Asylum time!
Not any of their random ass fucking shark movies… one of their random ass shark movies that The Asylum was commisioned for the streaming service Tubi… okay this is new territory, in a way.
Okay, this is one where i’m not even sure if it’s a mockbuster of something, sure, it released in 2022 as Emmerich’s Moonfall… but the Asylum already did have time to made two mockbuster of that while it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s just them doing whatever random crazy bullshit they want.
Which could be fun, since it’s basically them doing a mash up of Iron Sky and Sharkman but with USSR-era man-shark hybrids living on the moon, and i think part of my brain shutdown just in writing that…. so it’s ironically promising, in a roundabout way.
It sound like a lot of random fun crap, what the company often… well, sometimes can excel at, it’s a crapshoot, a monkey feces throwing contest, creatively speaking.
So yeah, man-sharks on the moon, how did they get there, you may ask yourself like it’s a random line spouted by Coleman Francis in one of his movies.
Turns out the Russians back in the Cold War era created nearly invincible hybrids between humans and shark, and dealt with them by sending them to the moon, as you do.
Now, decades later, a team of American astronauts gets way more than they bargained for when they are sent to repair a module on the dark side of the moon (get it?), and find out the frigging Russian Street Sharks are still there, and not really that inclined to put on trenchcoats in the streets of Manhattan so they can blend in and watch Critters in cinemas.
Aside from the 10 out of 10 punny title, how is Shark Side Of The Moon?
This does sound like the movie that peaks in the promotional poster, as a thing to promote but not necessarily make, or the kind that shoots for cult status but never actually becomes one because it’s ultimately more unwatchable than it planned, or it’s flat out just boring.
You can be shit, but you can’t be boring, it is the law, especially for these alphabetically challenged films made with cheap CG straight from the 2000s direct to video catalogue (just a touch better looking than shit like the Lion Trophy Show, if you even remember that), which also generously dip into stock footage of random people gathering to clap at something or real people in space stations at the beginning, that will save us from shooting 5/10 minutes of footage… of this 88 minutes films.
But that is the usual, what to be expected from the company, and you know what, i’m not even gonna bother questioning shit like them “growing algae” on the Moon to create oxygen, but i’m gonna yodel on how even the fun stuff like the sharks diving in the moon surface like the creatures from Tremors it’s so brief and short lived it’s criminal, like i know i have lamented this before, but it takes some major incompetence to make a premise like this boring… but here we are.
And yet i didn’t struggle going through it as i did others, because at least the plot doesn’t pull a bait and switch and its about moon space man-hybrids, with their colony (led by a matriarch sharkwoman with tits) there using the occasion to steal the ship and go back to Earth, so they conquer it…. what you’d expect? I would be surprised if this wasn’t their end goal.
But yes, i was surprised it was kinda watchable, even if disappointing even by its own standards.
Acting…. what do you think it’s gonna be? Is exactly that, exactly what you’d expect, you know what kind of performances you’re gonna get from an Asylum movie, dull as paint drying, and it’s not like the script or editing helps with the characterization, or lack there of.
There is some odd solace to see the Asylum basically go back to a style of 50s sci-fi b-movies, and somehwo have most of the same issues, like a bit too much people in rooms talking about shit instead of showing us stuff, as that would require a budget that doesn’t exist, for example.
And it’s not unfair as a comparison, those movie were also made with peanuts as well most of the times, but i’ll say this: at least finish coloring or shading those goddamn CGI sharkmen models, come on, they feel like someone sculpted a mock up of what they were gonna look like once actually completed and just animated them as is.
Still, maybe my brain has been cooked by watching too many movies of theirs (or worse shit that even they can’t concoct if they tried, it exists), but i kinda enjoyed this one more than i really should admit, it’s nowhere as boring as it could be, it’s still stupid beyond words, stuff is thrown into the script and rarely if ever explained, it’s that case where any mental activity is overthinking it big time because sure as hell the writer never even bothered or cared to.
Or maybe they did but they edited out lore dumps to improve the pacing, again, it’s not like any worldbuilding in this would sustain any amount of scrutiny, and it doesnt’, so let’s just have tribalistic moon sharkmen people having a ritual nearby a small erupting volcano on the moon, also have them wear jeans like they’re the Street Sharks, why the fuck not?
Also, occasionaly the neurons fire up a bit and we get shit like the shark-man fetuses in jars scene, and i guess that alone is indicative how it being a Tubi commissioned film increased their budgets, because sure as hell there is more CG than usual, crap as it is, with the battle scene feeling like a big ass Star Wars-y LARP where the actor were told “we’re gonna add the sharkmen in post, trust us”.
Not that the Asylum would care, as they clearly didn’t bother even trying to mask the constant greenscreening going on, it really couldn’t be more obvious if they tried.
It’s funnier when they improvise zero budget props like them taping cardboard to a regular prop gun to make a “flare gun” or using a random ass iPod ear-in bud as a communication device, and i do love the very 50s style “advanced suits” made by the survivor russian scientish and its adopted sharkmen daughter, it does look cheesy as hell, like a medieval space chainmail suit, heck, they even have moonstone sharphened spears.
Even i’m surprised i kinda had some fun with it, but here we are, it’s far from boring.
Hopefully, Gawr Gura will return in Shark Side Of The Moon: The Atlantis Project, or whatever they’re gonna call the sequel, if and when they get around to it, because they sure tease one with that ending, and it’s not the worse shit they could have made, i was able to get some enjoyment out of it, some actual laughs due to the crapness (the scientist made prisoner and using an oxygen bottle to rocket propel himself out of the ship was actually some cheap low budget magic).
At the very least ii’ll give the Asylum this: you can’t deny they (more or less) give people what they want and what it says on the tin with this one, as in, it’s called “Shark Side Of The Moon”, it does have and it’s about moon man-shark hybrids, they’re actually the focus of the plot, not just a bait and switch.
Yes, there are film even lazier and shittier that the Asylum’s productions.
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