SHARK-A-THON Day 17 Bull Shark!!

Day 17 Bull Shark

Originally? This was going to be a film called Shark Night. Like I was going to watch Shark Night I mean. But I am a man of integrity. So I said hell no! No big film release attempt at B-movie goodness! We are sticking to the real deal here. Which means only the best and the brightest.

As well as the horrible, the bad, and how did this get distribution.

But we’ll get into that rant much later on.  I’ve honestly enjoyed this whole project. We will hope for more golden nuggets in our turd at sea. So let us dive on in and see if this is one of those, or just a turd at sea.

Bull Shark

Tagline: Everything is Bigger in Texas

Synopsis: A hungry shark begins feeding on unsuspecting lake goers in a small Texas town.

Well that right there is the shortest synopsis I’ve had for a film. Let the movie speak for itself. I like it. God I hope we like it.

So Texas Sharks, that’s definitely a new one for me, however not so new for Texas as it plays host to roughly 40 or so species of shark along the Golf Coast.

But funny enough I mention this movie to people and they give an odd look, Texas has sharks? Yes they do. And according to this film because it’s Texas. They’re bigger. Naturally.

Apparently alcoholics are also bigger there too. As we find with our star in this movie’s Game Warden, Spencer.

Spencer is a man who hates waking early and likes a shot of coffee with his liter of vodka. Seriously the man throws back into a thermos about half a cup of coffee to nearly a liter of vodka. And two shots of vodka for himself to start things right.

He’s a busy man with a lot on his plate and no time for sass. Though his secretary gives it to him by the handful.

And rightfully so. He’s missed his meeting with the mayor, he missed a call from his sponsor, he needs to file a definition for what constitutes a hunting buck. AND a friend of his is asking him to hurry out and call him just as quick as he can. For reasons.

Just because he’s a drunk doesn’t mean he can’t operate his job duties. He reschedules for a lunch with the sheriff, explains bucks to fish and game. Decides he’ll give his friend a call and as for his sponsor? They can buy him a drink, he has no time for them!

His work day is so busy that he just. Well goes back home.

Seriously his work day is done. Seems we missed a lot, or his job is genuinely that easy. If it is, sign me up. Please.

Well before he gets home he has to meet up with the friend who kept repeatedly calling him. They had to have SOME reason for it after all. Their reason? They found themselves a shark. Well someone caught it rather. So he wants to show it to him, and inform him he intends to sell it!

Spencer is not too thrilled about this, and is far to hazed in the head to deal with it. So he tells his friend to dump the body back in the water and get the hell out of his life. But nicer, in a Texas way.

But now, at last. He can return home, to his bed. This speaks to me.

But unfortunately for our drunkard he can have no relaxation. The sponsor he told his secretary to ignore is inside his home. Which in Texas is a good way to get yourself shot and dumped in a lake. But his rain is still marinating in vodka so he grumbles at him.

It serves as a bit of backstory for us, as we discover he was nearly 100 days sober. That his wife and kid moved out because of his drinking and he’s been trying to straighten his life out ever since. And for reasons unclear to us he decided he missed vodka and beer so much,that he paired them both off the night before.

It’s honestly played off pretty well and you can get the sense these two do have something of a friendship. Just Spencer doesn’t like facing the judgement of others or consequences of his actions. But in the end the two are able to talk and work things out. He’d rather help Spencer versus scorn him.

But we are not all here for good backstory and character building.

Actually we really should be because it helps drive your story in a good way.

BUT we are here for sharking, Bull sharking in fact!

So what of this surely dead bull shark? Well backwoods man has it in an Ace hardware wheelbarrow and is. Dumping him in the lake as prescribed by Game Warden Vodka. He’s dumped it and seeks out his own alcoholic relaxation after a hard days work of shark hauling. Which is. Interesting. Given the size of the shark he’s able to move it with little effort.

It’s a movie.

Sharks weigh as much as 10lbs of dry mix concrete in these movies.

So with the lifeless no way in the world alive still carcass of the shark ditched into the river. We transition to victim number 1. A blonde.

It’s always a blonde.

Actually I’m joking, for once it’s a brunette.

And in a bikini her backside seems intent on devouring.

It’s a bit sad that they say blondes have more fun. But in the reality of movies they tend to be the biggest petty bitches, and in horror films they always die. It is very incredibly rare they do not. I’ve no bias toward blondes, never dated one for that matter. But it is something you notice, and a few conversations with blondes you find its something they definitely take notice of. Much like brown eyes girls and their grumbling over everyone making songs about blue eyed girls and loving that. But they get one bubble gum rock song. ANYWAY….

