SHARK-A-THON!!! Day 30 Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre

Day 30 Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre

That is a title, and that was one I felt should wait till the very end of this month. It sounded like a good closer and a safe bet that most of you out there had never seen it. Heard of it. And it’s likely to grab your attention.

Of course now that we experienced Sky Sharks, this feels incredibly tame and could end up being like a video game where the toughest fight was a middle boss and not the end boss. Which is perfectly fine for me. If we had ended this month on Sky Sharks…I would’ve accepted it but also felt like I teleported myself to a new plain of existence. Like an alien ship sails down and I tell you all “It is time for me to go back to my planet. My people need me.” And sail off into the black abyss that is odd reviews.

But no. This is the proper ending I feel. At the worst it’ll be a less entertaining film but we can still walk away enjoying an obscene shark film. At best. We can still walk away enjoying an obscene shark film.

At any rate. It has been a pleasure, and I will save any other words on this month for a last piece I will write to commentate on this months journey.

For now. Lets dive on in, and visit the Sharkansas Women’s Prison.

Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre

Tagline: You Can never Truly Escape.

Synopsis: A fracking accident rips apart the earth’s crust, releasing prehistoric sharks from underground that target a group of women in a cabin.

Alright! That sounds even better for the final film. We are going back to the always giving well that is prehistoric freed sharks. Pluss women either escaping the prison or working in the prison. Not gonna lie I would’ve loved it if the sharks were part of the prison. Like you misbehave, they toss you in the shark pit. Or prehistoric sharks end up attacking a prison. Either would be just as entertaining. But this right here works just fine.

It also is worth noting we have a very special cast of ladies, some of whom are not unfamiliar to adult entertainment and made a turn in their careers. We have Traci Lords, Dominique Swain, Christine Nguyen and Cindy Lucas, we also have a LOT of day time soap stars and that, as we have learned previously. Can only mean good things.

So without further ado. Lets push play on this puppy and get goin!

Holy fracking batman!

That’s what we got going on here. The AFI, Arkansas Fracking Institute, is fracking up things and holy fracking hell they freed an army of funky looking tremor like sharks. I’m not joking its kinda weird. But it was also what the prehistoric shark looked like in DINOSHARK. For some reason they like giving little spines and wiggly bits to sharks. Well as the fracking is going on we also get a quick load up of our prison work release van and leading ladies. Complete with as you’d expect, a few butt shots because it’s gonna be THAT kinda film.

Actually this is a surprise film for many reasons. One of which we will go ahead and give away now. The director of this film, if you are familiar with 80’s sleaze and B rated movies of the highest caliber. The director and writer for this film is none other than the man behind such greats as Chopping Mall, Deathstalker 2, Munchie, Sorority House Massacre 2, and most importantly The Return of Swamp Thing. At least its important to some of us. Me. It’s important to me. That is of course Jim Wynorski.

This can only bode well as it does for many directors of that time coming back to something of this caliber.

As our introductions are quickly made and the sharks are even quicker set free. We get naturally our first two victims in waiting. The two men who spent their day fracking around are finally headed home for the day, but they got a case of the munchies. So one man suggest he knows just the place to go. But he’s going to use a short cut to get them there, because it’s faster, gets food in their bellies sooner, and I really think he just wanted to go mudding in a jeep because his short cut involves  driving through a bog. That is not what I would call a wise or brave decision.

This coming from a man who realized his foot was pushing on a can of starter fluid 30 minutes after driving in a truck while the driver threw their trash at my side, asked the question “Did, did you accidentally push on the starter fluid can? Oh god have we been inhaling those fumes this whole time?! Did you take your foot off it?!” and me thinking, staring out at the road shaking my head. “I guess this is life now.”

Remember not to ask me about that. Ever.

So his coworker and passenger decides this is a bad idea, but we’re already in this thing so lets see where it leads(See example story above). So the two take this adventure together and wouldn’t you know it? What rotten lock. They end up stuck. In the mud. In the bog. What poor strike of misfortune this is!

And in a bog deep enough to drown your knees, somehow also deep enough for prehistoric sharks with wiggly bits.

Yes. These unfortunate beings are indeed killed, and their jeep destroyed.

And as credits roll on this opening. I have to give a shout out to the music. I love film scores and I collect a great deal of them. This score though. The music sounded familiar. There was a bit of a western twang to the guitar riffs, and the synth music was genuine synth. Like someone who knew what they were doing from the era it mattered most. I had to stop the film and look it up. Sure enough my answer was what I had hoped for and wondered after I saw the directors name tied to this film. Chuck Cirino. The man has scored nealry if not all of Jim Wynorski’s films. Okay, I am on bored. I like the music. Like the setting, please don’t fall apart.

Well we are on the move now in this feature. We have two agents…detectives. Kendra and Adam. looking for a couple of no good very bad men with a lot of money oddly not belonging to them. That’s right armed and dangerous men with stolen bags of money and two tough looking agents with their own guns, their own boat and sharp hawk like eyes to hunt down these dangerous fugitives of the law on the run and, and they found them.

The men are dead. Eaten by prehistoric sharks with bloody cash on the muddy ground and bits of bodies here and there.

Well that was an easy to solve case!

Well at least they found someone. An old man shaking and hiding underneath the canoe the robbers used. Wait if this man is a survivor of the three armed dangerous men. They need to begin the beatings! Cuff him, beat him, throw him in the van! Or throw him in the van then beat him and cuff him. I don’t know how proper police procedure. Well that’s a lie I actually took a class in..well that’s a story for another time.

For now we look to be moving on from the worlds luckiest crime stoppers, to our leading ladies in lockup. Each one dressed just as you’d expect a woman in a corrections institute to be dressed. Yep. White tank tops, colorful bras seen through their tops and tight butt hugging shorts even HOOTER’s waitresses would ask for higher pay to wear. Also with flawless makeup and hair so silky smooth you’d never know they used olive oil and sugar for it.

That’s an actual hair protip by the way. Using olive oil and raw sugar is good on your hair. Google it.

Anyway…

Yes it is time to meet our prisoners! As they even give them a friendly to reviewers roll call so we can get an idea who’s who and what ended them up in the Sharkansas correctional facility.. I know that’s not the name, the door on the van even tells me but I don’t care. That’s what we’re calling it.

So here we go!

Sarah Mason: Prisoner 366429 Aggravated assault, armed robbery and resisting arrest.

Michelle Alika: Prisoner 5678672 Bootlegging videos and inter-state flight.

Shannon Hastings: 9328940 Assault and battery

Samantha Pines: 5678672 Drug trafficking and possession

Anita Conners: 2983747 Prostitution and drug trafficking

So that’s our bunch of ladies. All of them not looking forward to a hot sticky day out in the open boggy land that is Arkansas on work detail. What the hell kind of work detail they’re doing out in the middle of the woods? I don’t know but I would be highly suspect myself.

