Shark Night

Shark Night

Action (Horror)

2011

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 90 minutes

Starring: Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack, Katherine McPhee, Joel David Moore, Daniel Logue

Directed By: David R. Ellis

Rating: 2 out of 10

Outline

A group of kids at a Louisiana lake house are held hostage by sharks in the water.

Review

I am tired of listening to young people say Jaws is not a great movie when there have been only a couple of good shark movies since. This is what shark films have been relegated to. The world’s top predators have become second rate killers that are embarrassing to behold. To be fair this film is not trying to be anything other than cheap horror but still it is hard to sit through. Shark Night is the story a group of early twenty year olds who spend a weekend at a Louisiana lake house. What is supposed to be a couple of days of fun in the sun turns into a nightmare as they are tormented by shark attacks.

I will start off by saying I am not a big fan of campy films, be it horror or any other genre. I assume that is what Shark Night was trying to be. So this could be a brilliant film from that aspect but I found it to be tacky, boring, and downright stupid. The film has little back story of the group of seven friends that you will be following, and that is a good thing. The film was never going to get you invested in the characters so why take the time to develop them. The kids head out to the lake house for a weekend of drinking and water sports. What should be the time of their lives becomes a fight for them instead. So yeah, if you were questioning as to why there are sharks in a Louisiana lake that will be explained to you. Not very well explained but explained none the less. The film is the usual mess when sharks become involved. There is no cell phone signal, they are in a remote location, the local sheriff is a useless rube, people accidentally fall into the water, the sharks are always around and super hungry, and people get killed by sharks that could win events at the Olympics. So as the film progresses people drop off in a pool of blood as the sharks tear them limb from limb. The kills are unsatisfying and mostly tame for a film that really has nothing else going for it. A shark movie rated PG-13? You money grubbing whores should know better than that.

The acting is not even worth writing about as the dialogue and characters are just awful. The typical horror characters all show up, the nerd, the athlete, the hot promiscuous chick, the quiet girl, and the medical student who can treat shark wounds. So they weren’t reaching for any new ground there. I thought it funny that the lead Sara played by Sara Paxton never thought to change out of her skimpy blue bikini throughout the whole film.

So as the film progresses the viewer is blessed with a myriad of underwater shots and some sub standard looking sharks. At times they are realistic but mostly they are a computer generated mess. They might have explained why the sharks do the craziest things to eat humans but I never heard it. I liked that they use more than one type of shark but the story is so lame that nothing was going to save this film. By the end you will not be shocked at who makes it out of this film alive. If you like bad horror where woman are scantily clad and blood pools in the lake then this might be golden for you. If you need any sense of fear or story than watch Jaws as this film sucked.

Director David R. Ellis is known for being overly tanned and making terrible horror movie (See The Final Destination, Snakes on a Plane). While granted there are people who like films that are so bad they are good they are mostly not for me. This film felt it was so bad it was bad. The sharks go mostly unseen or just a fin popping out of the water and what you do see is poorly computer generated. Having a PG-13 rating on a film where we need to see body parts ripped off is inexcusable. This film was screaming for humorous interludes and yet none show up. The story, characters, sharks are all a mess even for Ellis’s well known low standards.

I cannot recommend this film as it is not the equivalent of catching a trophy fish it is more like chum.

T Factor + If you like bad horror than this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – If you need graphic kills in your horror than this could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendations: Piranha, Deep Blue Sea.