Title engineering is the heart of shlock, it was so in the 50s and it didn’t really change much, just got worse, in an oversaturated ocean that somehow finds lube for another pile of shark movies, and among the endless waves of those, there certainly was one called 2 Headed Shark Attack… and also called Monster Shark Attack, this movies can’t have just a single title, apparently.
You already know if you’re in by the tone you’re reading the title.
So yeah, it’s a two headed shark, like a shark variant of Orthrus from greek mithology, and the infamous experiment of russian surgeon Vladimir Demikhov, who actually made two-headed dogs.
If you expect the movie to make some reference to any of the two things i mentioned, you’re dreaming. As to “why” it has two heads on a single body, it because it can eat two people and raise the body count quicker… that’s it, because it has double the teeth. We never get an explanation to why it exist, just a passing line on genetic defects, not that an explanation is needed, but it would have been nice to see the screenwriter try.
So, yeah, two heads on one shark. Yuppie. It doesn’t double the budget for sure, but it can’t be 90 minutes of watching said Maxibon-shark existing in a water tank, i’m pretty sure that there are some stupid and/or despicable characters we can feed to him. And we’re in luck. Mild luck, though, they are just students, having an improbable vacation-school on boat called Semester At Sea (because in these movies is always Spring Break, in a way or another), they get attacked by our titular shark and the surviving clichès take refuge on an atoll nearby, just to find out that is slowly sinking. And the shark is still hungry, lying in wait, because he also has nothing better than do or eat.
the cast is the typical hotchpotch of B-list celebrities and people that in 2012 had to say yes to The Asylum, no Eric Roberts this time, we have Christina Bach (Homeland), Carmen Electra (American Pie, many of the “Movie” movies), Chris O’ Connel (The Bachelor) and has Brooke Hogan, the daughter of Hulk “everybody forgot when i was a blatant racist” Hogan, seen previously in Sand Sharks, and other people mostly having career in tv series, and with previous experience in shark shlock like Super Shark.
Directed by Christopher Douglas- Olen Ray (often just credited as Christopher Ray), and yes, if that surname sound familiar, it’s because he’s the son of genre legend Fred Olen Ray, and a director of many b-movies on his own right, starting with mostly shark movies and SyFy originals like Shark Week the same year, two movies in the Mega Shark series, Asteroid VS Earth, finding time in recent years to even dip his toes in the “christmas genre”, the cinema meta-comedy with Dick Dickster, and with an upcoming sci-fi TV series, FraXtur, due 2020-21.
It has most of the “classics”: some of the actors being too old to be in college like the rest of the bikini clad and swim trunks equipped popolus, characters that don’t even need a name because “the jock” or “the nerd” will do (most of them won’t make it past the half-hour mark anyway), the shark eats some people at the beginning in a scene that only exists to let you know there is a shark. And to pad this thing to 90 minutes, along with tits, inane dialogue and senseless backstories with no point, mediocre editing with a knick for uncalled for combos of wipes and transitions, etc.
The CG for the shark is shit (and the attemps to edit live action with PS1 era cutscene quality CG is.. far from seamless), exactly in the way you expect it to be, but on the upside they had to made some practical effects for the close ups, so you get a bit of rubber sharks, it’s more effort than usual for The Asylum…. which is something, not a feature worthy of praise, but definitely something.
You know, if i was a complete hack, i could have made a complete review just by reading the synopsis and looking at stillshots without watching the movie. But since i was quarantined and bored to death, i did watch it, and yeah, i really could have made a review on it without bothering to watch it, and… is digestible, at least it knows to make things happen, to keep a basic modicum of “excitement” so you don’t get superbored superfast, it’s not the absolute slog you’d imagine, thanks to the shark being present and active a lot more than usual for these movies, and there is a good amount of gore. Budget gore, but still, you kinda have to take what you can with these movies.
Yeah, you already know exactly how things are gonna pan out from the synopsis, you really can “foresee” it all in your mind, but all things considered, 2-Headed Shark Attack turns out to be more watchable than expected, perfectly fine for a junk movie night with buddies and some liquor, at the very least good for a laugh or two before you forgot about it entirely. Which isn’t the norm, as shark movies buffs know too damn well.
Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray and the shark will be back with the first “sequel”, 3 Headed Shark Attack, coming next!
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