She’s in the water.

Sharks in the water.

Our shark.

Its genuinely a very cool shot, and I really love that they went for it. Especially as bad as the cgi on the shark itself looks on its own.

Which thankfully we don’t see much of. Really. They go for the less is more approach. At least for now. Our brunette is out enjoy a nice swim, until a shark following behind says howdy do. It’s a quick death and there isn’t much of a body left.

First shark killing in 60 years for this small town.

That’s what I’m saying. However the sheriff of this town. He actually says murder. The first murder in 60 years for this town. So the shark is a murderer apparently.

I don’t…sure why not. Murder shark.

The sheriff stops by the next day to talk to Spencer, try and get their stories straight and find out just how a shark ended up in this small towns lake.

Well. By pure and incredible shock. The totally dead shark Nolan the backwoods man found. And dumped, in the lake, that killed the brunette. Is alive.

Well. Maybe not. This is going to require you all to sit down and take a few hits/sips because. We have a hell of a lot going on here according to the sheriff.

Seriously I mean it. Sit and pay attention.

So the bloated dead shark. It wasn’t that big, but apparently it was huge. It was big and dead enough that the sheriff commented when he saw it “That thing looks bloated, are you sue its dead?”, to show he was sure. Nolan poked it with a stick. This bloated dead shark. Fit inside a wheelbarrow. Again. It is not that big.

Now.

What the sheriff believes happened. As there is now officially a shark in a lake otherwise without any sharks what so ever. Is that the shark was likely alive. Which I would believe. But Nolan tells him that shark was out of water for 10 hours. It is dead, dead, DEAD!

So then the sheriff throws out there. “You sure it had nothing inside it?! I TOLD you it looked bloated.” So now, the sheriff is believing. The small shark was pregnant.

The shark that killed that girl. Was giant. It was a full grown shark. It wasn’t one of those, ‘the water adds ten tons’ deals either. It was huge. It would be far more believable the shark itself was alive versus a full grown baby shark murdering brunettes. Right?

There’s nothing that could possibly support this baby theory. Especially a full grown baby. Unless we’re dealing with a mutant shark, possibly mutated by toxic waste being dumped, or worse oil.

But there IS. ONE. PIECE. Of possible evidence to support this crazy theory.

The sheriff, discussing the shark murder of the girl. He is presenting our sheriff with proof. A tooth, that was dug out of the center of the girls back, lodged in her spine.

Now firstly? Major kudos to them for using an actual shark tooth and not a prop or thank god not a fossil like every other film so far.

And the tooth? It’s very small. Like the size of the tooth would either have had to had come off of a sharks back lower row of teeth or. And I don’t want to give ground to the baby shark theory. It could’ve indeed come from a baby shark.

So that’s where we are now.

Possibly the shark was still alive and is now mad

Possibly the shark had a baby and it ate its way to freedom.

Well. I mean. It could be a baby shark. This is Texas, and the film did tell us, everything is bigger in Texas.

Speaking of tired jokes. This film is beginning to take a turn. It’s decided to interject some humor. It’s. An odd development. Maybe it’ll work for it.

Humor comes in the form of a pork rind eating coroner. She’s letting these men know they are interrupting her lunch and she’s a busy lady. The sheriff is also teasing Spencer asking him if he even had to get police training to become a game warden or they just hire any drunk.

The coroner however is actually a bit fun. Especially talking with her mouth full and constant crunching.

But she’s about to quickly deliver us an answer as to the cause of death, and shark problems.

Yes. I said that plural. Problems.

There are two sets of bite marks on the brunettes body. A mama shark, and a baby shark. Which is where the tooth came from.

SO. Even when poking a shark with a stick that’s been out of water for 10 hours. It was still alive. Gave birth, and is now terrorizing the lake with its baby.

That was, actually unexpected. It’s also a bit bold for them.

I mean of course its not uncommon for these films to have multiple sharks. But the way it was setup. Back when the film was coming of as a serious shark film. It really seemed intent to go there and have a unique villain of a shark. But adding a baby shark to the mix. As well as turning this a bit more toward the comedic edge.It’s a definite shift and I really hope it pays off for them.

I’m also not reading too much into this, It IS taking a comedic turn.

