Seven incredibly dumb college kids tangle with man-eating sharks and beer-swilling rednecks.

CRITIQUE

Sharks eating people. That’s all I wanted from this movie. No shark movie is ever going to come close to touching Jaws (which naturally is, ahem, paid homage to here; this movie’s opening [which is completely unrelated to anything that follows] is a blatant rip-off of Jaws’ classic first scene, and Graeme Revell’s score, ahem, borrows from John Williams’s classic score), so all you can hope for is a bit of fun where people get chomped to bits. That’s what I was hoping Shark Night (released theatrically as Shark Night 3D; no 3D Blu-ray release appears to be coming) would deliver, but it’s too intent on being a Wrong Turn clone to offer up any shark-driven mayhem.

The advertising hypes the fact this movie was directed by The Final Destination helmer David R. Ellis (never mind the fact that movie’s almost universally reviled). Not much mention is made of Ellis’s helming of Snakes on a Plane, which would be a much more apt reference. Much as that movie failed to live up to the promise of its premise and title, Shark Night never even comes close to being the schlocky blast of fun its title suggests.

Part of the problem is the movie’s desire to be a torture porn flick. The other part of the problem is the movie’s desire to be a PG-13 torture porn flick. A movie like this desperately needs gratuitous nudity and violence. My mom could watch Shark Night without being offended or sickened in any way, and she’s a seventy-six-year-old woman from the Deep South who attends a fundamentalist church on a regular basis. In other words, what the hell’s the point?

Here’s what you get in terms of nudity: a couple shots of Chris Zylka’s ass and some side boob from Katharine McPhee. So it’s just enough to piss off people of all sexual stripes. Here’s what you get in terms of violence: a largely bloodless severed arm and some bloodless CG kills. Now go back and reread the last two sentences of the previous paragraph. Great, right?

The movie has all of the elements of a decent piece of schlock, including bad acting, terrible visual effects, characters you actually want to see die, and a premise that’s goofy beyond belief. But Ellis directs it in the most lifeless, perfunctory way possible, leaving the movie devoid of energy. Although it runs a scant ninety minutes (and it takes extended credits sequences and a music video [don’t ask] to reach that length), it drags and drags, not once revving up or generating any suspense or tension; not even the efforts of ace editor Dennis Virkler, who had a hand in cutting The Fugtive and The Hunt for Red October, can light a fire under it. Ever seen a schlocky movie that was both dull and fun? Neither have I.

As goofy as the explanation behind what’s going on with the sharks is, the movie’s setup is even more preposterous. We’re supposed to believe the remote Louisiana lake house these dim bulbs travel to is located in some sort of nebulous area that doesn’t allow for cell phone reception but makes it possible for walkie-talkies to work over a range of many miles. If that’s the case, then why aren’t walkie-talkies in the house? There’s no internet, no television, no phones of any kind (not even a satellite phone); the only way to signal anyone is with a flare (how impractical is that?). Anyone who spends time in such a place is just asking for trouble. (The place is deserted when the kids arrive. Exactly how do the owners prevent people from breaking in? And there’s a gas pump fed by two canisters of the size normally used for storing propane. You telling me no one ever sails up and empties them?)

Rather than drive myself crazy obsessing over the movie’s logic, I said the hell with it and tried to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. I tried, mind you. But once it became clear the movie was going to be even dumber and more toothless than the debacle Michael Caine once derisively referred to as Jaws the Fourth, I said the hell with it and started picking the movie apart. I’m sorry, but if you aren’t going to give me buckets of blood and enough bare-chested women to make Russ Meyer crawl out of his grave, I have to do something to occupy myself. So I started making observations the filmmakers would obviously prefer I not make.

The dude who gets his arm chewed off also (in a scene which boggles the mind in its complete disregard for the laws of time and space) survives a boat explosion. A short time later he wades into the water and uses a spear to kill a hammerhead. I guess tying off the open end of a t-shirt sleeve is enough to prevent shock and significant loss of blood. The de facto hero is apparently able to teleport, as at the end of the movie he magically appears on a boat that’s anchored several hundred feet offshore and gets the drop on a bad guy who has kidnapped the de facto heroine.

Not only has he divined the location of the boat and made it all the way out to the boat without making a peep, he’s also completely dry. Add it all up and teleportation is the only explanation. So why didn’t he just teleport all of his friends to safety? Beats me. Maybe he has a limited range. One character’s watery death includes a bit where the stuntman’s wig gets knocked off by his impact with the water and floats to the surface. The aforementioned explosion results in a fireball that causes seemingly no damage to any nearby structures and burns itself out in the blink of an eye. The de facto heroine is locked in a shark cage and lowered into the water. Although she wails like a little baby and keeps pleading to be released, she’s easily skinny enough to fit through any of the horizontal openings at the top of the cage.

The various sharks are fast enough to outrun boats traveling at top speed, and they know enough about physics and geometry to get ahead of a jet ski and leap out of the water and snag the person riding said jet ski, but for some reason they’re unable to catch up to swimmers. Oh, and much like the sharks in the abovementioned debacle once referred to by Michael Caine as Jaws the Fourth, the sharks here can roar. Even more amazing, they can do it underwater. 

When this movie was first announced, I think everyone quite naturally assumed it was being made to quickly cash in on the minor success of Alexandre Aja’s Piranha remake. As you can no doubt surmise, all of what made Aja’s flick entertaining (and even then only modestly so) is missing here. I don’t know if the movie was made with a PG-13 rating in mind or if it was castrated during editing, but I do know that turning this into something that can be shown on basic cable with no cuts whatsoever was an incredibly stupid idea.

Going balls to the wall with the fun stuff is the only thing that could have saved this movie. Take it away and you’re left with a dull, stupid, completely useless piece of junk. It was never going to be good, but it could have been fun. It’s not fun, though, not even in a so-bad-it’s-fun way. Again, what’s the point?

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--is a slightly mixed bag. Shot digitally and in 3D, much of the movie looks good--bright, slick, and reasonably detailed and film-like. Scenes involving CG sharks and 3D effects, particularly those that take place at night and/or underwater, can get murky, as if the image has intentionally been smudged in hopes of obscuring the effects; some of the nighttime scenes look as if they’re the result of day-for-night shooting, more bluish-grey in appearance than black.

THE AUDIO

The only audio option is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Not unexpectedly, the music and shock effects get dialed up in the mix; dialogue gets dialed down, a bit too much, in fact, as it gets slightly obscured and overwhelmed at times. The mix isn’t exactly immersive--it’s light on atmosphere and surround action; low-end action isn’t bad. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

All of the extras here--which are so worthless they might as well not be here--are presented in high-def.

Shark Attack! Kill Machine! (6 minutes) is a montage of the movie’s shark attacks. (Did you notice the montage runs only six minutes? See what I’ve been getting at?)

Shark Night’s Survival Guide (4 minutes) provides some helpful factual info on shark attacks.

Fake Sharks, Real Scares (5 minutes) offers a look at the movie’s animatronic and CG sharks.

Ellis’ Island (4 minutes) is a promotional featurette.

Closing things out is the movie’s theatrical trailer. 

A digital copy is also included.

FINAL THOUGHT