Actually they are out there to clean up stumps in the woods. So, that’s going to be an interesting day for sure. I’ve done that and it is. Well a day and a half.

It just gets funnier and worse at the same time. Funny because they aren’t removing stumps. They’re all just…

Remember the movie Zoolander? When the title character is working in the coal mines with his dad, and all of his work consisted of modeling with a pick axe and hitting coal once? That’s what they’re doing.

They aren’t removing stumps, they’re digging shovels into the ground in front of each other. Whjle all giving their best hot girl posing. Each one of them baring the marks of their labor. Tiny spots of dirt on their perfect white shirts, or a blotch of dirt on their cheek. But have no fears. They all take a water break at the same exact moment. Which if you needed to ask. Why yes. Yes they pour water down their cleavage and over their shirts. Showing off their laced sexy bras. If you are so excited you can’t contain yourself. You need to google more and get out.

30 of these reviews and some of you might wonder why I am the way I am with nudity in these films and how they use females in them. Yes T and A are part of horror and always have been, yes those women will get naked for some reason or another and sex will be on the menu. It’s not that it gets old, it’s not that you have to see it in nearly all horror still today. It’s just how you do it and how it’s used. If you are doing it for the value of  “hey look, huge honkers!” its not fun. If it has a purpose and a place. Go for it. Otherwise you are being lazy in your film elements and its just not worth it. You want a fun story on film nudity, I had to convince my sister to go see Jason Goes to Hell with me otherwise I couldn’t see it when it came out in theaters. My sister did not want to see it, “I don’t want to see women get naked and killed.” I told her there is no nudity in this one, it was even in a review I read. No breast! No butts!. She agreed and we went to the theater. Low and behold the moment there was a topless woman she slowly turned to me with a look I still remember and treasure to this day and she sighed loud enough for the theater to feel that.

Of course now she’s cool with it but also feels if your doing it even clothed just because, then don’t. Just don’t.

But this is a modern movie made by a man from the decade breast were displayed in all their glory. But like Roger Corman, he had to scale it back.

The funniest bit to happen here though isn’t just them all digging lightly in one area. That’s just funny stupid. No what’s even funnier is one of the girls runs her hands up and down the shaft of the shovel just once. Then walks off dropping the shovel. Samantha walks off to Mike the corrections officer and tells him she cut herself on a broken beer bottle some asshole left.

No. No she didn’t She was stroking a shovel, it looked like she gave herself a splinter. But when she shows him her arm? THE DAMN THING IS BLEEDING FROM HER ELBOW TO HER WRIST!!

What the hell!

Seriously how did that even. I even rewound the scene! She just rubs her hands up and down the shaft of the shovel and this split her damn arm enough to cause serious bleeding?!

Well instead of freaking out about it Mike just seems mildly interested. She ask him if she could go clean it by the stream. Where it’s not all mucky and gross.

Everywhere is mucky and gross!

But after she promises Mike to ‘make it worth his while’ he lets her go off to the river to clean it.

Yeah she’s gonna die. She’s blonde, she knew what she was signing up for.

So as she cleans her life threatening ‘glass’ wound, one of our prehistoric sharks swims up. She spots the fin and her first reaction? “Oh you gotta be kidding.”

That. Feels like an appropriate reaction to spotting a large shark in a small stream..river. It’s a stream.

The shark attack is. Not there.

This is troubling.

I was going to snap a shot of the shark bashing into the jeep earlier, but all you see is a wave of water and then nothing. The same happens here. This is, not a very good sign. A shark movie with no sharks? Is this Shark Exorcist? No, because we’d never watch that piece of shit or give it any attention like that which could lead to people watching it.

I am sincerely hoping this will be fixed later in the movie, I mean. You can’t have a shark film with just fins. There need to be teeth involved, and those teeth need to be inside jaws which are attached to the head and body of a shark!

This movie is already teetering on the balance of being a bad sad shark film. We don’t need it turning into a mistake.

But we shall wait and see. No turning back now.

So the girls work day is done. No tree stumps were removed. But it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I suppose. Now it’s time to wrangle these ladies up and head on back to their cells for community shower time.

But they can’t exactly do that with one of the girls missing. This is of course mildly troubling to Mike and Carl. They really look like they read the script and realized this is not going to help their careers versus cared about the missing prisoner.

Well since she was sent to the stream to go clean herself up, the stream is where they go. Only to find, her once perfect white top is bathed in blood. Prompting one of the girls to believe she could have stripped naked and made a run with it. I would ask how a blood soaked shirt factors into that. But I’d rather not make that joke.

This time.

It is decided she did not run off with someone as the stream is just so shallow. No one could get a boat in that and make it out. Comical as it would be. So she clearly was killed. Which is made even more evident by a nearby tree her body must’ve been body slammed into by the shark as there’s an unholy amount of blood splattered over the tree. So they radio in this information and the possibility a prisoner escaped, was murdered, critically wounded, that an armed murder suspect could be out in the woods?

Hell no!

These are men who act within their pay grade. So they just load up the girls the DO have, and start heading back to prison.

I am genuinely questioning their work ethics now.

But the girls don’t seem that concerned either. They are all loaded up in the van and headed back to the magical palace of prison. That is until the van happens upon a redhead stumbling outside of her car with a spot of blood on her forehead. It would seem this lady has suffered an accident and is in need of immediate medical help.

Or its an attempted prison break.

It’s an attempted prison break. Anita Conners lesbian lover has come to rescue the ladies and has our guards at gun point. This? This right here? This is why the roads leading to the womens prison here? All have signs which state “Do not pickup hitchhikers for any reason, and contact authorities immediately of any people on the side of the roads.”. But these men are just trying to finish their shift, get home and collect a paycheck. So they didn’t think to keep on truckin. And now they are left without their prisoners, and a bunch of ladies celebrating their felony act.

 Heading off to celebrate, while our two guards contemplate life, the universe, and everything. In the back of the van.

Meanwhile our special detective squad of Kendra(played by Traci Lords) and Adam(played by Corey Landis) are quietly driving together, thinking about what the hell they witnessed earlier with their suspects devoured and cash scattered. It’s a lot to consider. Or not. It’s not a concern. That’s this entire movies philosophy. Everything happening that you should likely question and look into. It’s not worth it, its not a concern. Three armed robbers end up dead and an old man is mumbling about sharks? Not our concern. Inmate goes missing leaving a huge bloody tree log and blood stained shirt? Not our concern.

At this point if they end up at a diner and a waitress takes care of them even though its not her section and she doesn’t tell them “Not my table not my concern.” I’ll be shocked.

But it seems her partner Adam is having second thoughts on being a detective. He doesn’t know if he is cut out for this kind of stuff. You’d think this might be a good point for his partner to tell him what it means to be a detective. A good one. How you get by day to day and somehow make everything worth it. The hard facts of life you have to witness that most people will with any luck never witness in their life. But no. Her advise to him is anytime you have questions about your job, or concerns, do like she does and turn the radio up.