Don’t believe me? Get ready for victim 2. The happiest go luckiest of Texas fisherman. The man pops open a beer with all the might of a caveman and slams it back fast. So fast in fact when he pulls back he spits up some of it. His eyes go wide, his smile even wider. Grabs his pole and the man is loudly stomping off into the water to do some fishin. Cheering himself on as he does. Until he’s splashing around and gurgling while being devoured. It’s funny as hell and so sudden. Everything the man does before his death is just played out ten times over.

We shall see how this develops. It’s still a bit. Odd.

But we’ve no time to linger on that. We’ve got more people to meet with. Including a man from the marine institute. And our as always ever popular evil mayor.

And he is just as evil as can be. Naturally.

So our marine institute friend is telling Spencer that what we are dealing with, given the water depth. The bite mark ratio. The torn limbs. Are indeed bull sharks. He also reassures the viewers that as I mentioned. Sharks are common in a lot of states you’d otherwise not think they would be, even in the amazon for that matter. Sharks are everywhere and its wonderful. Praise our shark overlords.

He tells him how aggressive these sharks can be, and that very likely those sharks are very quickly going to be attacking far more people. Especially in a friendly lake type setting. So he gives a report to Spencer, as well as informs us he made one up for the sheriff as well. He encourages them to close off access to the late immediately to cut off the sharks food supply. Which should help push it back down to some main water sources and get it out of the populated areas.

It's sound advice and an actual plan people use when dealing with shark attacks in uncommon areas.

But that’s where the good ends. Now for the bad.

The bad comes to us in the shape of a man wearing a suit. With bright white hair, and orange skin. Accompanied by a blonde evil woman serving as his attorney. Her main job is to glare at the marine expert and nod menacingly to the mayor. The mayor as you can guess is here to tell our marine expert that he is mistaken in what happened. That it wasn’t at all sharks. But possible bigeger game fish that just look a little scary. But our good boy isn’t buying into that BS. He sticks to his guns and repeatedly tells them it’s not Bullshit, it’s Bull shark! But the mayor isn’t buying it. So he throws threats at him. Threatening to take away their funds if they stick to this story. But our boy is not moved. He is not going to be held accountable when this problem swims up and bites someone in the ass!

The mayor kindly tells him to get out of the room and leave him alone with his evil blonde lawyer. Which. I mean sure he can? But that’s not his office. But sure whatever. So here these two lay out their evil plans. His lawyer lady tells him they can handle this. They have beaten out people who ran against him to try and take the position of Mayor from him, and they’ve come out on top. So a killer mom and baby shark are no big deal.

First they discredit the game warden. He’s a drunk. So if he comes out shouting about sharks. Then the mayor can fire him and come off like a hero for getting rid of a crazy drunk in a public office. As for the sheriff? Well he’s easy enough to deal with. He wants things handled quietly. So he’ll go along with not causing a panic and shouting SHARK on the lake. That leaves just one last person. The coroner.

So we return to the coroner. Who is on her way home, and still. Eating. Seriously this woman is a living human shark. She’s turned from pork rinds, to an apple. She gets in her car and the mayor soon enters into it with her. Laying out for her very subtly that he’s going to be needing her to do exactly as he says. It’ll save her career, and she wouldn’t dare want to oppose him. All while he is doing this? She is still eating her apple.

The womans life is being threatened, and she’s not gonna put down that apple. It’s awkward and its funny. So he tells her he’ll be in touch with her soon. She finishes her apple, drives off and. We are not done with her. Oh no. She decides to take a walk into the woods.  For. Reasons. And she gets a sudden call. A man telling her that when she goes to file her report. She’s going to change the cause of death to unknown. Or else!!

Now. I have to ask this. Because I want to really make sense of this. It’s bugged me a bit honestly. Exactly how does a shark killing someone. Instantly spell doom for the mayor? Realistically. Okay even if this was during a big town event. Like they usually are. How does that cost a mayor the election? Do people genuinely believe the mayor is the cause of this, so he needs to be removed? You just let the cops handle it, Call who needs to be called. Get it taken care of. If it happens during a big money making event. Hiding it, bribing or threatening people. Pretending it didn’t happen. That’s what gets you thrown out of office. That’s what labels you the villain. Throwing people under the bus to preserve your job. Threatening others to report the story you want. Not a good look.

They always seem to do this and it just bugs me. Because in the end it serves them better having to deal with it and that’ll far and away do better for their image and re-election. But no. You gotta be greedy and evil to be mayor and that means peoples lives don’t matter.

