Yeah, we got to the point of having reality show licenses for an otherwise random crap shark movie, but if Coronation Street got a videogame, MTV’s Jersey Shore can have a shark movie…. actually no, it’s not endorsed by MTV, for some reason, this is a perfect match in trash heaven, and it’s not like MTV it’s above stuff like this.
But it isn’t, so they couldn’t use the names or the nicknames from the show, but that means nothing to me. Due to cultural osmosis (mostly forced, but whatever) i know it’s like The Big Brother but even more trashy – somehow – and taking place in New Jersey, but all i knew about it was that there’s a girl called “Snooki” in it, and it’s a reality show… that’s it. Doesn’t help that most of the things i know about New Jersey (not much) i learned by watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
So i was fully expecting to see Carl show up, somehow, but it doesn’t happen.
What does happen is exactly what you would expect from the title and even -barely – surface level knowledge of the show, as in there a lot of obnoxious, douchy and bitchy italo-american stereotypes, the jocks going around in a t-shirt, the country club snobs wearing ascotts, and the kind of farcical stereotypes you’d expect from such a movie.
Ah yes, the plot. A rare kind of albino sharks (with red eyes, of course) is attracted to the New Jersey shores due to the vibrations caused by underwater drilling, the “broski gang” discovers this, tries to warn the authorities, but due their previous run-ins with the law and a corrupt major, nobody wants to hear it, especially on the 4th of July.
Oddly, this isn’t even that bad of a script, as in they actually explain things, why they happened before (via the old bartender becoming the italo-american Quint), and why they are happening again, and the shark doesn’t just comes out because something daintly touched the ocean floor and asked politely. The dialogue on the other hand is what you’d expect, with a couple of “fuggettabbouit”, a “bada bing”, and what i guess are some regional New Jersey jokes.
Most incredible things aren’t the sharks, is that somehow one of the “italo-americano gym band” knows the verb “pontificate”. Also, i love how the very small name changes granted us with a character called “Nooki”, because we really can’t get rid of that legendary terrible E.T. rip-off, even if this film lacks talking monkeys, aliens and african villages. And a moonlight “dance” to challenge Uhura’s distraction from Star Trek 5.
On the technical side, it’s a fairly low budget dealio, what you’d expect from a movie like this, but not THAT low budget. The CG sharks look like shit, somehow even more than usual, not just for the CG “quality”, but because they look goofy as hell, i think it’s on purpose. The practical effects are even worse, but it’s hard to tell – almost impossible with this modern breed of shark movies – if it was intentional to make the practical gore (and the couple of shark puppet props) look like ass.
And you can spot some errors easily, like in some shots a person bleeds underwater before they get chomped at, but it adds to the trash factor, and there are some funny moments, like the protagonists throwing a Capn Crunch bar at the shark or them managing to actually kill one with fireworks.
Jersey Shore Shark Attack is actually enjoyable, crappy, but entertaining, it know exactly what it is and sells itself as, doesn’t try to hide its trashiness, actually owns and revels in it, but also remembers to have shit happen, aside having douchebags eaten by sharks and the usual shark movie bullshit, like the false alarm of the shark being caught, and a ferris wheel killing people because Sharknado did it before.
It’s kinda insane how there are many FAR, FAR worse shark movies around. And somehow this is NOT the only Jersey Shore “themed” flick, there’s also a slasher called Jersey Shore Massacre. Which i will eventually get to, why not?
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