Okay that works too I guess. See? They all are in a competition to see who cares the least!

I don’t know why Honey even put on a show to set those ladies free, she could’ve just told the guards she was going to take them and they’d just shrug and say sure whatever.

About the only thing we get out of this scene, is a womans voice over the radio is giving a news bulletin about 4 escaped women, to be on the lookout. Well that sounds important! Might as well turn the radio over to classic rock and turn it up!

Speaking of turning up. The van has pulled over and our ladies are being commanded by Honey, Anita’s gal pal to strip!

That’s right strip down and slap on some randomly collected clothing so you blend in with the locals. Well no one wants to strip because now that they’re not in prison it feels awkward having to get naked in front of each other. But also Miss Michelle Alika doesn’t want to strip. In fact, she doesn’t want to be rescued at all. She’s rather upset about it and. Oh my stars. She’s showing emotion.

SHE CARES!!

Break out the confetti!

She is rightfully upset with Honey and Anita rescuing them. She only had 6 months left to go before she would be reunited with her little boy. But now these lesbian gangsters are going to add 10 maybe 20 years to her sentence. So she’s ready to throw down.

Which happens in the most awkwardly racist way. One of the girls is mocking her for being worried about not getting out in 6 months, and for having a son. When she tells Michelle to change, Michelle tells her to frig off! So Sara glares and shoves her prompting Michelle to fire out “Hey if your feeling froggy, might as well jump!” and Sara. I shit you not answers back with “Con on, soy sauce!”

That. That is a line. Yeah. That. Alright.

So the two women begin the most awkward unscripted fight scene in recent memory. Both grabbing at one another, fake punching their breast, and huddling. It’s really, sadly awkward.

So awkward that Mike the security guard who is standing to the side, cringes his way out of the scene and escapes into the woods.

ACTION!! Yes! Something!

So Mike is running at a decent joggers pace and Honey takes off after him. Firing two shots but missing him entirely. He actually might make it and I’m rooting for him. Only because I want to see what a man alone in the woods does when he can’t be bothered to care about anything.

Well he’s gonna care damnit! Honey shoots off another couple of rounds and blamo! She nailed him in the arm. In the worst CGI blood splatter in ages. It’s just a splash effect on the screen and his blood is bright hot rod red. Apparently.

As he crashes to the ground though, Honey is closing in on him. So he grabs a rock. And wouldn’t you know it? Honey has so little confidence in her shooting abilities she has to stand right near his face to make sure she hits him. Only HE is the one who hits! He slams that rock right into the side of her head and he is off running. With a slippery spot of blood on his arm to simulate a gun shot wound. This type of thing would work in a 50’s film, but here we are. It’s just. So horrible.

Well Honey is done. She could go looking for him. She does have a gun. But he does have a rock and knows how to use it. So she has reached the extent of her caring and returns to her friends. Telling them she totally shot him dead and they have nothing to worry about. Which obviously changes nothing for the group. So they all load up into their van of mystery and take off to god only knows where.

As for Mike. Mike is going to die. But how and where is the thing. Before that can happen though. We have to have some fun with him. Fun in the form of how stupid can we make this human being, with a dash of ‘lets film in a public cave and not hide it.

Mike was apparently shot with an enchanted bullet, because his intelligence is lowered enough his only concern is water. It’s all he can mumble, as if he’s been out in the heat and without water and food for days. He stumbled upon an old rusty metal door, in the ground. He stares wild eyed and says “Water?” he opens the large metal door, hears trickling of water down below and exclaims in emotion “Water!”. The man child stumbles down a metal ladder into this hole in the earth and ends up in the middle of a cave tour. I say this because the cave looks ancient, with lots of natural rock growths and formations. But also clearly marked walking paths and red floor likes to showcase certain rock formations. He stumbles around and happens upon the source of early mans desire to fullfill his thirst.

Thank the gods for sharks! As he perches himself like an innocent deer, feeding from the rock puddle which we will ignore what chemical wonders await that mans body from what he’s drinking. We see a fin approaching. He has yet to catch on. But his unevolved mind would not be able to comprehend. This is the best scene by far in the movie. It gives me hope. And as we learned from a shitty Star Wars film. Hope is the flame that can ignite who cares. MIKE IS DEAD!

Mike was not killed by a wave of water. Mike was not killed by a fin. But was killed by a mouth full of shark pointy teeth and a shark! We see out shark once again and it made a kill. I am legitimately so proud right now. Like seeing a baby shark of my own taring apart its first human. This is what we needed to assure us the movie did still care somewhere in its heart.

At least for the moment.

From the happiness that is a shark kill, to a prefabricated home out in the woods for our ladies to “Chiil, just chill, and wait” This home is their home away from home.

It is the worst idea and these ladies are not arguing it. In fact they thankfully recognize the painfully obvious. That this is the first door the police would come knocking. They’d be right. A house in the middle of the woods, near the prison and a work site? Yeah. This is not the best place. But no one is going to argue with our love birds who picked this classy AirBnB. It is also worth noting that these ladies all either had generic body frames or someone took measurements and they did a tremendous job finding outfits to fit them all beautifully.

Get ready to settle in because we are not leaving this place anytime soon. Not even for Traci Lords playing Detective looking for clues to these women’s current whereabouts.

So Anita ties up our lone security guard Carl. Who is contemplating his own mortality. Shannon, Michelle and Sarah are all in the kitchen eating fruit and discussing a hot tub bath before bed, and Anita is about to engage in the act of love making with her rescue ranger and girlfriend Honey If you are getting hot and bothered at the idea of two women making out and having the sex? Well. If awkward kissing is your thing, go for it and enjoy yourself. If you were hoping for something sexy and steamy? Go slap two raw chicken breast together and close your eyes, let your mind run wild you sad, sad thing.

Seriously there were reviews I saw for this thing where guys were upset and down voted the movie for not going further with the sex stuff. It’s…what a world we live in.

Meanwhile our three kitchen ladies are getting ready for a hot tub soaking before bed.

Nope. No nudity here. They are soaking up some warm water in their bra and panties. Good choice. This is not the movie or the time to go for broke.

It’s a short scene, and it actually delivers a bit more story. More in the way of the girls all not feeling too big or hot about their rescue. Sure its nice to be free. But they have no idea what Honey and Anita are planning. They could end up going their own way in the morning. Leaving the rest of them to either surrender to the authorities. Or take off in their own direction. They could end up saying everyone is free to leave if and when they want as well. But Michelle believes there is a third option. The option that involves Anita and Honey killing them all so they don’t blab to the cops.

It's a legit concern. I mean Honey, even though she lied. Did tell them she killed Mike. So if she’d kill a prison guard instead of using him for insurance. It’s possible.

All the women consider this and decide they’ll let the morning come along and take it from there. But should things look to turn south? They’ll look out for one another. Or themselves.