Which this movie loves reminding us. We have people enjoying their time on the lake, and this included kayakers. In one of the most funny but meant to be terrifying shots. This movie really does enjoy its drone shots of people on the river viewed from above and using the sharks shadow. But this time we have a kayak on the water, and directly up from under it we have a shark 10 times the size of the boat about to breach the water as we see its jaws open under water and then cut away.

You’ll need to hold onto that laugh because this film is about to take another huge turn.

I don’t mean this lightly either. The movie is about to divide the audience. All for the sake of another kill.

A dog kill.

Now I don’t mean, okay people will turn this off because a dog dies. No. It’s the fact that the dog. If you know dogs and have them. This poor dog was put through some shit.

The dog was playing in the water, and decided to go…deeper into the water. So it’s kicking its legs around in the water. You know its owner or handler is nearby and directing the dog where to go. But after a while you can actually hear the dog begin to whine. It’s visibly tired. Its body language, the whining. Everything tells you that they were at this for a while, and the dog was getting tired and weak.

Cut this sequence with scenes of a cgi shark swimming along, and some shots of a real shark as well. Which. Nice touch. But you still have a real dog. Being warn out. To a point which they filmed. Where the dog got confused and tried swimming to either a boat off screen, or someone else. Because you hear somebody call out for the dog from shore, whistling for it. The dog is headed that direction. But it gets so tired, it begins turning and swimming the opposite way. From there the dog begins turning in circles. Its lost its bearings. It’s not acting. You can tell this dog is legitimately tired and can’t keep this up any longer and is now lost.

It's actually really fucked up.

They don’t show you the dog being chomped, thankfully. You just get a cgi shark opening its jaws and then a sad dog cry. Scene ends.

But everything before that. That wasn’t acting. That dog was legit left out there swimming for long enough it wore itself out. That’s pretty shitty honestly.  I don’t mind dogs dying in movies. You hate the sound of an animal in pain. But when you can tell a dog was purposely tired out and repeatedly pushed out to swim. It’s just not cool.

So take it as you may. Some people would decide fuck this movie and turn it off. We are however carrying on as we are 45 minutes in of our hour and 20 minute run time.

So the sheriff and game warden are having a nice nightly meeting at a dock. They aren’t having a romantic evening though. He’s here to tell the sheriff it’s time to close the lake. Bring in divers to confirm the shark problem, get someone to kill it if need be or remove it.

The sheriff is. A complicated mess. In fact. This movie becomes oddly complicated. Which is not good.

First and easiest to deal with. Is the sheriff. He doesn’t want to close the lakes because. That’s tax dollars he needs, and he’s also coming up for re-election in two months. So he doesn’t want to screw that up. He doesn’t know how long he can keep the brunettes death quiet in the news. So he proposes they kill the shark. Right now. Not tomorrow. But right that evening. So Game warden goes off to find a boat.

Now that’s the east part. Which is well detailed and explained.

What isn’t however. Is information that was given off screen. Apparently? Or possibly in a deleted scene? I assure you also I am wide awake and I did not miss anything. But the not so easy part to explain. Is the game warden, Drunky pants McSpencer, he tells the sheriff, “The fact is we are dealing with one bull shark. Not two. That means the mama died. Maybe it didn’t survive the birth, but we still got a hungry baby out there, and it’s going to feed again.

So now we are back down to one shark. Again? One shark that is not a baby shark size.

I mean that’s the fault of cgi. Any time they’ve shown us the shark. Since the second kill onward. The shark variably changes in size multiple times. When we see it attack the Kayaker, the shark is about 30ft with a mouth wide enough to tare a boat in half. When it attacks the dog it’s the size of a normal adult shark. When we see rubber fins. It’s a baby. When you see stock footage its an adult. When you see it swim quickly buy. It’s a young shark.

I almost want to call misdirection and there will end up being two sharks still at the end? But it could seriously just be as simple as they can’t render it correctly. It’s not even played jokingly. You’d know. This isn’t.

Anyway.

Sheriff is patiently waiting on the murder dock for Spencer to return with a boat for them. But all that comes for the sheriff is our hungry baby shark of variable size and strength. Its nudging the dock and our sheriff. Instead of fleeing. Because he’s as tough as the Texas rangers. He begins shooting at the water.

Until he gets knocked into the water.

Then he does the funniest, dumbest thing.

