Raiders Of The Lost Shark (2015) [REVIEW] | Jurassic Shark: Fallen Kingdom

Read the title. Read it again. And yes, that is the original title.

It pretty strongly implies this is a shark-centric Indiana Jones rip-off, and low budget full movie lenght parodies can be atrocious and ungodly, so this already should put you in the defensive. It really should.

But experience did “tell me” that wasn’t the case either, it would have been weirder if i didn’t heard more people talk about the oddity of a shark movie parodying Indiana Jones, and yes, it’s just another fuckin shark flick about a prehistoric giant shark released by the usual oil drilling accident, with the beast rampaging in the waters of a small lake community.

It’s only 70 minutes long (actually, just 60, jesus christ), it’s not directed dy Donald Farmer, how bad can it be?

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Aquarium Of The Dead (2021) [REVIEW] | Aqua Zoombies

Today i’m gonna ask you a question, answer sincerely.

Who exactly asked for a Zoombies 3?

I’m not even being sarcastic, i’m genuinely curious because i’m pretty sure most people that at least saw the first Zoombies didn’t knew it had a “sequel” to begin with. This is not a series that has anything as a following, as far as i understand.

But yes, this is actually the third movie in the Zoombies trilogy, despite the title.

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Open Water 3: Cage Dive (2017) [REVIEW] | Wisdom N’ The

11 years after Adrift, Lionsgate felt the time was right to resume the “series”, and might as well drop any pretense, so they just released it as Open Water 3 right away, which surely prompted viewers to ask “was there a second one?”. Again, not that it matters because these are completely standalone stories, so you could waltz in theathers in 2017 without any real need to see the “previous ones”.

Not that many moviegoers are bound by that anyway.

If the subtitle sound somewhat familiar, it’s because this third installment in the Open Water series clearly took wind of what Dimension Films was cooking up with 47 Meters Down, it’s not that there’s a copyright on the concept of “cage dive scuba session goes wrong, with sharks”, but this one was released the same year, just 2 months after 47 Meters Down, so comparisons are bound to be made..

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Jaws In Japan AKA Psycho Shark (2009) [REVIEW] | Sharkmills Of Your Mind…

In retrospect, it’s kinda hard to believe that Japan didn’t really contributed much to the avalanche of “sharkxploitation” movies seen in late 2000s and the 2010s, aside from the movie we’re talking about today, since this is the country that the very same year gifted us stuff like Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl, to say nothing of the amazing exploitation masterpiece of Tokyo Gore Police.

You would think japanese genre directors would have jumped on the trend and gifted us plenty of insane shark movies with people cutting off their limbs to replace them with shark heads or something, but nope, the only exploitation japanese shark movie that pops up in related searches is this one, and it becomes clear why now it has just been kinda forgotten and left to obscurity.

Because it is fully deserving of such treatment.

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Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) [REVIEW] | Sequel Sharks

What happens when you get to do a sequel that’s really not a sequel, but another iteration on the same basic premise? You get slapped for asking obvious and stupid rethorical questions, as you know damn well the industry will conjure series out of unrelated movies anyway, so doesn’t matter that not even the production company is the same as Open Water, we’ll release it with a different name first and then slap “Open Water 2” when it hits home video, passing the original title as a subtitle. Not to be confused with the 1993 movie by Christian Duguay, also called “Adrift”.

This one is directed by Hans Horn, also behind german produced TV movie like Death Water (Tod aus der Tiefe) and with a new movie in pre-production, Going Down, which sound like it’s gonna be an unofficial Open Water or a rip-off. But we’ll see about that.

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Barracuda (1978) [REVIEW] | Burn it to the wick

Most movies about killers animals from the 70s can be “blamed” on Jaws success, this one is a “double whammy” because it can be also linked to one of Jaws’ most notorious rip-off, Piranha from 1978, which – as mentioned before – it’s almost a parody as well, and was directed by Joe Dante. As Piranha did quite well that year, America General Pictures approached him to direct Barracuda (also sold under the title of The Lucifer Project) as well, but clearly it didn’t happen, so directing duties went to Harry Kerwin and Wayne Crayford, both already pulling double duty as actor and co-writer. Gotta pump em out fast, so fast this came out 2/3 months after Piranha.

