Sans Peter Gabriel. Sadly.
It’s worth noting right away that you might already have seen this, it’s Trailer Park Shark, retitled as Shark Shock for the UK DVD release i bought. I would lament about the dvd cover (shown above) being false adverting, but there are jet skis and trailers in the movie, water though is far from crystaline since it takes place (and is filmed) in Lousiana, with waters as murky and brown as you can get.
Though the retitling isn’t complete deceit, as the shark does shock, yeah, it’s hit with a “thunder lance” or something and somehow this makes it able to generate EMP blast shochwaves. Sadly, i’m overselling it, because you’d think a “EMP shark” would at least make for a decent trashy ride, but the level of incompetence on display is so huge that the shark doesn’t even use it to directly hunt the obtuse redneck caricatures that make up the character buffet. The best the script can muster in utilising this ability is a desperate, pathetic attempt at comedy.
Then again, it’s the kind of script written so sloppily that it forgets to explain how a frigging shark arrived there in the first place, waiting for someone to break the leeve so he can enter the bayou. The plot summary on IMDB says because of a tropical storm, but this isn’t simply explained at all in the actual movie, as the shark is already swimming in the nearby waters before, and the storms hitting the place are some of worst filmed i’ve ever seen, so much i kinda expected to see the sprinkler’s operator appearing from a side of the frame like the boom mic in Dolemite.
Plot is about a community of trailer park dwelling hillbillies, with the protagonist trying to get some free energy for everyone in the park, and a rich asshole that wants them off his property, so he hires goons to explode the levee and flood the entire trailer park, passing it for an incident. But the aforementioned shark is here to feast on these people, and could care less about the social status of his soon-to-be forgettable luncheons.
The characters are all exaggerated redneck caricatures, with the old jolly bearded coot, the cowboy-ish dude with the horse, etc. but not particularly offensive… apart from Cleon, the religiousesque black man that somehow looks dressed for a minstrel show. I don’t think it’s offensive, but it’s just so fuckin farcical it stands out. Acting is the typical rubbish you’d expect, the cast is made up of people you’ve never seen… or so i was gonna say, but we have James Clint (The Magnificent Seven, The Oath tv series), David Kallaway (Logan, Green Book, a small part in The Big Short) slumming the awful script.
And of course, Tara Reid (which on the back of the box isn’t even called by her character name, Billie Jean), and you know exactly why she’s here. Typecasting at its “finest”, so much that in a scene she wields a chainsaw and tries to fight the shark with it. But because she isn’t Ian Zearing ( i guess), it doesn’t work.
Shark itself at least it’s textured and “shiny”, yet another crap CG shark for the pile, another one. Actually, digital effects are crappier than usual , with the shark that doesn’t seem to actually make contact with anything it bites or touches. I mean, yeah, of course it actually doesn’t, but at least you gotta try to create the illusion.
At the least they created a somewhat acceptable dorsal fin with practical effects, but then again, most of the kills are bloodless, so there’s that.
Funnily enough, this movie stars in media res, but it takes only 15 minutes for the narrative to catch up with the plot, which is a senseless way to stretch the thing to 81 minutes, as you could cut most of these exposition scenes and lose very little – if nothing – of value. Especially since the dialogues are crap, some of the accents are thick so (as a non-native english speaker) it’s hard to get every stupid said by the actors. But then again i could (and will) sum up dialogue by noting they do a “That’s what she said”… joke, i guess we can call it a joke.
In conclusion, it’s not one of the worst, it has some funny bits, but i struggle to even call it “kinda watchable”, it tries i guess, but unless you’re an expert in garbage cinema scuba diving and are in mood for crap like this (without being too masochistic)… i won’t bother. Just watch the trailer on Youtube and call it a day, even you love “dumpster diving” in this z-grade sphere of cinema, there’s better trash out there.
Still less boring than Ice Sharks, but still…
It’s just about what you might expect from Griff Furst, director of Maskerade/Mask Maker, Ghost Shark, Nightmare Shark, Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators, and something called Arachnoquake, because Phantom from Devil May Cry needed another gig.
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