So they DO care!

Well. Morning comes. And it is a cold as balls morning. Like you can see their breath outside cold. Going out in butt short jeans and a halter may not be the wisest choice. But if you want to really wake yourself. Go for it.

Now. I have to stop the film. Because we just may have made history in the worst way imaginable.

Many moons ago. There was a film I saw as a child. Little Monsters. With Howey Mandel and Fred Savage. In the film, Fred eats his favorite sandwich. A raw onion and peanut butter sandwich. It haunts me to this day.

This film. Just struck at the heart of the chef inside me which still lives, or at least did until this moment.

Shannon. Walks into the kitchen, and searches the cupboards. She gets excited when she finds two cans. She is going to make breakfast. The food, which she is about to use, and summon untold evils to unleash upon her butthole, and the world of culinary delights as we know it. Is 1 can of sliced pears in syrup, combined and cooked over the stove with a can of Hormel Chili, with beans.

The idea. That this food combination. Not only came into existence. Not only excited this woman, filled her with glee.

But the concept, that her mind sparks. Your first meal as a fee woman, The meal that will explode through your stomach at the speed of light with the force of 10 coffees in the morning.

Is chili and pears.

Who…who hurt you? What evil spirit visited you in the night and whispered this was the thing you should create, and ingest. With cheerful glee. I just. No sane human would eat this. Or for that matter should. You’d be better off eating taco bell and dealing with the consequences of your decisions. Not forcing your insides to scream “What did you do to us?!”

I’m going to light a candle, in a church. I’ll be right back.

Well after being asked to leave the church for shouting at people about the end of all things and combining pears with chili, I resume the movie, and just in time as we are going to get another much needed kill. I mean we are at the magical 40 minute mark so. Lets not mess with the schedule yes?

This time around, Sarah will be our victim. She is enjoying the absolute freezing air and decides hanging out on a tree branch over a stream is a fun idea. Because if cold weather isn’t enough to freeze your joints. The water will absolutely work wonders. Sure enough she spots a shark fin. It naturally confuses her and she moves out of the way. Good on you! She wisely removed herself from the water. Threat averted.

Until the movie takes a decidedly awkward turn.

Remember how I joked earlier about the prehistoric sharks having wiggly bits that looked like the wiggly bits on the worm beast in tremors?

Remember how in Sand Sharks those ancient fish could also swim in the water as well as land?

Well here we go again. We got sharks with all terrain underbellies and those wiggly bits are helping propel them forward. But in a no joking way, they look like Tremors now. With a sharks fin. They are tilling up huge amounts of soil and Sarah has no place to go. So she stands her ground, legs wide because they wanted to shoot from the ground between her thighs for. Some reason. And she is taken out. Another mark on the no shark kill board. Just a CGI blood splotch, and Sarah is gone.

Well there we go. I think we might be onto something as far as the rules of monsters go. Every horror movie sets up rules for their villain. So you have safe spots, death spots. Weaknesses and strengths etc. We’ve watched a few shark movies, 30 in total this month, and we’ve seen a few prehistoric sharks now. They all appear to possess the ability to indeed flop around on land, and swim through it. That’s Kinda of interesting and it seems to actually be a thing for them so. That’s something learned.

Speaking of learning. It’s time for another comical scene, and this actually is pretty damn funny.

Michelle is not a lucky lady. She’s been called soy sauce. Twice now, and now she’s being told by Honey, at gun point. To go take the corrections officer Carl to the bathroom, and watch him poop. To make sure he doesn’t try to escape or do anything sneaky…aside poop. She refuses and is told “Hey, eggroll. Do what I said!”, I don’t know why she’s getting all this hate. But damn.

So she eventually returns, even less happy, and meets a smiling happy Shannon, who ask everyone “I made breakfast! Pears and beans, my signature meal. Whos hungry?” Michelle outright is disgusted beyond words and tells her “No thanks, I had enough looking at Carl’s pears and beans” You go Michelle.

Honey tells her to tie Carl back up. But Michelle is done. “You do it, he’s an old man he’s not going anywhere.” Honey points the gun at her again and Michell flips her off. “Whatever, I’m gonna have a smoke.” So Anita tries to step in and stop her. Michelle shoves Anita hard enough to through her back, clashing into a table and chair and makes her victorious exit.

That woman is gonna have her smokie treat and no one going to stop her.

Does she die? Not yet. But her morning is about to take a downfall. She looks over to the stairs leading out from the porch to the woods and screams for everyone to come outside.

At the foot of the stairs, is a bloody dead Sarah. Her leg missing, and a huge trail of blood behind her.  Apparently the shark decided not to eat her, or caught a whiff of the hell being cooked in their kitchen and got sick.

The girls follow the blood trail and I lost it. They found her severed leg. A semi horrible prop. With a single sharks tooth jammed into it, sticking straight up. It just looks so bad.

Well the girls are officially scared now and worried. Even though you would imagine anyone could look at the tooth and recognize it for what it is, these ladies do not. Carl however does. He tells them it’s a shark tooth. When asked how he knows this? He produced his keychain which. Has a shark tooth.

But get ready for another surprise. Albeit a bit of a downer surprise. But still a surprise.

We have two men approaching the house and these women. Honey immediately points her gun at the two. While Shannon smiles flirtatiously at the younger looking man. Who in turn also looks back flirtatiously at her.

These men might look a little familiar. They also laugh off the pointed gun and tell the ladies to relax they’re friendly. But instead Anita now points a gun at them along side her lover. Now these men are a little less joyful. The ladies ask them what they’re doing out there in the middle of the woods, and now at this house.

That’s when familiarity is confirmed, and sadness commences.

These are the two men from the beginning of the film. The ones who died in the jeep. They apparently survived, and have not a care in the world. So we are back to that now.

But worst of all. This means our shark, has only killed two people. Not 4 Well this blows! You can’t take back kills!

That’s not fair dude.

But here we are. They survived, and they tell the girls their jeep was attacked by prehistoric sharks. They named them out as such. So the women now officially know what they are up against. And they are fully accepting that not only are they going against sharks. But ancient sharks.

How these guys are so happy. I don’t know.

But then we do, Honey tells the girls to take them inside, tie them up. So the younger guy tells his older coworker “They’re kidnapping us!” and he nods to him and says “Yeah, and look at that rack”

So yeah. Sharkansas.

So once inside, we get the greatest information dump of all time. Our older Fracker sits down and explains his job, why he was out there with his younger coworker, and then how. With all this fracking. It unsettled the ground and set free a prehistoric pod of sharks. This might be a good time to take a pee break, or roll another joint, refill your beverage. This is gonna be fun.

Two weeks ago, Delgado Petroleum started fracking some old wells in the area. They may have gone too far and completely shattered the subterranean shale bed. In 2007, scientist discovered an ocean lying 1,400 kilometers below eastern Asia about the size of Texas. Now a betting man would get that the goold ol’ U S of A has it’s own underground ocean.  Just teeming with life. His fear, is that Delgado may have inadvertently opened a superhighway between the earth’s surface and one of these vast underground waterwats. Which means they are now facing a prehistoric monster they haven’t seen in about 40 million hears.

