When there’s no more room in shark movie hell, we’ll get a shark version of Dante’s Inferno, somehow.
Or something. Because these niche sub-subgenre of horror movies eventually would have tried to generate titles by combining “shark” with all of the Pokemon types, and then stich together a movie from just the title, no matter what the word is or how stupid it sounds. Just mash things together.
Despite it being a “niche”, there’s always space for some weird ass, stupid take on the “shark movie”, even when you think it reached total saturation stuff like “Sharks Of The Corn” will show up online. And even in 2013 we already felt like we saw every type of stupid bullshit involving sharks, so you had to really think about and put some effort in a premise that would catch the attention of a public who already saw sharks defy the rules of nature (cue music) and weather.
So this time we got a frigging ghost shark, it is indeed what it says on the tin.
As to why, the premise is that a great white shark eats the potential catch of a fisherman and his daughter, the two retaliate by torturing and violently killing the animal. The shark corpse just happens to sink to the bottom of an underwater cave, which has some supernatural qualities, as the shark is resurrected in ghost form, now back for revenge against the redneck fishermen responsable for its deaht, and later to feast on the small local community of Smallport, Florida.
You see, being a ghost shark means that as long as there is some water he can materialize anywhere he damn pleases to attack his victims. So even in the bathtub you’re not safe from shark attacks, heck, not even while you’re grabbing a glass of water! It’s up to a group of young people and a drunkard lighthouse keeper to find, as nobody believe the idea of a ghost shark (can’t blame them), and the major is running for re-election so he can’t be fucked to give a damn about his citizen dying.
This sounds like a recipe for a fun, shlocky good time… and it’s not quite it.
It’s one of those shark movies that – for whatever reason – tries to take itself more seriosly than the material really calls (or needs) for it, while still having plenty of insane bullshit like a bikini car wash turned into a shark feeding frenzy or people being eaten from the shark materializing in a water bucket, a man being ripped in half by a shark bursting from within him, as he took a sip from the water cooler while the ghost shark was in it. And the “classic” scene of a shark materializing in a bathtub.
One thing i can’t take away from this movie is that at least it uses the stupid ass premise of the “ghost shark” for what it’s worth, leading to some entertaining kills, like the “water cooler shark” or manifesting itself inside the water of a toilet and eating a man from within the bowl, aside from House Shark i don’t know any other shark movie with a “turlet shark attack” scene.
Problem is, there are barely any proper gore effects for the shark kills, often the kills are not shown in any kind of detail, happen offscreen, and when there are special effects…. jesus, they are embarassing, even for a SyFy backed TV movie they are bad and so cheap you’ll almost wonder why they even bothered with such a tiny budget, for a movie where the kills are the most entertaining attractions.
Sometimes crappy effects are funnier to look at, in this movie’s case it doesn’t even work in that sense, it can’t work if the movie it’s so cheap looking.
Looking at the positives, it won’t take long at all to see the ghost shark, as the prologue quickly delivers on that, oddly fast, other shark movies would have took until the 30 minutes mark (or far worse, the 1 hour mark) to even show it, but worry not, the movie still hits all the expected B-movie note, from the estranged, loner local weirdo who happens to know what it’s actually going on with the creature and how to stop it, the mayor and sheriff covering their asses and babbling even when confronted with undeniable proof of the absurd events, etc.
To be honest, i’m surprised they actually bothered to explain and give a backstory to the mysterious mystical cave from which the ghost shark is spawned/reborn, they go fairly in depth for something so stupid and often never properly explained… because it’s stupid regardless, explaining it or not won’t change that.
Acting is mostly bad, though the cast isn’t too bad per sè, the young actors do include Dave Davis, who would later star in The Vigil, but also people you would see in other Griff Furst movies and nothing else. The best actor in here is easily Richard Moll, playing the creepy and obsessed lighthouse keeper, and they give him something to work with, which i can also say about the museum curator played by Robert Aberdeen, but NOT about Thomas Francy Murphis, playing the town deputy, sadly a blandly written and totally unteresting character that is barely in the movie.
Griff Furst this time cooked up.. another mind-numbing, dumb as hell b-movie about sharks, but there’s some enjoyment to be found in it, even if it’s oddly not that fun or deliberately wacky, despite the premise, and it’s not that fast moving.
It could have been easily more fun, but i’m mildly surprised at the fact it isn’t even worse or more boring, it’s passable tv shark trash, you can digest it without dying of boredom or by feeling irritated at it.
You wanna see a crappy but not crappy shark movie? This isn’t good, but it could do.
Eventually, a second Ghost Shark movie would surface 2 years later, but that’s – literally – another story alltogether. And you guessed right, we’re gonna talk about it tomorrow!
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