Land Shark

An instant classic. Can't believe it didn't win best picture. Great for the blind! Great movie to take a nap to. My dog enjoyed it the most. I hope no shark trainer was harmed in the making of this film.

I have never watched something so good in my entire life. The graphics were something else entirely and I applaud them profusely. The plot twists were drastic and unexpected and certainly kept me on my toes. I just couldn't wait to find out what happened next. The sharks were really scary and the use of photoshop was hard to spot. The acting was convincing enough to let me engage with the plot. I will be recommending this to all my friends.

Now, it could be that everyone who sees this movie is completely misunderstanding it. What is seen as terrible, wooden acting, is actually carefully worked-out performance meant to keep the viewer off-kilter. The papier-mâché creature, a shark injected with human DNA that can come on land, rather than being more laughable than a middle school kid's attempt at special fx, challenges our desire for spectacle and for demonizing nature. The generic synth music and stock musical cues, claimed by critics to be less emotionally inspiring than the sound of lint falling out a bellybutton, reimagines terror as a deconstruction of melody and music's immersive illusion.

There are a lot characters without names (with less characterization and screen time than the time it takes to roll your eyes) who die graphic, bloody deaths. This means POV shot with a distortion plugin, actor falls, screaming, shot of fake-looking shark jaws, then shot of ketschup being sprayed on a wall as if it were a hotdog. We see a hot date with dumb young adults literally talking about meeting on Tinder, which I'm sure is a commentary on how ephemeral and unreliable technology has rendered our relationships.

The rest of the movie follows two scientists, Foster and Lucinda, tracking down the Land Sharks and having several epic, nearly mortal battles with them. They work for an evil corporation (made up of one middle-aged woman on Skype) trying to weaponize sharks to fight on land and sea. Yes, it's only a slightly more absurd premise than Vincent D'Onofrio's attempt to weaponize raptors in Jurassic World.

Thankfully, our leads have turns of philosophical rivalry and sexual tension. They get profound dialogue such as this:

Foster: Well, we can't do anymore tonight, so, we'll have to get a motel.

Lucinda: Oh, separate rooms.

Foster: Trust me, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Lucinda: At least we agree on something.

The movie ends with a confrontation between good and evil, man and nature, beauty and beast. We're left hungry for the chum suggestive of a continued saga in Land Shark 2: Land of the Sharks, dumped into the opaque waters of the conclusion.

I don't believe I watched this movie. I could only do it by writing this review most of the time, and looking up occasionally to see what was happening on screen. 2/10. Available on. Amazon Prime for your viewing pleasure.

I didn't realise it was possible to make a movie this bad. Seriously. If I have a couple of school kids a video camera and a $10 budget, I expect more. Forget the 10 star reviews which were left with people trying to be witty, this is the pits. Pretty sure no actors were involved in it, just family and friends and passers by. It's not even so bad it's good, it's just so bad that it's bad. I couldn't find one redeeming feature in the whole film. How did anyone offer to distribute this shark turd. At least it was cheap to make and probably only took two or three hours to shoot.

As for shooting, pass my gun, I want to track down everyone involved in this and terminate their film careers with prejudice.

Working on a top-secret research project, a scientist discovers the original purpose of the experiment was outfighting sharks with the ability to live on land for a military operation, but once the shark escapes she's forced to team up with a fellow doctor to stop it before it gets loose.

Overall, this is a pretty solid and enjoyable cheesy shark film. That this one manages to highlight this feat from the opening attack is quite impressive as there's no doubt the campy nature of this one is obvious from the start. The use of the practical shark puppet, the constant changing into the distorted fish-eye lens to showcase the creatures' point-of-view stalking his victims and the indie-style blood spurting all over the place become obvious early on here with the type of attacks present throughout here. That includes the various attacks here of the ambush on the fishermen out on their boat, the janitor of the facility or the photoshoot getting interrupted out in the desert which are all quite silly and cheesy. With a finale featuring a battle at the desert tunnel that's over-the-top and inherently goofy, the film's got plenty of silly shark fun to enjoy. As well, this sense of goofiness and cheese extends to the ludicrous storyline here that manages to set up these wild attack scenes. Focusing on the somewhat cliched notion of the scientists working on top-secret formulas for classified research on sharks and the outcome of which turns them into ravenous killers capable of living on land and hunting people, there's a fine familiarity that develops here through this process enabling the outlandish idea of a shark living out of the water to seem somewhat believable. Going above and beyond the traditional research into military-grade weapons research to adapting them to live on land and forcing the issue with capturing the escaped sharks on their own, this comes off incredibly well with the cheesy action making it come off rather enjoyable and giving this a lot to like. There aren't a whole lot of issues to be had with this one. Most of the film's problematic areas are centered around the low-budget padding that comes about with numerous scenes added here simply to pad out the running time. The numerous conference calls over video-chat to the supervisor or their debates about the ethics and morality of the experiments are just part of the overlong padding here, much like the constant switching to shark-vision for the stalking scenes or showing them wandering through areas with monitors trying to track the creature. Much like the practical puppet, it's all quite obvious about the low-budget on display which can be somewhat of a detrimental to some. Aside from this, the film's cheesiness and inherent goofiness come into play as those might not be appealing for viewers, making up this one's few issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.