And while there are plenty of Jaws rip-offs made in that decade, the comparison between the two films in question is fairly obvious, not just because they came out the same year, but because they both have the same theme of secret government experiments that end up mutating marine fauna, in this case more declined into an enviromentalism issue, but also a fairly direct critique of the military, as in they didn’t breed combat-ready mutant cyborg barracuda, but the government basically used a small town as guinea pigs for conditioning experiment to make everyone more aggressive and violent, and more easier to whip up in a frenzy or recruit for war.

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Blue Demon (2004) [REVIEW] | El Tiburon Pasa

It’s both banal and amazing how many shark movies exist, you’d figure there are plenty, but that’s not the case, there is an entire ocean of them. An ever-expanding ocean.

So much that some are pretty much to accidentally “fall through the cracks”, even if you own dozens upon dozens (almost thousand) of shark movies, and this one of them, found it at flea market. After triple checking i don’t already own this on DVD under a different name or it’s available to stream on Netflix or something, that is.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

But no, Blue Demon is just called Blue Demon pretty much everywhere in the world, and somehow i didn’t even heard about it. Or maybe i did and my brain removed it to store some porn, i dunno.

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90210 Shark Attack (2014) [REVIEW] | That’s where I want to be

I’ve reviewed my fair share of crappy movies, and after a while, one is tempted to just post a screenshot of it and let that serve as a review, even if resolved to resist labelling a piece of media “the worst ever”, because eventually something worse will surface and challenge it for the crown of “king shit”. There’s always something worse, there’s always something better out there.

Though, this is one case where i could have posted the following image and really end the review here, there’s nothing that really excuses or explains this magnificent display.

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[EXPRESSO] A Quiet Place Part II (2021) | Hush Of Us

I wasn’t sure if i wanted a sequel to A Quiet Place, as i was perfectly satisfied… heck, more than that, with both the finale and the movie itself, one of the best ones i saw that year, had everything you could want from a horror thriller, from fairly original premise to great acting, excellent creature effects, tense atmosphere, great characters, etc.

But i guess the combination of it being surprising (as it came from a director that previously didn’t explore or dabble in horror), acclaimed by everyone, AND being a surprise big financial hit made John Krasinki, Platinum Dunes and 20^th Centhury Fox think of making a follow up, and it’s finally in theathers, another of the many movies delayed for months-years due this goddamn pandemic.

Following the events of the first movie, the Abbott family is forced to venture outside of the house they took refuge in and in doing so confront the human survivors of this post-apocalyptic world, still thriving with the blind deadly creatures attracted by sound.

Gotta admit, my fears of this sequel being somewhat of a cash-in were quickly shattered, as it manages to move forwards the story about this family surviving in the post-apocalypse, to give more context to the events that led up to the creatures appearing, and to develop the survival aspects even more thanks to them having to face not just the monsters, while giving way for character arcs.

All still done with minimal use of dialogue and sound, with a great atmosphere, some really scary – genuinely scary – moments, good action sequences, excellent acting, likeable characters, amazing creature effects yet again, all packed extremely tight in less than 100 minutes, no minute is wasted for the sake of it, at all.

Noteworthy sequel, and great movie all around.

Upcoming Attractions: Sharks und Pirates

(Source) https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4273516?q=sharknado+

(no, a Girls Und Panzer retrospective isn’t afoot… YET)

Just a quick overview of what’s coming for the rest of the summer on the blog.

July will be Shark Month. Usually it is anyway, but this year i actually have managed to pile up enough material (despite everything), so there will be a shark movie review out each day, and maybe some EXPRESSO ones too, depending on when i can get to some releases in theathers.

August will yet again be a One Piece retrospective…. of the TV specials.

Last summer we did go over the featurettes, and it’s still too early for me to properly re-assess all the One Piece movies. Like i said before, i’d prefer some more time to pass,, in order to avoid some lazy rewrite-recycle of the old reviews i made in italian years ago.

Also, i’m gonna take a break from the 15th of August (included) until the 1st of September.

This doesn’t mean i will stop posting at all, since EXPRESSO reviews will be made and published, but any time consuming form of review or retrospective will go on hiatus.

That’s about it, so look forward to another summer of sharks and anime pirates!