A sharkasaurus, 13-20 feet long, and a natural-born killing machine, both in water, and on land.

That was direct from the movie and I will say for myself that Dinoshark sounds a lot better than Sharkasaurus. A LOT better.

So hearing this. The women instantly believe him and do not question what so ever the legitimacy of this mans story presented to them.

They are panicking, they want to get the hell out of there and fast. So honey tells them to pack their shit and lets get to the van.

Only problem is, no one wants to go to the van now that they know prehistoric land tunneling sharks are nearby.

So Anita commands at Michelle “Go on out there Tokyo Rose!” Again what is with the hate on poor Michelle! She hasn’t done anything to anyone! She doesn’t want to go out there and at this point I’m kind of rooting for her honestly. Honey is not however and can’t stand these ladies all acting like delicate flowers.

So she charges out there in her heels and leather pants.

It’s hard not to notice this. Because the director, as Roger Corman before him. Used to make films with nudity, mostly when appropriate. As we can’t have that now. He does what he feels he can do help people with that itch.

I will just say. Remember that it is butt clinching cold outside where they are filming. But they are supposed to be out in the hottest time of the year. They are wearing very thing clothing. The camera decides to linger. On certain ladies with..a lot of talent. Mostly focusing on their chests a bit longer than would feel natural. You see where I’m getting at.

Well Honey has made it to the van, and no attack. No sharks swallowing her up or eating her limbs. At least not yet. But remember. These are Tremor sharks. So it takes a little while but sure enough. Not one, but two prehistoric sharks show up. She begins shooting at them, as does Anita. It’s pure gold, and the dirt the sharks are kicking up is a weird texture stuck between being tapioca pearls and mud. But the ladies safely make it back to the house and no one was lost.

However no one still cares about what is and just happened.

We learn this as immediately after the near shark attack and wild gunfire. Shannon is flirting with Mike. And he with her. He’s apparently cool with being kidnapped, and she’s cool telling him she’s an inmate. Love is in the air and god knows why.

Thankfully Traci Lords is here to save us. Her and her partner are having lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Which is only chosen for the setup of a joke coming soon. They are discussing this new case of the 4 missing girls. As well as the two missing men and the destroyed truck. As well as evidence of an animal having killed the three bank robbers, and the bloody shirt found at the swamp. They don’t know what is going on, but they are hoping for a break in these cases, in anything. Honestly it’s a bit sad because these two don’t really have anything of substance to do, and you could edit their sub plot out entirely, and it would not effect the film what so ever.

But they are eating their lunch until their boss gives them both a text and its time to get out there back on the case. She tells her partner, heres the joke people. “pack up your chalupas, pay the bill, and lets blow this taco stand.”

Brilliant.

SPEAKING of brilliant.

We have to have a plan right? Some way to get the ball rolling and plan an escape. So it’s time to set that ball game up. In the most unlikely but favored of alliances.

Michelle is hanging out in the kitchen with her new buddy Carl. If you weren’t aware, watching someone else poop immediately bonds you two together. So these two are now bonded and friends. Michelle was looking for something to eat and. For a brief moment she debated colonic suicide as she says all they got for food is pears and beans. She accidentally knocks over a can and it hits a board in the kitchen. Immediately flying off the wall. Revealing a hidden compartment. She snoops around and. Within this little space, is a wealth of weapons. Fully automatic rifles, handheld automatics. As she says, “Enough guns to start world war 3”, without hesitation she is arming Carl and he is more than happy with her help.

So the two approach the living room where the rest of our party sits in wait. Carl tries to get their attention and show off the cool guns they got. But no one cares. So Michelle fires off a round from her handheld automatics. This works.

She announces to everyone that her boy Carl was asking for their attention and they should give it. So carl lays out new ground rules. “The kidnappings, the prison break. All of that stops now. Instead we are all going to focus on getting out of here. There are enough guns in the kitchen for all of you. So pick up a gun, load up and lets get out of here alive.”

They all agree and head to the kitchen. Good going Carl.

Only the movie must not have had many guns after all as everyone is armed with literally the same guns they already had before.

Now all of them armed and looking around. Realize escape is going to be difficult. As the sharks sliced the tires on the van. We won’t ask how. We will just accept this into our reality. But are the sharks still out there? Well, Mike is going to find out. He grabs a large hunk of wood that was just hanging out on the porch and chucks it out onto the drive way. It lands audibly, and everyone just stares at it in awkward silence. It’s great. No one really knows what to say or how to react at the absolute silence.

Until a shark ruins it and dives up from the ground. Of course they couldn’t help themselves. Our last movie and a damn shark had to jump up out of the ground. Thanks movie.

So they know there is one shark. But that’s not enough. John tells everyone to hold their ears and begins wasting ammunition firing into the ground. As he does the ground comes alive and there are at least 7 sharks. That’s what we are told, but in reality there are 3.

3 sharks.

So now that they can’t run out the front door without being killed. Whatever will they do?!

John ask the group if there is a well nearby. Shannon tells him there isn’t. But there is a cave not far from them. John thinks that’s even better.

Why? His plan is. For them to race off for the cave, and seek safety inside and possibly travel along the cave out to safety. Why did he first ask about a well? Because he thought they could make it down inside the well and ride one of the underground currents he talked about and make it somewhere safe. But the cave is even better. Because, “Caves are solid rock. Sharks can’t burrow through that, we will be safe there.”

The geologist is also a marine biologist and expert in prehistoric sharks.

So they have only one problem now. The cave is 300 feet away. It’s not that far. However. They need a distraction of some sort. Something to help so they can safely make it to the cave.

They also have to hurry because waiting at the house is the worst idea. Why you may ask? Because shark swarms. He tells them that sharks gather at a certain point, in mass in one area. They eat everything in sight, setup territories and breed. So this place could become a prehistoric shark spawning ground. Which means death for all.

So they damn well better start caring!

This is. They are going to make a distraction, of the dumbest kind. And hope for the best. Sharks are drawn to blood. So they need to give them what they want, and they need to cause a big enough distraction to rattle them, possible more. So. They begin making a scarecrow body. While Carl uses a syringe to draw his blood. Mike is busy emptying bullets of their gun powder and stuffing it into a plastic baggy. The spurt blood all over the scarecrow and push the explosive bag into the body.

Carl will toss the body out onto the front driveway. When sharks come for it, Honey will shoot the explosive bag. Hopefully taking out a few sharks.

After that, they through the house, out back to the cave and safety.

Well. The plan works. Until it doesn’t. They bloew it up, and no idea if any sharks actually died. But. It was a big boom. They run outside and make their way to the cave. At least most of them make it there. Michelle reaches the spot first and calls for everyone to hurry their asses up. Which they do. Until the professor of fracking trips and sprains his ankle.