If you are in the unfortunate position of being attacked by a shark. And find yourself in the water? But you happen to have a pistol?

Firstly you have one great option. That dock is roughly 10 feet from land. You could swim hurridly and run on muddy land back to the safety of shore. Or you can use a dock ladder which those all have by law.

Or you stay in the water. If you stay in the water, with your gun. You can look over the water for a fin, and shoot at the water again. Or, dip down to take a look under the surface. If you see the terrifying visage of a shark headed toward you. You shoot directly at it. It won’t fail you. Guns can work for a time under water.

Or lastly. You can do what the sheriff does.

You can whip around wildly. Aiming your gun directly out in front of you like you would do if you were aiming to kill a man. Not point it or your eyes anywhere near the water. Where the attacks are likely. A 100% likely to come from.

So yes he dies! Leaving behind his hat.

Now as if we needed a little bit more confussion. We’re gonna get it.

Which really raises some concerns with this film overall. Which is unfortunate.

We have a meeting now, one we can’t escape. The mayor is coming to talk with Spencer.

Now we know the mayors plans as laid out be evil lady attorney. But that apparently doesn’t matter because the mayor is changing strategy. Without the sheriff around. He needs to rely on the game warden. So he ask him his plan. He tells him. Shut down the lake. Kill the food supply, starve out the shark.

The mayor has no problem with this now. He’s mostly on board. He informs Spencer that they can’t shot down the lake, but they can semi shut it down. They’ll just tell people they are working on the dam. So people need to show caution and stay out. He’s also ask Spencer if he has the means and authority to take care of this. Apparently he does. He’s called in specialist, and he’ll have them take care of things, as well as his own gun being put to use. The mayor is on board with this too.

His only warning, is essentially that if things go badly? Spencer will be the one held accountable, and his job will be the one up for grabs.

He also interjects that, while Spencer is doing his part in killing or getting rid of the shark. That he himself will hold off on the coroners report and try to wait before reporting that the sheriff was killed by shark. As well as releasing information on the swimmers death. And the missing people killed in the kayak, and the dog.

So now he’s working with Spencer, instead of being evil? It’s a bit of a confusing turn given how very overly evil they were playing him out in the beginning. Like I get it. Even the mayor in Jaws had his turn from money hungry to reasonable. But this is super sudden. It works for run time yeah. But its just odd how the change comes about.

But it’s also odd how Spencer talks about bringing people in to identify the shark. Make sure the mom shark is dead. Kill off its food supply.

He says this. It’s a sound plan. But the moment he gets out on the water? He is dropping chum and popping off round after round into the shark circling his game wardens boat, while dropping chum in the water.

It’s like the villain saying “Come out I wont harm you” and immediately firing at any sound they hear.

“I will save this shark, by killing it.”

On top of this. The funniest dumbest, makes no damn sense even to a drunk thing to happen?

Greg is chumming the water, and he is firing off his pistol like a redneck on the fourth of July. He gets a call from his friend, asking for a favor. “I’m too damn busy! Talk to my son!” his friend then informs him that his son isn’t home. He told him he was going down by the lake. Spencer is now terrified and worried for his sons. Even though. He see’s and has the shark there with him.

Let’s be clear about this.

He see’s. In the water. The bull shark that’s been eating people. It is with him, and he is shooting at it. But he is now suddenly worried. That his son could be attacked. By a bull shark.

By the bull shark that is right fucking there with him while he’s on the phone.

So he rushes to start the boat and get back home to save his boy from the shark which is right beside him enjoying the fresh chum, but not the bullets. But the boat wont start.

So this motherfucker.

This adult man of average intelligence. Who just chummed the waters with blood and fish guts. To attract a very hungry aggressive bull shark. Is now taking off his shows to leap into the water, and swim 150 yards to shore.

Let me repeat that one more time.

This man, who has the killer shark with him, away from harming anyone else, also with possession of a cellphone with which he could call someone to get his boy. Is going to swim in the water. With the shark. He bathed in fish blood, and fired 15 rounds at.

Fuck me in the goat ass. What is this movie and why is this man so mentally damaged.

I mean we are really doing this. He’s just going to forget the fact he has the killer shark there with him. A literal arms reach away, and dive on into the bloody water. To swim toward shore, and drive off to his home. To save his son from a shark that is no where near him. What the hell is going on?!

The only way.

THE ONLY. WAY!

