Cocaine Shark (2023) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

You know the saying, the last year’s sensation is still fresh when gimmicks barely add anything, and by gimmicks i mean the fact Cocaine Bear was actually a big b-movie studio release last year, so by that summer you know they had someone on speed-dial to make their own knock off with 1000 times less the budget.

And it’s telling that in the past The Asylum would have made the movie themselves, but this is modern Asylum, so the first to put the “cocained killer animal mockbuster” was Mark Polonia.

…. though even that isn’t really the truth, as it’s often the case, reality is quite disappointing, as Mark Polonia just happened to release a movie called (Crab Shark) that premiered the 29^th of January 2023 in Japan (apparently even actually got real screenings, which is far more unbelievable than a crab shark but it seems to be true), and he retitled it “Cocaine Shark” when releasing it in the US later that July, to capitalize on the sensation of Cocaine Bear.

Funnily beating the director of Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks, to the punch in making a follow up with a shark, again based on an actual news story.

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Zombie Shark AKA Shark Island (2015) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

Of course this was already done, i would say i’m surprised it took so long for the obvious idea to actually materialize, but then again it came out in the mid 2010s, an all time high for cheap ass shark movies unafraid to lower the bar even further, this time with the brilliant “ “what if but zombies?” concept, but – again – we never had this specific flavor of shark movie, so whatever.

As even a blind rock could guess by now, it’s a TV movie for SyFy (retitled as Shark Island in some releases), and it’s from director Misty Talley, actually her first shark attack flick, before Ozarks Sharks/ Summer Shark Attack and Mississippi River Sharks (both previously featured here), but also starring Jason London, whom i guess he’s “shark movie borgeusy” since he also shows up in Dam Sharks, for one.

So we have all the ingredients for a mildly fun timewaster… and the result it’s exactly that.

I could end the review here, but lets talk about the plot, despite there being no real need to, since Zombie Shark it’s exactly what it says on the tin and what you’d think it would be.

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[EXPRESSO] Under Paris (2024) | Enviro-Jaws

A french Netflix shark movie, released now, it doesn’t look like a Mark Polonia film, yeah, i’ll bite.

Though i’m now convinced the genre will never leave the nursery waters of Jaws, since we still get stuff like a recalcitrant douchy mayor in the plot… though this time is because they plan to host the Triathlon in the Seine river, and there’s a good reason this is a tradition.

Speaking of which, the premise sound like if Sharks In Venice happened in France and tried to be more realistic… it’s not really, it’s actually a shark finding its way into the Seine river, the same shark that massacred the crew of an enviromental protection squad, and despite her past she intervenes to see that the shark is saved from its new unplanned habitat she’s not made for, and to also avoid the same carnage happening once again.

It has the expected horror moments or situations, but it leans a lot more into being a thriller and its enviromental message, which is kinda to be expected since the movie goes for realism, it ain’t trying to be The Meg or even The Reef, and it’s not like it mishandles its own message or themes… it’s just a bit slow moving, even if it uses that time to make the characters more sympathetic and manages that, they simply aren’t good enough to completely offset the pacing issues.

The final act does really pick up “the slack” in this regard, and overall, Under Paris it’s decent, it plays well its modern enviromentalist angle, the effects are quite good… sometimes, it’s just a bit too procedural, the pace is kinda slow until the very end to be proper involving, so it ends up feeling longer than it’s below 2 hours runtime.

Nice ending, though.

Megalodon: The Frenzy (2023) [REVIEW] #thesharksix

Somehow, The Asylum stumbled their way into making a trilogy of films about Megalodon sharks, with the third and last entry so far being last year’s Megalodon: The Frenzy.

I say “stumbled” because i seriously doubt they planned any of this at all, but Megalodon Rising was indeed a sequel to their own 2018 Megalodon film, and this one starts with a recap to get you up to speed and confirm that the events of the previous movie happened.