Will he die? Unfortunately no. But he is playing dead weight. Everyone is trying to get him back up on his feet to run toward safety. But it isn’t working. He won’t budge. So Mike, the brave boy who was winning points with Shannon a woman who killed her oxy addicted abusive husband and kissed this boy. Is now watching him take off to help his fracking buddy. So he rushes out and begins firing at a shark. Shouting at it to notice him. Well the shark decides okay what’s to notice about you? You look pretty average and nothing stands out about your personality. This saddens Mike and unfortunately he forgets how his legs work. So he stands still and lets the shark charge toward him and kill him. Everyone mourns him, especially Shannon. She only kissed him REALLY awkwardly once, but she had a connection. Sure maybe it wasn’t like Carl and Michelle’s poop connection. But it was real! Real to her!

So he’s dead.

This motivates Professor dickweed to get up finally and limp off with the group into the cave.

Well yippy skippy! We made it! What now?

They have no idea. They need to find an underground superhighway lake bed and follow it to freedom, or death. That’s their game plan and they go with it.

But not before having a disagreement on who’s giving orders. Honey still feels she’s leading this parade. So she isn’t taking orders from Carl. But Carl things she is. Because he knows something she doesn’t. Her guns out of ammo, she blew her last load on the dummy that blew up. So he takes her gun!

Anita however now wants to challenge Carl as she ALSO has a gun and immediately, stupidly, demands he return the empty of all ammunition gun to Honey. Carl laughs a belly laugh and tells Anita he gave her an empty gun! There was NO WAY he was giving a psycho like her a loaded weapon. So he snatches her gun too!

Shannon with a confussed look ask if her gun was loaded either. Carl shrugs and says Nope! My gun now! Shannon is once again betrayed by life, and saddened.

The only people who apparently had guns with ammo, were him, his poop pal Michelle, and the professor as well as dead Mike.

The only people he trust.
So with that said, they are off down further into the state park cave. Because Professor dickweed feels a draft. So they should follow it.

Meanwhile Batman and Robin, or Detectives Kendra and Adam, have discovered the house where our group recently was. Prepare to be wowed by the worst detectives in the history of ever, of all time.

They are parked outside the house. Outside this house. We have blood on the walls and ground. We have a flaming human shaped scarecrow, and a banged up van with slashed tires.

Kendra ask for binoculars. She’s looking over the chaos.

“Yep, there’s our van. Markings and all.” She doesn’t see the fire raging on the scarecrow directly beside the van, or the blood.

“Huh, looks like theres an odd shaped object on the ground”, she says While looking at the flaming body shaped scarecrow.

“Looks like someone cut the tires on the van too. Huh, somethings going on.”

Not going to mention that fire, chief? Or the blood? None of that rings any alarm bells? No sirens going off? Just another day in paradise?

DO THEY CARE?!

What drugs are these people on? Slap my balls with a bag of milk, what is with these people.

Well it doesn’t matter as soon their car gets nose booped by a shark and they take off like a bat out of hell. THAT gets them motivated, but a flaming body shape bloodied house and wrecked van don’t even tickle their tit? Okay pal.

Well back in the cave of wonders. Our group have discovered, what appears to be an abandoned raft, some paddles and gear. But no cave people or drug dealers. Stuffs just laying there. Interesting. But they move on, who cares. They do however discover a sign of hope. Which I sure as hell hope it is, because we’re down to 20 minutes left in this picture.

They have seen light reflected onto the rocks near by. That means a way out and safety! Possibly.

But there’s a problem. Well two problems.

First and less likely to be a problem for people who don’t care. We hear what sounds like whale song through the cavern. They determine, or at least our professor of fracking dickweeds determines. It must be the sharks, and possibly other creatures from the underground ocean river thing. Communicating to one another. How majestic. No one there in the group cares.

The other concern they face. Is that their path to freedom, is just past a hundred yards of knee, possibly waist deep water. So this means sharks could grab them. It is possible, we saw in the very beginning which feels ages ago, that they do in fact swim In under a foot of water. So what should they do now?

Oh that’s right there’s an abandoned raft back a ways. Well now they care. Cool bro. Rafting time.

As for our detectives? They are driving for their lives, not slowing down for anything. Not even the bad CGI woods outside their none moving car.

Get ready for a facepalm.

Detective Kendra believes they’re safe now. But she also doesn’t want to alarm Adam. But, “I think we encountered a land shark.” Adam looks at her about how you’d expect. But she’s willing to bet her pension on this being land sharks. Land sharks from hell.

She follows this up with her expert detective skills. “I think that’s what attacked those escaped prisoners. That excplains the slashed tired.” Adam looks at her and thinks for a moment. “Well what about the flaming body doll?” She thinks about this a while. “Throwing meat to the wolves. They made a decoy. Something to distract the sharks and make a run for it. But where? Look there’s a cave on the property. I bet you they ran to that cave. It’s where I’d go if I was in their shoes. Lets look at the geographical map and see if there’s another way into that cave.”

What, in the actual fuck? So they. They NOTICED THIS?! ALL OF IT?! But they didn’t feel the need to ACKNOWLEDGE IT?!!!

What…why? WHY?! This is, too much. You see what looks like a flaming body. A possible body on fire. But you only decide in that moment to say “Oh what an odd object.”, but when your ass gets smacked by a shark you suddenly determine “Ah yes the flaming body doll”

What kind of lazy fucketry is this?

Are you people high on the dope? Smoking that tweed?!

Mother of mercy. This movie.

Anyway…moving on.

We return to the cave. Our team of monkeys find their raft. Huzzah. They don’t care. The professor of fracking and getting people killed because his ankle hurts is excited however. And he makes one movie mistake you never want to make. He begins talking about what he’s looking forward to once they make it out of there.

So he dies.

Apparently there was soil, or water. And a shark leaps into the air and takes him down.

So the group takes a brisk walk back to Honey and Anita.

This is the final act of the film, and oh is it a final act.

They decides that Carl the corrections officer should be sent over first. He will determine if its safe. If it isn’t they will pull him back in a hurry. Anita won’t though. She’s still mad that he took their empty guns. So she won’t help with any of it. Even though Honey will because she wants to get out of there alive.

Well thankfully Carl makes it across. So his job now is to hold the rope they attached to the raft on his end. And the girls pull the rope on the opposite end to bring the boat back. This way they have a clear path and they will move two at a time. So Michelle and Shannon go next. Carl wishes them all luck, and Michelle tosses our there, flirtatiously, and I would assume a little awkwardly. “Hey, what about your jade flower?” She is, her bonded poop pals jade flower.