This would make any kind of sense. In any realm of reality or even fucking Hollywood reality. EVEN PORN!!! For Christ sake. The only way this would remotely make any sense? Was if you had two sharks! Right? I mean if you have two sharks. But you only see one where you are. Then, horror logic dictates. My god. The other shark could be where my son is! THAT MAKES SENSE!!

You know what doesn’t make sense? DIVING INTO THE WATER WHERE YOU HAVE THE MURDER SHARK! Just so you can drive off back home and “save” your son from a threat that YOU HAVE RIGHT BESIDE YOU!

This makes no sense!

But he does it. Dumb bastard is diving off into the water, and even stops to look around before casually swimming off. And the shark follows!!!

He’s actually bringing the goddamn murder shark to his kid. If I slap my forehead any harder I’ll have reached this mans mentally damaged state.

He makes it to shore. Somehow.

Drives off and not only makes it home. But has time to call his sons cellphone.

Son has headphones on, doesn’t hear shit. Decides to go stand and piss in the lake.

Oh but it gets better. So so much better.

Spencer the wonder drunk makes it home. He see’s no one in the house. He grabs a kitchen knife. Heads outside. Sees his son in the lake. Standing waist deep in the lake. Does he cry out to him and run off out there to save him?

NO!!

He stands on the shore. Shouting out to his son. WHILE HE SEES THE GODDAMN MURDER SHARK SWIMMING TOWARD HIM!!!

The man who leapt into the water with the murder shark. To escape the boat to save his son. Is deciding the shore is the best place to save his son, while the murder shark is there.

His son finally hears him calling out to him, He hears him shout to get back in the house out of the water. He isn’t yelling SHARK. He’s just shouting to get out of the water and back home. So his son gets dragged under water.

NOW Spencer decides to take off and go after his son. This. This is the reason why his characters wife is seeking to divorce him.

So he swims out and is able to save his boy. Does he paddle back immediately to the house? Does he grab him tightly look for the shark and take off? NO! He takes a full 60 seconds to relay to his son “Son, there is a shark in the water. I need you to get onto my back, hold on around my neck, and do not let go. I shall swim us back home out of the water okay? Things will be fine out of the water, we just need to escape this shark. Now hold on please.”

Well god bless the shark for being patient and understanding. It’s just waiting for the father son speech before it glides past them. Giving the dad a reason to actually use the kitchen knife he brought with him. Before casually turning and headed toward their home. The shark looks like its about to bite someone. They replay the reused CGI shot of the shark opening its kill jaws for a kill. But nothing happens! They safely make it to shore. His son has some tiny punctures on his leg and he’s brought into the hospital.

Spencer and his separated wife head home with their son. Putting their son in bed, and the two begin arguing. She is naturally upset that their son was attacked by a shark. But even more upset that he did not tell her about the shark attacks. He used the “its my job” defense, while grabbing a shotgun/hunting rifle/ way out of the movie. She turns then from, angry mother to sympathetic. Saying the most out of place thing, “I  know you Spencer. You can’t serve two masters.” What?

He tells her they need a fallguy, and she’s looking at him. So all of this hinges on him. But he swears to her. The funniest goddamn thing in this movie ever. He SWEARS to her. That he is clean. He is SOBER. CLEAN!!

A man. Whom we saw the very night before. Pound away a 24 pack of beer, staying up all night reading about sharks. Showing off his skill of opening a can in his hand one handed. Drinking to the point he blacked out emptying his fridge of all its alcohol. Is ‘clean’.

In the words of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, ‘yeah I ate 9 cans of ravioli. But no man wants to admit he ate 9 cans of ravioli’

So how will we deal with the shark problem? How will we ‘save’ the shark, you ask?

His wife casually throws out there, as her dumbfuck of a husband takes off with a shotgun to save the shark, “I can help..I mean there’s gotta be something I can do before this blows up in all their faces.” He has a moment of sober clarity at her words. Doing the famous trope of “What did you say? No the other part. No the other other part. Yeah…That’s it”

He then cocks his shotgun, and is out the door.

He’s going to blow up the shark. Inspired by his wifes mention of blowing up.

So he’s off to his friend Nolan. He needs a favor. He needs high explosives from Nolan. I would’ve thought he’d ask to use his boat since the other boat would no longer start. But fuck it. This movie is so far off the rails now anything is possible. The shark could leap out of the water. Grow to the size of a Megaladon, and I’d buy it.

