I knew the day would come.
I knew it was just a matter of time, and made sense since it had been so long, and my hatred for this film never subdued since i first saw it back in 2015. I wasn’t familiar with Donald Farmer’s “game”, so to speak, i though i knew bad, but seeing his Shark Exorcist made me realize i was still green.
“Still just a bud”, to quote Holly Summers from No More Heroes.
I did actually preorder the DVD for it, expecting it to be fun, a shitshow but we were still riding high from the Sharkenado phenomenon, before cheap homegrown filmakers realized you didn’t actually need these bad sharkmovies to be fun in order to sell them, and instead made poster than would never live up to the actual films, so yeah, a sweet summer child, etc.
And no, i didn’t plan to review the movie for it’s 10th anniversary, and i didn’t realize it actually came out first in 2014 in some countries, but i guess it’s red raw anus-bound thread of Fate itself at work, pinching one out for the occasion, so let’s toast our glasses of expire communion wine!
(also, to make things less dreary for myself and any eventual readers familiar with the old, old review i did for one of my italian blogs, i will mostly use anime images and maybe a screenshot or two from the film)
I would like to say that hindsight (and yes, this makes the third time i’ve seen this abomination) had made me reconsider, but no, sorry, even after a decade of me watching and reviewing awful shark movies of any budget range and geographical ancestry, after dozens and dozens of Mark Polonia flicks, this might actually still be the actual, factual worst shark movie and one of the worst movie i’ve seen since i walked this earth.
It’s even worst than Jurassic Shark because at least you already know from the title of that they didn’t even bother coming up with a fun idea, while the premise of Jaws crossed with The Exorcist sound it could make for an actually fun, uber trashy B-movie. But this isn’t a B-movie.
This isn’t low budget, this is homegrown indie cinema, meaning there’s basically no budget in anything besides the actual camera used to shoot the shit.
But still, as some of Polonia’s shark movie papermaciè messes were actually kind of fun or deranged enough to be remarkable, budget and the lack there of isn’t an excuse when the incompetence and utter, palpable disdain for the potential viewer reaches this power level.
It’s actually amazing how Shark Exorcist fails in basically every single aspect, but i guess i should explain the plot before we go any further. I shouldn’t, for reasons that will become clear, but let’s pretend i do need to go over the tale of Shark Exorcist, for roleplay purposes.
A demonic nun summons SATANAS himself (not, not Mr. Satan, i wish) to a small fishing village, where he takes over various sharks’ bodies and over a young woman, spreading evil in the community, until a Catholic priest arrives to fight both the possessed teens and demonic sharks before it’s too late.
Speaking of which, i do have something to confess, Father, because i said this movie has a story.
I lied.
This movie has a premise, that much is true, but “story” it’s such a big word, as there’s basically no plot, what there is happens basically all in the first 5 minutes and then in the last 15 minutes, but worry not, as any pretense of narrative dies into a gibberish, structureless mess of padding scenes that drag-on for what seem like multiple lifetimes, where characters (as in, mostly random ass bikini clad women) that were never introduced show up and do some sense-free bullshit, subplots that go nowhere, prolapsed plot holes as far as the mind can see, pathetic attempts at parody and humour, all with utterly incompetent, atrocious acting, arguably even worse editing (so bad that labeling it as “choppy” is being overly charitable), and of course embarassing audio mixing where often the wind just makes impossible to hear the awful dialogues, which sounds like a small blessing, but will just add frustration on top of annoyance and regret over deciding to actually watch it.
You know this has so many reviews where the people struggles to even came up for insults on IMDB? Of course they do, because this is the unholiest of unholy shark themed films, this is the fallen angel bound in ice at the 9th Circle. To say it’s appalling it’s underselling it, and i can see some of you thinking these reviews are from people that aren’t used to this kind of trash, but fear not, because even if you are this will put most of garbage to shame, it’s bordeline unbelievable this exist and sucks so much cloaca as it does.
If nothing else it works as good test for how much sadomasochist you can get when watching garbage cinema, because most people either just quit 20 minutes in (can’t blame them) or try to digest it by watching 10 minutes for sessions and then doing something else, so utterly unwatchable and petrifyingly abysmal it is. Since it’s just 72 minutes, still way too much for what should have been a 6 minute skit you see on Youtube, at the very best.
Then again, this is technically a 72 minutes long film (that randomly “climaxes” at the 48 minutes’ mark) because of a 7 minutes post-credits scene of a random kid frolicking in an aquarium gift shop as she plays with adorable shark plushies, just another pile of nothing to close what already was a movie made of filler and some packing peanuts passing by as “plot”.
Was that a stealth IKEA advert for his BLAJAH shark plushie?
No, but now i want one, still a better investment than Shark Exorcist DVD release.
Get all liquored up when watching up, if you want, as there’s not enough alcohol or drugs on this island Earth to get through this godless, boring endeavour.
Even worse because i also know exactly this will make some people thinks actually translates to the movie being fun…. it’s not. It’s so unfunny it rivals the surviving The Day The Clown Cried footage, and hyperbole aside, it’s not only so devoid of laughs to the point of being depressing, it’s also frustrating beyond belief, because it deliberally wastes your time in bullshit, it knows what to do to enrage certain kind of viewers, and it doesn’t give a shit, Shark Exorcist will kick you down when you’re already lying on the floor, apathetic and comatose, by also insulting you in making the padding even worse and stupid each time. I’d be impressed if i wasn’t frozen by rage.
But the gore!! The bahonkadonkas! The gory bahonkadonkas!
…. None actually available in this film.
There’s no nudity, blood exist more as a technicality, so utterly scarce it is, the practical gore effects are barely an upgrade from Weasels Rip My Flesh (released decades earlier on a similar “spare change in the sofa” budget), making one pine for the Herschell Gordon Lewis days as a better alternative, the digital gore effects are just embarassing, so cheap and also boring i genuinely miss the Polonia papermaciè monsters.
There’s no point complaining about the shark demon itself being incredibly shitty CG, that one was fully expected, no surprise (actually, in hindsight that’s actually not the worst looking shark ever compared to some other no-budget shark flicks, but still, pretty shitty and lame), but it’s also an exploitation film where i’d expect the actors to start fucking at any random second, even during the informercial or paranormal TV programs’ spoof, but that would require not completely blue-balling the viewer, so no gore, no nudity, not the even the two basic, common denominators of exploitation cinema.
Donald Farmer was already a prolific cheapie dealer, in the late 80 and onwards pumping out garbage like Cannibal Hookers, Savage Vengeance, An Erotic Vampire In Paris, and basically he never stopped, and actually had a more steady output since 2022, delivering us stuff like Catnado, Debbie Does Demons, Nundead…. and of course, this very year, Shark Exorcist 2: Unholy Waters.
Which i’m gonna pretend for a while it still doesn’t actually exist. Bye.
Wise Cafe (International) 