…not sure entirely to what end, as the plot itself doesn’t have returning characters from either Rising or the 2018 movie, and is about how a submarine mission meant to establish a supply of clean geoenergy from an underwater volcano ends up causing a fissure in the seabed, accidentally unleashing 5 megalodons that wreak havoc.

They do eventually reference the events of Rising and the 2018 film, and the USS King, damaged after the finale of Rising comes into play, but then is now helmed by a character played by Eric Roberts… problem is he wasn’t in Rising, but since the lead characters died in the finale, i guess he was on ship and took over, whatever, who cares, now Eric Robert is manning the ship, in this “it was supposed to be filmed for the finale of the previous movie, but wasn’t” intro.

Whatever keeps him to star into A Talking Cat?! 2: Paws Of Fury, i guess.

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The Summer Of EDF & The Shark Six

So, to celebrate EDF 6 finally releasing westward in late July, we are gonna have ourselves a little Earth Defense Force retrospective, covering all the games yet not reviewed here (EDF 5, EDF Iron Rain and EDF World Brothers – alongside the PAL release of the first game in the series – have already been covered, FIY), mostly mainline ones, with 4 reviews spread across June and July.

This was already planned as such before D3 finally put down an actual release day (after the delay from spring 2024 to summer 2024), and since those months will have the now regular weekly release/cadence for articles/reviews, i’m also bringing back the sharks with 6 selected films about these poor animals, with 3 reviews per month.

August will be a surprise. For now.

Also, an expresso review of Furiosa – A Mad Max Saga is coming up next.

Future Shock: No Sleep From September (and Summer Plans) (UPDATED)

So, let’s not wait around more to lay out what’s coming in July and August for Wise Cafe International, and what will change from this September onwards.

July will have another round of killer croc AND killer sharks films, Sharks N Crocs Part Deux, alongside some timely videogame reviews to tie in with upcoming releases (aka – pardon me for the disgusting thing i’m about to say – trying to milk some “SEO juice” since this time i could plan ahead something reasonable).

August won’t have a One Piece retrospective per sè, but will have some One Piece videogames’ reviews, plus a newly written full lenght review of Film Red, and hopefully some fittingly summer themed posts about stuff that maritime or whatever.

From September instead – after thinking about it for months – i’ll have to slow down the posting significantly, so instead of a review or piece every 2 days, i opted for a weekly basis, since i will be taking a master’s degree this year, so yep, even less time on my hands since i will be hitting the books, attend and most likely still continue the dayjob.

So instead of shutting it down or opting for a “whenever i can” posting schedule, i feel this it’s a reasonable compromise, even more since i guarantee a review every 7 days, meaning there could be more if i can squeeze in some EXPRESSO reviews or something on the quick, i will try.

Meaning EXPRESSO won’t be retired, it never has been and that won’t change.

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[EXPRESSO] Shark Bait (2022) | Jet Ski Adrift

Just before i was gonna import it on DVD, it arrives localized in cinemas here, and you can bet yo’ ass i’m not gonna miss a shark movie showing in theathers in this day and age.

Especially since it hails from the company behind the 47 Meters Down series, and last year’s shark flick Great White, so it comes with certain expectations.

Plot is fairly simple, in usual shark movie fashion.

A group of friends celebrating Spring Break abroad decides – on the last day of the festivities – to steal a couple of jet skis and drunkenly fuck about with them before going back home.

They have an accident and find themselves adrift, trying to survive and search for any help they can get, with one of them sporting a badly injured leg that eventually attracts sharks…

Nothing original, but some of the best shark movies that opt for a more realistic approach and actually are horror thrillers do work off straighforward scenarios like these, where most of the action happens in a very restricted scenario, and this movie it’s no exception.

Honestly it has a lot going for it, from very good production values, very good looking shark and practical gore effects, but it manages to create quite the satisfying tension and solid atmosphere, so it doesn’t just look the part of a professional “big budget” released.

It’s decently acted too, shame that it could have been proper good if the characters were more than likeable cliches, and if the third act didn’t overused the shark, sacrificing tension for action in a very rushed fashion, mostly to even further drag out the finale.