So, their plan. If we can call it that. Is to take some C4 explosives Nolan provided them. Which comes out to 7 inches of playdough explosives. They are going to place this explosive material inside his vodka infused thermos. The shark is going to swallow this. And he will shoot it with his shotgun. Thus killing the shark.

His wife/exwife/whofuckingcares. Is headed with him on the boat. The same boat that wouldn’t work earlier. They drive it off into the middle of the lake. The spot the shark. But he just can’t get a clear shot on it, let alone get it close enough to tthrow the thermos at and get him to bite it. Whatever will they do?!

So we discover the second saddest thing in this movie next to the dog being forced to swim in water. We discover Spencer’s wife is as dumb as he is. She was smart enough to leave him. But not smart enough to realize her own plans fault.

Her plan? She takes the thermos full of explosives. And dives into the water, “Just make sure you don’t miss!” There is no tension. There is no she is in danger.

She just floats out there. Spots a shark fin. Tosses the thermos. For whatever reason the shark grabs it. She screams “SHOOT IT!” He does, and we get a grand CGI explosion. He lifts her out of the water onto the boat. They hug. Fade to black.

He’s back in his office. Packing his things. He tells his secretary that he is starting over. Him and his family. She no longer wants a divorce. She has her sober man back. Apparently all he had to do was drink all the alcohol in his house and blow up a shark.

The end.

There is a sequence after the credits. I really don’t want to be bothered with it. Because this movie was horrible. But for the sake of, I will do it and save you.

First, we see the lake, from above again, and we get a megaladon sized shark rising from the water mouth open again. Then the title BULL SHARK. We roll credits. Only to be interrupted by our funny man Nolan. Talking into a recorder as he readies to go fishing, writing his novel about a monster in the lake. As he is fishing he spots shark fins. Normal sized again. He decides…to pick up a stick, and march toward the water to poke the shark. Because that’s his running gag. Poke it with a stick to make sure its dead. Because the film had comedy. We hear Nolan scream and the movie ends mercifully for all of us.

Where to begin.

This film was a mess. It was like watching several films crammed into one. Like. Three brothers decided to make a movie. One wrote the script. The other directed. The other cast his friends. When the one who did the directing didn’t like the story and decides to insert his own stuff into the movie. The brother who did the writing gets mad and decides to take over editing and take out scenes the director thought worked. The brother who hired his friends, well his friends wanted bigger parts. So he decides to sneak in script changes to give his friends bigger parts. They film it and the director brother realizes what’s going on, So he cuts them out of the second half of the movie. All three brothers end up in a Three Stooges like fight making a mess of their film. Only to realize among the chaos. That they need to finish making a shark movie. So they salvage what was left. Put it in a can and send it to a distributor who says “Well. Fuck it. We need to sell something. Print it!”

I mean that would be as believable as a man deciding to save his son by jumping in the water where the murder shark is. To save his son from the murder shark.

But honestly this really does feel like a jumbled confused mess of a lot of ideas. That didn’t pan out. They either ran out of money, ran out of ideas. Or the people who watched the finished product were like “Fuck it, this is a mess. Have one of our people edit this and try to make something we can sell out of it.”

They introduce and make it feel important that the mayor and his attorney are a team that will work against the others. But they only have one scene. After that the mayor talks to the coroner, then talks to Spencer, and he’s gone. The shark expert? Gone. Spenser talked about hiriing a crew to take care of things, divers. A shark crew. They never appear. So either he was lying, because he’s a drunk. Or they cut it. Or….or, most likely. The film was shot out of sequence and forgotten.

It's actually happened before with films. Especially first time directors. But this man was not a first time director. He’s directed 28 films.

He also wrote this film. He’s written 34 films.

Mind you none of these are big pictures. At all. They’re all short films. A majority of them. Same with his directing. A vast majority are short films with a handful of full feature.

Is it still possible he’s just not that competent a director? Absolutely. Ed Wood made movies and managed to fuck them up, and there are directors from the 80’s who not only made bad movies. But their movies got worse the more they made.

But working low budget. You can see it happening. Shooting scenes out of sequence. Then either forgetting about certain scenes, or just saying nevermind we’re already behind and moved on.

The zombie movie I was in did this too. I heard the director and his script guy talking about issues very similar to this. The director would talk out what has to happen and needs to happen in this scene. They’d set it up, go film it. Realize they didn’t film what they had to have happen. But they got what they needed to happen. So he said let’s move on and go to the next shot. Directing is a game of time. So imagine yourself as the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, constantly worried about being late. So the director could have had plans for things. But with timing and budget. They just got the shots they needed and moved on. So a lot of ideas could’ve been introduced. Well in this case. They were introduced. And had no follow through. They’re brought up and then dropped.

