Dinoshark

If you like cheesy shark movies, this will be right up your alley. Don't worry about the plot, just sit back and enjoy 90 minutes of corny shark fun. This is set in Puerto Vallarta so it has some tropical scenes and the basic girls that are cute but not very hot.

I just love how they have been able to make so many of the low level movies that aren't memorable, but are fun to laugh at for some summer fun.

After a piece of ice thaws near Alaska, the prehistoric dinoshark makes its way to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico to harass the tourists. And, of course, eat them.

The cover on this film is a bit misleading. What you see is a shark with the head of a T-Rex. In the actual film, though, what you get is basically just a shark (albeit one with a rocky, tough skin). And the graphics are just as bad as any other SyFy film.

If this film has anything going for it, that would be Roger Corman as Dr. Frank Reeves. Not that he is a good actor, but it is nice to see a legend like Corman showing his face -- especially since he is the producer of this trash. Lead actor Eric Balfour is just average. I could praise him for past work (the "Texas Chain Saw" reboot), but he was poorly cast here. Playing a Mexican local, he has no Latino blood in him and speaks with a Boston accent (despite being from LA).

Does this film have a global warming message? Hard to say. Clearly the dinoshark arrives because the ice caps are melting, but the film never explicitly states why. Could be man, maybe just an earthquake shook it loose. Either way, the real problem is that a shark survives being frozen for millions of years, not the global climate issue.

Although I thought "Sharktopus" was way over-hyped and poorly made, I have to say it is better than "Dinoshark". This film really has nothing going for it, unless you want to listen to the audio commentary and hear Corman try (and fail) to defend it.

I just saw it at the 6th Annual Puerto Vallarta Film Festival. I went basically because I live in PV and a few friends were possibly going to appear as extras. Given that it was a low-budget made-for-TV movie I was prepared to be disappointed. Instead I was entertained. It's a bit of an homage to "Jaws" in both the shark scenes and the musical score. Even with the bar set that high it still managed to achieve some of the same types of shocked reactions from the audience, while at other times they laughed. I'm not a connoisseur of B-movies but those that are should really get a kick out this film. And it was great to see producer Roger Corman in a cameo role as the marine biologist expert. I had the honor of shaking his hand as we left the theater. The cast was well anchored by Eric Balfour in the lead role. Perhaps this role will lead to bigger and better things for him. And finally it was nice to see a film in a theater, for a change, that had no foul language or gratuitous nudity. Taken in the context of its budget and its intended distribution, this is a pretty darn nice little movie.

Global warming causes ice shelf to calve releasing prehistoric beasty into the modern world. So right off the bat SyFy Channel doesn't want to be accused of originality so they use a pretty overused monster trope, and then they decided that they don't want to accused of being entertaining either so they gave us a film that is 90 minutes of sheer boredom as the dinoshark swims and kills with not an ounce of self awareness or winking at the camera that a film of this genre kind of relies on to be successful. When your a TV movie and can't have actual gore or gratuitous nudity you have to make up for it with a fun and clever script, this film didn't even bother with a script at all. Eric Balfour (Skyline) has got to be the most boring of leads imaginable, and he heads a cast of mostly overdubbed Mexican actors. Pathetic.

Eric Balfour's character describes seeing this horned creature attacking about, later the lead girl looks up stuff on the "internet" and finds artists renderings of a horned prehistoric shark. Strangely the dinoshark that we get in this movie does not have the horns described by Balfour or like the one in the drawings. I guess the CGI team didn't bother reading the non-existent script either.

Roger Corman should be ashamed to have his named attached to a piece of dung like this. It's not even bad/fun, it's simply boring/bad.

In an arctic region, melting glaciers cause the release of an ancient baby "Dinoshark". Three years later, the now monstrously adult beast turns up off the Alaskan coastline. It eats a diver and, apparently, develops a taste for human flesh. Migrating southward brings "Dinoshark" to tourist-rich Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which has a good food supply. Handsome young "Fin Seeker" tour boat captain Eric Balfour (as Trace McGraw) is the one who first realizes the danger and tries to stop the carnage. "Dinoshark" could disrupt the community's annual fiesta...

You would expect legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman to excel in Syfy Channel shark movies, but the expert fails to make the most of this assignment. "Dinoshark" is sloppy and substandard, even for the genre and TV movie outlet. As if to rub salt in the wound, Mr. Corman contributes a lackluster acting role (as Frank Reeves). The Corman fun is missing. Likable in the lead, Mr. Balfour is left holding the water. His attractive co-stars are led by beautiful blonde Princeton graduate and water polo captain Iva Hasperger (as Carol Brubaker).

*** Dinoshark (3/13/10) Kevin O'Neill ~ Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger, Aaron Diaz, Roger Corman