He sends her all his best as well. And wouldn’t you know it? They make it across alive and well. Leaving just Anita and Honey. Anita. Is a dumb bitch. I don’t mean it in a derogatory way so much as Roger from Family guy. In that Anita was born to die and do dumb things. She decides. Even though they are moments away from freedom. She is still grumpy about the whole gun thing. She notices that Carl left his automatic against the wall. So she grabs it, all grins and wicked tee hee smiles. She gets into the raft and you know she’s going to take Carl down the first chance she gets.

Well her and Honey are coming around the cave corner, ready to greet their friends, and right as the do. Anita. In all her blonde wisdom. Sits up, god. Stands nearly up. Shouts out in slow motion “Yeeeeeeaaaah!” Big Carl Papa leaps out of the way as Anita begins to fire. He is safe. But Shannon is not. She takes a single bullet right to the throat, she is dead.

Anita, is introduced to recoil, and balance. Whether you are standing, or kneeling. You are immediately putting a rubber raft off balance. When you fire an automatic weapon. Recoil will vibrate through the rifle and lift the barrel upward. Along with your arms. If you are not ready for it? Your will begin to raise your arms and lean back.

So Anita leans back and falls out of the raft. She is immediately eaten by sharks, Much to the emotional dismay of her lover, Honey. Honey. Cared.

Meanwhile Michelle and Carl stand over Shannon and give her a final moment. No one cares that Honey also was eaten by a shark. Though we didn’t really see it.

But what about Carl and his Jade flower?

He does something kind of actually sweet. He tells Michelle that, he won’t turn her over to authorities. He’ll tell anyone that ask, everyone was killed. Only he survived. The sharks ate the bodies so. No way to identify them all. She’s really grateful for this and gives him a friendship hug. They are forever bonded by pooping, and may someday reunite and poop together, in a bathroom with two toilets.

As she leaves for freedom. Batman and Robin our wonder detectives arrive. Asking what happened. He tells them as he promised Michelle. Only he survived, and knows exactly what they’re up against. With that we see a sign that now reads in blood Sharkansas Women’s Prison, a prehistoric tremor shark rushes toward us and eats the camera. But before we are done. We see that. Honey did not die. She swam to safety, panting. Looks at the camera and says her trademark line. Which I never mentioned because I had no idea it would be. And it shouldn’t But she ends the film with the line, “Crap on a cracker.”

The End.

And with that. We end Shark-A-Thon.

I’ll leave my closing thoughts on that for something I plan to write and put out may 1st. because this whole month really meant a lot to me and I have a lot I’d like to say about it, as well as a final judgement for all 30 films.

As for right now? I got some things to say about this movie.

Firstly. Holy shit.

I mean. Okay. It was bad. But it wasn’t so bad it was horrible. It was pretty damn close. And people were exceptionally dumb and at times bland. Things happened with little to know real setup and this felt very rushed. Not so much on the screen but rushed in its production. Like you can tell they clipped down the story to fit the projected run time and get it out. But even with what they did put together and pushed out. It’s not near the directors best and really was just a let down.

It could’ve been worse. Absolutely worse. But it wasn’t that far off either. It was just safe enough.

Firstly the good stuff. The music was really fun. But felt really nostalgic.

One of my favorite fun 80’s scores in my top three actually is Chopping Mall. Its fun synth that gives you a real feel and tone for the movie. And the synth meets spaghetti western Morricone feel was really something else. It was an excellent blend of two styles and stood out in that movie.

Here you got somewhat the same but nowhere near the creativity. There were a lot of western themes in the music for this. You could easily pick it up. And while fun, it just didn’t capture that same vibe and feel. The music otherwise fit certain moments. There was almost a John Carpenter’s The Thing sound and feel to the score at times. It was a treat, but still not his best. But as I’ve said before. Music can really help your film out. It helps convey emotion and gets things across sometimes. Honestly watching the original Star Wars trailer without the music, it’s a different experience. It also saved Carpenter’s Halloween. The movie was getting shit on when it was viewed on campuses but once he added his score to the film. Then it started scaring people.

The music though fun in the film. It just didn’t take the film anywhere. I won’t say it came off generic. But I can say in all honesty it did get lost in the background frequently.

The story wasn’t bad. It felt like another homage, going back to the well of past success structured stories. The movie felt like a combination of a few old films. It felt partly like an old film called Swamp Diamonds. In how the prisoners in that were all caricatures playing certain types. But more on a less realistic and more corny side. It felt part that and part Attack of the Giant Leeches. Like what we saw with Roger Corman and his return to B-movies. He did similar but he evolved. Sometimes the story can still hold reflections of that old story and style. But they can also hide it. Here it just came off a bit. Hmm. Disjointed.

It had its fun moments. Both in laughing at points in the film and also actual comedy in it. But the comedy was very lacking overall. Which you’d expect to have some of, or at least a chunk of, in a film called Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre. I mean the name alone just. Well yeah. That’s why I picked it. Saw the name and laughed immediately thinking “Okay this one HAS to be on the list.”

I’m still glad for it, I wouldn’t take it off for anything. It earned its spot and I liked that it showed me there is a sub-genre of shark films for prehistoric sharks. Am I glad it was the last one in the lineup? Yeah actually. But..wait for it. For different reasons.

It might sound odd, but ending out 30 shark films with a movie I didn’t fall in love with, but found a lot that didn’t work for it. I kind of like that. I don’t want to hate on a film I really well and truly don’t. Like I tore a new hole for Quija Shark. But that film absolutely deserved it for being lazy and a waste of time. But every movie deserves a fair shake and I’d rather talk about movies that almost work, or nearly worked. More than showering one with praise. Like I absolutely love and adore Bad CGI Sharks. I really do. But as much as I loved that film and the work those guys put into it. I liked showering them with praise they all absolutely deserved for that film. But I enjoyed so much more digging into what worked and could’ve worked better, how things came off and what I got from it. Because that’s the meat and potatoes of the dish for me. So I’d rather have this film, a film I can dig into over a film I love be the end of this month.

Its just fun in an odd way. I’m rambling.

Anyway. This film had potential, but it wasn’t a total loss. It stayed true to its roots, and though it did teeter on boring at points. It never crossed that line. It wasn’t lazy either. It just wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. And that’s fine.

Some of Jim Wynorski’s pictures are like that and it happens. They can’t all be Return of Swamp Thing, which bombed. It can’t be Chopping Mall, which nothing should ever except Chopping Mall, and it certainly was no Deathstalker 2. Less said on that the better. For now.

I was really thinking this would have ended up being a film about women escaping prison through the swamps, and ending up having to fend off sharks. It almost was, but a bit more drawn out and with a lot more people involved.

I also like I joked earlier, really thought maybe it would be a prison that gets raided by sharks. That could’ve also had potential. Thing Deep Blue Sea meets Reform School Girls. Or Concrete Jungle.

That could’ve been fun. But it was an interesting choice in the end.

