Like most people probably did, i found this movie while walking down the river, and it’s hard to not look when such a thing happens while you’re there, taking a tranquil stroll in the countryside of the internet mind.
I’m not surprised this movie exists, but i must admit i’ve never heard before of indie filmaker Tim Ritter, writing and directing here, apparently known as the Godfather Of Video Gore, clearly taking after H.G. Lewis, which i understand but also find quite ironical, considering Lewis notorious “disregard” for artistry in cinema as a whole.
Obvious it’s also a commercial craft, and there’s merit to the business and production side of things (and i did recently got my copy of Arrow Video’s H.G. Lewis collection, so i wouldn’t say i hate his output) but we’re going on a completely different, pointless – and uncalled for – tangent, so i’m gonna drop it.
Titles like this leave little to explain, because it’s indeed about monsters that attack people in the many cornfields of the town of Druid Hills, Kentucky, and witnesses swear the monsters are actually large Great White sharks swimming in the corn.
This is a movie that starts with a brief parody spot of Blumhouse hypotethical horror adaptation of Tic Tac Toe, jokingly saying they ripped off the director’s once again, and can’t argue that it sets the mood for what you’re gonna watch, even if it’s not technically part of the movie itself. It’s quite cute.
It’s not a film intendend for anything outside of a lark, and you only need to take a look to realize we’re yet again in “homegrown cinema” territory, with what that usually implies: local actors, shot where the director mostly likely lives, a budget that can barely be considered that, floppy physical props, the works. At least the main shark prop looks a tad bit better than what i’ve seen in a Polonia Bros movie, and practical gore is kinda decent for this level of production… one when they can’t even afford to shoot the actual full moon, BUT they do have a (borrowed?) drone. Ok.
Same for the direction, with plenty of zooming on boobs, focus on nudity and “red syrup on actors” violence, people unadvertingly getting corncobs up their asses (kinda surprised they didn’t do the “exhaust pipe potato gag”), psychotronic editing, and some really WTF sequences a lack of money can’t explain, like two people talking via walkie talkie despite both being SO close they could just talk without it, i know because they are both often in the same SHOT, 4 feet apart, at best.
If i could ask a single question to Tim Ritter himself, in earnest….why it’s this movie almost 2 hours long?
Most movies like these often struggle to even reach the 80 minutes mark, sure, but this fact shouldn’t be taken as a challenge… but in fairness this one actually has a plot and stuff going on with some rhyme to it. Guess what, the title mimicking “Children Of The Corn” wasn’t just for marketing value, as there is a cult, ritual sacrifices, etc. Just replace the children with sharks, a Great White shark being worshipped instead of He Who Walks Behind The Rows, add a bit of Hammerhead, bits of Jaws, a bit of Wicker Man and some mafia crap to draw things out.
But worry not, there is still filler like the in-movie spot for realtors featuring Bigfoot (i could have made this up, but i didn’t), a real spider walking down the road , weird cut-aways to a low budget CG Stonehenge clip, and many sequences that go on a lot longer than needed AND are often quite redundant, making the whole thing very tiresome to watch all the way through, and one wish it was just 90 minutes long (or less) instead. Even if it actually pulls off a decent lil twist in the third act.
STILL, the acting is a lot more solid than expected (mostly), and there is something to it, there’s an actual plot going on, a lot of it being a melting pot of material ripped off other movies, but there is some semblance of fun and it would be kinda watchable if it didn’t drawn out things this much (especially building to an anticlimactic finale like that).
Better than Virus Shark, at least.
Wise Cafe (International) 