must contemplate industrial deregulation because as the lovechild of Christopher Lloyd and Woody Harrelson says in the beginning of the movie, “It’s just water!” But seriously, I would have been all on board with a story about reconstituting ancient shark DNA for use in a theme park.
Instead, a pair of local beach-goers ignore the sound of an explosion and go for a dip. After the longest, least effective splash battle in history, both women get chomped by an unseen beast. After two-and-a-half minutes of opening credits pad out the run time, we’re introduced to the bad guys. How do we know they’re the bad guys? They’re all dressed in black and wear only scowls. Also one of their first lines is “Oh man, oh man, the cops.” These guys are fresh off a big painting heist, and their only chance of escape is crossing a lake with their loot wrapped in a tarp. Everything is going great until the boat capsizes and the painting sinks to the bottom of the lake. I’m sure it’s fine, though, so they start hatching a plan to get it back.
Enter the good guys. Four pals on a mission to expose illegal drilling on the island, I think? The whole plan is Jill’s brainchild. It seems like the others just want to have some fun, but Jill lays down the law: “This isn’t a day at the beach,” she says, unpacking the tent from the car in her swimsuit. Hang on a second. Are they on an island or a lake? We’ve been told both.
The bad guys are pretty sure they know exactly where the painting is laying so they make their first attempt at Operation Sharkbait and we get our first look at the creature when Jerry gets chomped, just a few steps from shore. They’re going to need a different approach. Lucky for them, the good guys get knocked out of their boat so they have a fresh crop of hostages to force out into the water. Except Mike. Mike gets chomped.
The whole crew goes on a long walk in the woods together and come across a bloody Christowood Harrelloyd, who survived the explosion in the beginning. It turns out that under his lab coat, he’s representing a bar called Hogsback or something? The bad guys promptly send him to the fishes. Send the next one in. Oh god, they’ve escaped! A chase ensues! Some killer slow motion fight choreography ends in the water and now this is a convincing splash battle.
Their new plan involves chasing the shark away with dynamite while they swim 100 yards out and down to the exact spot where the painting lays. The remaining good guys need a plan, so they feign exhaustion, then distract the dynamite guy so he blows up. Two left. Except this guy is about to get chomped. One left. Plot twist, the shark leaps over the good guys and chomps the last bad guy and somehow turns around and lands in the water it just leaped from. Then, in the most suicidal plan ever, Jill wades out into the water as live bait so that Tia can toss a lit stick of dynamite into the shark’s mouth before it can chomp Jill, despite having two perfectly good disembodied leg stumps from the baddie. But who am I to judge because it works. Game over, right? Wrong! We get a whole scene of a random perv ogling his buddy’s stepdaughter just to introduce the idea that the shark spawned. It’s okay, though. They get thoroughly chomped.
#8: 47 Meters Down (2017) - Sp. 1x, Run - 1:28
dir. Johannes Roberts
I think the only reason I’m watching this at normal speed is because the sequel is coming out this year. Depending on how the rest of this challenge goes will determine whether or not I see that. So first of all, a bit over the top with the red drink spilling into the pool, guys. Come on now, have some self-respect. I do have to say, watching a movie with a budget for a change is a real treat. This isn’t actually a bad setup. There’s a pair of sisters on vacation, and one breaks down because her boyfriend left her for being boring. Cue her attempts to win him back on social media by getting hard out of her comfort zone.
No judgment, but I’ve got all sorts of alarms going off when they decide to take a private diving tour with some shady dudes they met at the club. Ladies. At least they acknowledge how sketchy the equipment looks; not that it stops them from going down. Once they’re in the cage, though, it dawns on me: This whole premise is terrifying. I mean, being down there is one thing, but from the point of view of the sister who doesn’t know how to dive? Unbelievable.
I love how they lose that guy’s camera in seconds. Weirdly, the camera ends up being the shark’s first victim. Oh God, the winch slipping. Do those things not have some sort of safety? Shouldn’t they? Why isn’t there a second point of contact?
After we get used to the situation we kind of reach the limit of the story. The second act is a serious weak point here, loaded with a ton of unnecessary dialogue. They do a hell of a lot of shark dodging which...I’m not sure is a thing. Seriously, is this how sharks act? The writers get points for ingenuity but really not much else. The twist towards the end is pretty transparent, but it does give it a dark finale that I can appreciate. But I still won’t be rushing out to see 47 Meters Down: Uncaged anytime soon.
article written by ande thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
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