What this movie really could have benefited from, was actors conveying emotion. I joked a lot about it in the watch along, but honestly they really. Really needed more emoting. Instead a lot of reactions came off vacant. I don’t want to say its because the actresses were bad. But they just didn’t seem really…like there was no effort. Almost like they realized what this film was. And no one particularly felt like giving effort to be in it.

Movies like this work best when you have a group working with you that want to have fun. That see a role like this and think. Yeah, okay that should be crazy. Lets roll with it. You get people like that, you get invested in your project and their attitude toward the film shows through in their acting. It doesn’t have to be top shelf by any means. I mean shit the acting in Twilight was vacant and corpse like. But the damn series had asses in seats and that’s not right. This thing had barely any asses and needed emotion from its actors in a lot of scenes.

Maybe that’s also do to looking at things without knowing what effects are in them. Like Traci Lords. She can act. She has acted in many a fun project. But here she was really under used. She had some fun-ish lines. But there was no reason for her character at all. Even in the end. They never once utilized the character or her partner. You had someone like that. Someone who was fun in Cry Baby for Pete’s sake, and you chose to just make them a pointless B side character? I don’t get it. Her and her partner could’ve have a bigger role. You could have left the fracking twins out of the story and had the detectives show up on the property. Have a small shootout between them and the prisoners at the house. Then have the sharks appear and everyone head for the house. Realize they are all in the same house, point guns at each other. Have your tense stand off and them realize they need to make a shaky alliance if they want to get out of this alive. That adds some tension. That allows for double crosses that make sense. And that would have utilized your otherwise misused actor and their character. Hell it would’ve made the ending shoot out with Anita a bit more tense too. Instead you have two detectives pop up now and again, then at the end and that’s all folks.  Just a waste of potential that could’ve made the story interesting.

But that wasn’t the story they wanted, it’s the story we got.

If they worked on the tone and focused a bit more on that. It might’ve helped.

I hate to keep referencing it but Chopping Mall was a B movie horror with a dash of comedy. It was also a satire and that all came across pretty well. There were comedic elements throughout and horror dominated. This just fell into the bad shark movie category which doesn’t mean bad especially. Just bad in the sense it’s not meant to look polished or be what would otherwise be entertaining. Get in, get out. Get the job done.

The movie ends on a joke and it didn’t really land. Because the humor was scarcely there. It just needed something more. All around.

Was there anything that stood out as absolutely horrible?

Not. Especially.

BUT. The sharks.

I liked the look of the sharks. They had a fun look to them, even when they turned into Tremors. I like that they all seem to share a similar look and design across movies. Did not have a problem with them at all.

What I did have a problem with, was their decision to either not show the sharks at all. Or going with really bad contact kills.

Okay so The Asylum has that pretty nailed down to you’ll either get people falling back and a CGI shark making contact? Or you’ll get someone falling to their side and a very obvious CGI shark making bite contact in an off way.

This film did neither. What it did instead was opted to wash your screen out with effects so they wouldn’t have to worry. Much like Some shark movies where the shark just swallows the person whole, so they don’t need to show anything. You just have the person vanish under the image of the shark.

They didn’t even do that.

They just.

The first fake kill in the movie with the jeep. You saw a fin, and when it attacked. You had a large splash of water across the whole front of the jeep. Then the jeep pushes back.

When Sarah is attacked by the shark in the woods? The shark leaps at us, we see teeth. But then a comical blood splat. That is fine. That works more for me, versus an empty sharkless attack. They kept alternating in this and it wasn’t good. Why they didn’t show, or choose to show sharks attacking from the ground. I don’t know. Budget? Skill? I don’t know. Other films, even some bad ones manage to show it.

I wouldn’t be so critical if not for the fact it really stands out. Like play the kill scenes in slow motion. Just slow it down or pause if you need to. And you can see the fin vanishes way before the attack happens. There’s a large delay, and then the attack happens. When you see it? Then watch the scene again? It stands out to you.

Way back in the day I had done a lot of editing to video, which we won’t talk about. But doing that, you pick up on things, and you can see where film cuts were made, you can see where effects were missing in films or added in a second or so late. Once you notice that and you watch movies. It sticks with you. Like making your own beer and wine and suddenly picking up ingredients you didn’t notice before in other drinks, but now they stand out to you.

That’s why I love behind the scenes stuff and watching films from different angles. But it also teaches you that if you can notice a bad effect or poorly done one. If you can spot it? Likely others did too. One of those as Red Letter Media says. You may not have caught it. But your brain did.

The movie had a lot of those moments and it makes it feel like the project was rushed. I doubt the director didn’t care. I’m sure they watched the edit and approved it. But it’s one of those…sometimes. Things like that can add a laugh or a charm to a thing. Sometimes. But other times. When you are already bordering on being bored with the film, or your attention is drifting. It can end up adding as a bad check mark to a film.

Not everyone will tighten things down, not everyone has the time, and honestly some times things escape you. I mean hell the audio drama I made and put out. I tore my bald scalp off so many times with editing, re-editing, adding effects, foley, pickup lines, timing the music. Listening and relistening to 30 seconds of audio multiple times. That when I finally released it. I still tinkered with it before putting it out on Spotify because I didn’t like the audio leveling in one section, and I still managed to miss out replacing one effect with a better one.

That was me challenging myself to write, produce, direct, edit, cast, score and put the damn thing out. In a month. It was insane, I loved it, I would never do it again like that. Ever. But It taught me a lot and I am mostly proud of it. I know what I could do better and will apply that to the next chapter I release. Films are the same way. You can get obsessed with all your fixes and every concern. And before you know it you have to release it, and you still have a mile long list of things YOU find wrong with it or could be done just a hair better. But you have to let it go, and put it out there. Sometimes its best not to get bogged down in the details, that people like me and other far better and more detailed reviewers will absolutely point out and dig into. Sometimes you might have something that really didn’t need it and you’ll find people got what it was you were trying to say and put out there.

I wish that were the case here. But it feels like it wasn’t.

I don’t hate the movie. It’s not one of my favorites either. It never put me to sleep and I didn’t struggle to get through it. But I did keep hoping something would jump out from the film and reinvest me.

Which it sort of did once they began engaging the sharks and formulating a plan. But they still fumbled that a bit, and it took a little longer than it should have. But they still crossed the finish line.

It was still an alright film. I’d say if you love shark movies you should still see it. You can learn from movies like it, and I’m glad it was on the list, even if it’s the last one, and I kind of wish I were reviewing more of these shark movies.

But holy cow am I ready for the break and regaining my sanity.

So yes. Check it out but only if you are curious. Don’t expect a thrill ride. Swamp Diamonds is a very good way to describe this film because that too had a premise and a story. But good lord did it take forever doing a lot of nothing.

So thanks for one last dive, I hope it was fun, I really would like to do another or just carry on at a less frantic pace. And remember. If you have 6 months left in your prison sentence? Stay in prison, you won’t have to deal with prehistoric sharks, or hearing someone belch out in a bad southern accent ‘Crap on a cracker.