Welcome to the confusingly titled (at this point i think on purpose) 4th entry in the “n-Headed Shark Attack” series. By this time even the Leprechaun series went to space (and to Las Vegas), but nope, this entry makes the multi-headed shark crash a couples rehab camp. No, not in an Octodad style, with the shark in a suit preteding to be human. I would have liked the effort, if anything.
Instead here the shark just has 6 heads, and it goes after a group of people attending one of those “phones away, and far from civilization” camps, to mend relationships, done in a co-op survival challenge way, in this case in Isla Corazon. I’d wish people that make synopsis of these movies on IMDB actually watched these movies, but whatever.
Unlike most of the previous movies, here the prologue (relating a “Graduation Party” held in 1984 on a floating mini-laboratory) isn’t as random and pointless to the plot as it usually is, it isn’t just for letting you know there a shark with a certain number of heads, in case you don’t believe a movie called 6 Headed Shark Attack has a six-headed shark that attacks. Here it leads to something (despite being very badly set up), but it’s done in order to avoid the usual feasting of the shark on random unrelated characters in another location. Which is lazier than usual, even for these movies.
While this decision isn’t the sole cause of the first 30 minutes being an almost indigestibile clump of irritating douchebags… it doesn’t help, because you get another batch of cretins and detestable stereotypes, herded together by the camp counselor/couch, who gets all the crumbs of nuance, since it’s (ironically) a recently divorced man, the rest just character traits such as “the bitch”, “the dark web hippie conspiracy devout”, with juvenile comedy and stuff that falls into the category of “jokes”.
But i do like some of the acting, especially Jonathan Pienaar as the old, salty crazy dude who wants to hunt the shark, the discount Tom Waits-Charles Manson-Quint hybrid, who talks through his teeth, he’s great. XD And Cord Newman as the dude who looks and is so fuckin done with all this shit, that’s a whole mood right there. The rest of cast is mostly made of other Asylum recurrent players, with the exception of Brandon Auret (Elysium, Chappie, District 9) and Chris Fisher (Black Sails). Then again, the aforementiond Jonathan Pienaar was in Blood Diamond and the Cape Town TV series, and this didn’t stop him (or others) from working with the Asylum again.
Here i could describe some of the scenes, but there’s no point, you can make most of the script via a “shitty shark movie madlibs machine”, or just predict it, it’s the same old shit, and i don’t mean this in a necessarily positive way, it’s tiring and boring to even mock. So let’s talk about the shark, you’re here for the shark anyway, and if anything, this so far has the funniest use of the gimmicky hydra-headed carcharodon carcharias, gifted with the ability to regenerate heads, as already established in previous movies.
Not just because it’s even goofier with his 6 heads, and you wonder how it can even swim, incumbered as it is, but because, 1 hour in, you see the shark walk in-land (not straddling itself on the beach), using some of the heads to move like a scorpion or crab, when it doesn’t just rips off an injured head and uses it as a projectile weapon to snipe a sniper on top of a lighthouse (eat it, Robert Eggers). The fact that this isn’t just a 5 seconds thing ALMOST makes it all worth it, as this is the stuff of “trash super heaven”, alongside one of the most obvious continuity errors i’ve ever seen, laughable and embarassing even for an Asylum production.
Despite the issues (and overall quality), director Mark Atkins manages to cook up a slighly better movie than 5 Headed Shark Attack, on par with 3 Headed Shark Attack or a lil better, if that means anything. No sequel bait of any kind this time, we’ll have to wait some more for 7 Headed Shark Attack: Whore Of Babylon, or Yamata-No-Orochi, for a kaiju flavored flick!
Wise Cafe (International) 