Still, it’s a decent, solid shark movie, a lot more captivating than i expected, and it’s definitely better than Altitude’s last year offering, Great White.

Blood Surf (2000) [REVIEW] #sharksncrocs

The new millennium brought upon us many things.

And a movie called Blood Surf was sure one of them, though it sound more like a videogame title.

In hindsight, it’s perfect specimen for this month dual theme, as it answers a question nobody asked, as in “what if we made a shark movie, but with a croc/gator instead?”.

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Dam Sharks (2016) [REVIEW] #sharksncroc

No, it’s not a typo that they eventually went with as the official title.

The sharks in question are “dam sharks” because they act like beavers and construct dams with wood and body parts of the people they tear apart for lunch.

And despite everything that i will say about the movie, i can’t deny that this is a new one, we never saw movie sharks act in this specific manner, so Dam Sharks has already something that puts it above most of the other crappy shark movies.

It has a somewhat original idea, even thought the rest it’s so very typical and it joins the strangely populated ranks of b-movies about freshwater (or non-salt water) sharks rampaging through rivers in the swampy areas of the U.S. Interior Highlands, or bayou based rural America as a whole.

For those wondering, no, there’s no explanation given to any degree as to why the sharks (ignoring how they got there to begin with) are constructing dams with human bodies parts and branches, as if they mindlinked with a pack of beavers and Griphis from Berserk. They just do.

I’m gonna write this off as a positive because it cuts down on an even dumber and likely not fun explanation, with minutes spent in researching the shark species with a 2000’s era PC interface or boring pseudo-scientific explanation to “beaver sharks jump-attacking people on the river”.

On the other side of the plot, we have the “human buffet” to which the sharks feast on, made of a tech company’s staff going on a “wilderness retreat thingie”, and the local sheriff trying to kill off the sharks before they can claim more victims. Well, the local sheriff and the local crazy-ish redneck with a gun that doesn’t like tourists and a shady not disclosed past, gotta have that one.

Did i forget to say that the boss of the tech company it’s a smarmy control-freak douchebag, or that there is a romance subplot where the acting ability and the chemistry on display reminds one of a dead sea urchin? Or that there also scenes of random paintball matches, alongside the redneck and “beauty and the nerd romance” crap?

And yes, not only they rip-off the old classic “Smile, you son of a bitch” (and the gas cylinder as a way to explode the shark into bits, wonder where they go that from), BUT the script goes the extra mile to be even more hackeneyed, as they also steal famous quotes from Aliens, with the complimentary low-effort self-refential element of them naming Sharkenado, or saying that “they saw that done in a movie before”, the latter being said at least twice. SIGH.

Also, one character it’s named Kenny just so they can shout his name when he dies.

This one is from Cinetel, yes, they’re still around, and at least that means that they actually have a budget for this TV movie, it’s just slighly above what i call the “Asylum tier” in terms of special effects and CG, so the sharks look crappy, but WAY better than plenty of other shark movies featured here that decided money for anything wasn’t something they needed to care about.

There is a budget, so at least that means no monsters made of dried up papermaciè, crafted out of old newspapers orwhatever crap the directors had lying around in their fridge, and there are some recognizable faces for the B-movies buffs, with Jason London, Eric Paul Erickson and Matt Mercer that help salvage the overall quality of the acting from being outright crap….but still subpar.

Overall, Dam Sharks is basically a worse version of Ozark Sharks, but the somewhat original idea of a dam created by sharks with trees and human body parts gives the ordeal a grotesque shadow of novelty, helping the movie in being… again, just subpar.

Not one of the worse ones, oddly enough.

The Sharks & The Crocs

As promised, this year we’re gonna let our reptilian friends join what’s usually Shark Month on here, hopefully that’ll will make you wanna stab me with knives a little less, as the bi-daily posting schedule will remain, meaning the roster of reviews has been cut in half to 15.

Not too happy about that myself, to be blunt. It is what it is, sadly.

(also, yeah, baffled that Panty & Stocking is coming back, it actually is)

See you later today!