Kind of like yesterdays movie, only a lot worse. You keep the story moving. You just assume the audience will be with you for it. But you need to make sure they’re actually with you on it.

Then there’s the deal with the theme of the movie. Which really didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be. It wanted to be a serious shark horror. Then it wanted to be a comedy. But then thriller. Then the movie settles on a theme. But then tries adding back humor. Which doesn’t land at all. Having a guy talk about poking a shark with a stick, and having them use that as a defense for not knowing if it was alive or dead. Then killing them. By having them take off with a stick. It’s just not funny. But also if you are going to set up a character as being comedic relief or a silly character. Do it! Go full in on it. Don’t just make the character fit the needs of the scene. You keep changing a persons character and how they handle things. It gets confusing.

Just like going from telling us there are two sharks. To there is one shark. Having that shark change in size multiple times. I’ve never seen a shark film. Even a SyFi or Asylum film, even an SRS film have one main villain shark. Shange its size from baby, to megaladon, to adult, to super megaladon. To baby. Repeatedly.

I mean I guess thanks to the end credit scene we get it confirmed there WAS a second shark. But that’s what they confirmed the first 30 minutes of the movie before suddenly saying “Oh yeah there’s only one shark”, it doesn’t come off as a twist or an Ah ha moment. It’s just ‘Oh..there were two. Okay.”

And even then. Even then at the end of all things. You have that last shark go from being a bull shark the size of a Megaladon. To then a normal sized shark.

You know it’s bad when Sharks of the Corn, can have a full size CGI shark float through a cornfield. But use an oversized hand puppet comically attack someone. And THAT is acceptable. But this type of shit is just head shaking bizarre.

The movie started out pretty well. It had some promise but then it just fell apart. The humor didn’t land. The kills weren’t really kills so much as black screens and screams. The acting was ‘okay’, but nothing in the end lined up. It needed a better storyteller, and editing. Maybe.

Its always a challenge making films but sometimes even with the right tools. It can still end up. Well yeah.

It’s a shame. But I will live a happy life. If I never see another movie. Where a man is able to call the attention of the killer shark, only to dive into the water, because their son might be in danger from that same killer shark that is no where near them.

Seriously.

Super seriously people. How does any of that make sense.

I’d rather not close out on that. Though I kind of want too.

But if we had to make sense of this mess.

It really could’ve worked in the films favor if they stuck to the idea of there being two sharks. Keep two shark sizes and it could work. You can explain the difference in sizes my saying it was a mama and baby shark. It feels like they wanted to go for a Lake Placid type thing. It could’ve worked. They just had to shoot it as such. They could’ve had their big boat show down. Blow up the shark. Cheer then realize oh no, there’s another shark. His wifes in the water and in danger. That’d create a thrilling ending at least.

But no. the difference in shark sizes came down simply to the director feeling, it looks cool.

You may not notice it at first. But they kept reusing one rendered CGI effect over and over. The shark coming toward the camera opening its mouth to attack then vanishing.

If you pay attention you’ll notice that whenever they did their ‘meg’ shark scenes of the giant shark coming up from under the water to attack? It’s the same scene. They just increased the size of the effect because the director likely thought it looked cooler. But watching the shark scenes when it attacks someone head out in the water. Then comparing it to the coming up from the water. It is the same shot. Which isn’t the problem. The problem is just the fact the director chose to repeatedly keep making the shark larger and assuming it’d all look good when they finished.

If you try going off the logic that there’s more than one shark. It doesn’t go very far. You could say there’s a whole family of sharks. Mama shark is the meg sized bull shark. Daddy is the regular sized shark and then baby shark. You could go that ridiculous route and maybe it’d help explain your sharks of varying sizes. But it still doesn’t work as a lake isn’t that deep and there were no reports about this. Or did the evil mayor cover it up! No. It’s just shit in my head.

At any rate. The movie didn’t exactly work. It was an okay effort but in the end it really needed more work. It might work if your as drunk as the game warden. But otherwise stay sober and for the love of al that you hold good and dear in this world. Don’t jump in the water when you’ve caught the attention of a murder shark. Especially if are fearful it might kill someone close to you that is very safely far away from you.

Until tomorrow.