The Bay: Hai-Alarm!

Wow. This one is really beyond words. "Spring Break Shark Attack" couldn't get any worse if they tried. Most of the first hour is wasted with "O.C." style teen drama, and for a second I thought I had come across a Lifetime Moment of Truth movie about date rape or something. Bryan Brown plays the required money grubber who destroys nature and angers the sea creatures. It was sad to see Kathy Baker as the local shop keeper/environmentalist warning him about what he is doing. Why would such a fine actress sign on for this dreck? It's TV, so the shark attacks are kept pretty unbloodied. The movie might have had a chance if it was cheesy intentionally or they had played it more like a docudrama. Obviously, no one on the writing staff had the imagination or self-control for that.

As a year round resident of Florida (one of the few under the age of 75), I have dreamt of spring breakers being eaten by sharks, lots and lots of sharks. My dreams were finally realized thanks to CBS finally bringing to the small screen a compelling story that needed to be told: "Spring Break Shark Attack." Simply put, this movie was hysterical. Yes, it was full of clichés, the worst acting this side of "Plan 9 from Outer Space", and terrible, terrible dialogue. Folks, the movie was named "Spring Break Shark Attack." (The name alone sends me into fits of giggles.) Were you expecting Martin Scorcese? Because of its God-awfulness, I can't remember the last time a TV movie made me laugh so hard. One can only imagine how good it would have been to see this monstrosity on a big screen.

As the movie opens, three pretty young women are floating in the water on a raft. One disappears, and the water turns red ...

Danielle wants to spend Spring Break in Florida. For one thing, she misses her friends Alicia and Karen, who went to a different college. Her strict lawyer father says no, but Danielle sneaks out anyway.

The beach is filled with good-looking young people. Danielle meets up with her friends, and J. T. and his friend Max have a video camera and want to pick up girls.

Danielle's brother Charlie, who is doing research for the local university, is concerned about the environmental effects of a new reef. His professor, after hearing him say sharks are likely to be a problem, reminds him of the boy who cried wolf. Nevertheless, Charlie tells his sister to stay out of the water.

Shane wants to go to college to study boat building. His mother isn't making enough from their boat rental business, though this is the busy season. Joel Gately, one of the customers, is having financial problems which would be solved if Spring Break wasn't quite so profitable here.

This would have been a perfectly good Spring Break movie without the sharks. Lots of gorgeous girls in bikinis (oh, almost forgot, there are guys with their shirts off). Wild parties with loud music. It's not always that exciting at first, but once the sharks really make their appearance, the excitement level builds. Again, it's not consistently exciting, but toward the end, I was glued to the screen.

Shannon Lucio was good as Danielle, who and showed a lot of intelligence in the process of helping save the day for her friends and, later, for everyone. Riley Smith was also good as Shane, who also really knew what he was doing.

Kathy Baker, as Shane's mother, did okay, but didn't really add that much for someone who is such a respected actress. Bryan Brown, as Mr. Gately, seemed to completely lack a conscience.

There was some great underwater photography (related to Charlie's research, not the sharks), though it didn't last long.

Consistency problem: the radio station started out as WZPP, then it was WZPZ, then WPZP. Makes you wonder what other problems there were.

Regardless, I thought this was pretty good.

I knew it would be awful, but I thought maybe the camp value would make it funny enough to watch. Wrong.

This is one where the IMDb comments minimum of 10 lines does nothing but waste disk storage someplace.

No plot, no suspense, awful acting by young actors you've never heard of for good reason and old actors who used to have a career (Bryan Brown should have retired after the first FX). The so called effects are as lame as they looked on the previews.

They throw in the standard teen romance that is as tepid and G-rated as possible. No chemistry, no heat, no point. No one is very likable, no one is unlikable either for that matter. The whole thing is like plain white rice.

It's a 1, but I gave it a 2 because there was at least one girl in a bikini visible during 95% of the scenes.

As campy as the title tells you it'll be.

A bunch of co-eds with a hodge-podge of teen soap opera back stories go to south Florida for Spring break. Unfortunately, some hungry tiger sharks are on Spring break too, and they aren't there for the beer, if you catch my drift. Meanwhile there's a dumb wolf player guy knocking out the lead character with a date rape drug, and drawling out stupidly concocted lies. Gee, you'll never guess who ends up as a Big Mac in the shark infested waters.

They waste a lot of time showing us the wolf guy annoying everybody, and eventually get around to showing some sharks. Occasionally, some extras show up to be immediately on the menu, to keep your interest. The sub-plots give at least some substance to the lead girl and the boat rental guy, and some others to a lesser degree.

More action than really expected. The shots of the girls are framed Bay Watch style, and there are some unintentionally dumb scenes. The big attack scene is a decently shot highlight moment, except for some cardboard "fins" casually drifting by the screaming swimmers. Still, not a bad watch, after all.