90210 Shark Attack

People may get defensive reading this, saying "why watch it anyway", "this is not a film to be taken seriously" and "you should know what to expect before watching", like at least one person annoyingly says for many panned low-budget films. Saw '90210 Shark Attack' out of curiosity, to see whether it was that awful and hoping for some guilty pleasure fun. Knowing exactly what to expect, having seen my fair share of shark films (the odd one being a mild guilty pleasure but most struggle to rise mediocre level).

Am aware that this kind of film is not to be taken seriously (that is the case with a vast majority of shark films in existence), the title '90210 Shark Attack' and the absurd premise alone give that away. Knew that it was a film that wouldn't win awards for great production values or writing and would be very cheesy. Was not expecting something though that would be so intelligence-insultingly awful in every single way, with absolutely no fun, tension or heart. Actually felt that my IQ had been decreased by several notches after watching and that is not a nice thing to feel.

'90210 Shark Attack' looks amateurish and ridiculously fake. Especially bad is the repetitive, almost all of the time for no reason, editing, and there is far too much stock footage of sharks lacking any kind of menace or even doing an awful lot, again mostly pointless. It was impossible to detect any kind of direction, if there was any, despite it shockingly not being the case, it honestly came over as a director completely and utterly lacking in experience. The soundtrack throughout the entirety of '90210 Shark Attack' was completely misplaced and placed so inappropriately, on its own it sounds cheap and at least 25 years out of date.

The script sounded made up on the spot and the cheese and awkwardness goes into complete overkill, that it becomes exhausting. The story is as indescipherable as the direction, even more so, with far too many gratuitous close up shots of torsos, a worse than lethargic pace and no tension or suspense whatsoever.

None of the characters are remotely interesting, let alone likeable. When they had any kind of discernible personality they were truly obnoxious. There are three elements especially that come over as non-existent, one was the direction, one was the story and the other is the worse-than-high-school-play level of acting.

Summarising, am really shocked that even, when trying to take it for what it was and trying to be, something this appalling was made. 1/10 (and that is being generous)

Granted, with a title like "90210 Shark Attack" then you just know that this is going to be bad. But still, it is a shark movie, and there was a chance that the movie might actually either be surprisingly good or be so bad that it was fun to watch. Hence, I gave "90210 Shark Attack" a chance.

I managed to endure 35 minutes of the ordeal. Then I was ready to claw my eyes out and put a gun to my head. This was bad. Nay, strike that. This was phenomenally bad. Actually, it is among the top 3 of worst movies I have ever had to suffer through. 35 minutes, then I couldn't take any more of it.

The soundtrack to the movie was bad. It was like a mixture of a poor man's dance mix and a horror movie from the 1970s. Yeah, it might sound like fun and good times, but trust me, it wasn't.

The acting in the movie, well, let's just don't even venture there.

The lack of sharks, aside from the odd bit of copy and paste job from shark documentaries was astounding. This being a shark movie, then you want to watch sharks attacking people, not just watch close ups of some chiseled guy's six pack while he is in the shower and taking his time washing.

Speaking of that, then the movie was crammed with way too much focus on showing guy's torsos in extreme close ups. Was there something that director David DeCoteau was trying to hint at here?

Do yourself a huge favor and give this movie such a wide berth that you might even risk putting yourself into the deep end of the ocean and swimming with hungry sharks while you're bleeding from every orifice. This movie was bad, phenomenally and utterly bad. I endured 35 minutes of this garbage that was disguised as a shark movie. And even if I was paid, then I wouldn't return to watch the rest of this pseudo-homo erotic film.

So if you want to see a shark film where there is no actual ocean, and a bad CGI shark just goes round eating people leaping out of one of the charscters. Then the film just suddenly ends. This is a film for you. Get drunk, watch with friends.

It's almost like the people making the film didn't know how to end it, so they just didn't bother. Or the ran out of money, because it even has a very short run time of 76 minutes.

I think it's even more hilarious that they're meant to be oceanography students, who you don't actually see go to the sea. Like that happens off screen. Like they didn't even need to be for this film to happen.

"90210 Shark Attack" sets new standards - not in the shark genre, but in sheer awfulness. Imagine Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" with sharks.

The mind-numbingly stupid dialogue, delivered with the emotional depth of plywood, leaves you speechless. The brilliant decision to film actors walking entire paths in real time (no cuts, no added value) is pure trash art.

And let's not forget the endless repetition of the same "spotlight-on-location" shots - wow. In a film that takes place entirely in one location - a house in Beverly Hills. The title might have already given away where the hell we're supposed to be.

The randomly inserted shark scenes, the CGI morphing effects, and the titular shark attacks are nothing short of an assault on anyone with eyes.

Rating:-300/10. Would never watch again, even if hell froze over.

Arriving for an assignment in Beverly Hills, a research class looking into the environmental damage done to the local marine life, but when there starts to be revelations about the true intent behind the trip a special connection to a mystical shark arrives to sort out those with ulterior motives.

This was a decent if decidedly flawed genre effort. One of the better aspects involved here is the setup involving the class coming there to the area to come across the shark. As this brings about several different interlocking elements that give all of the class a reason to be there, from the devious teacher looking for book material on the girl who's there trying to get over her father's tragedy and the different needs of the students who are trying out their objectives on the trip, this starts with a decent enough start that segues nicely into the shark attacks. Featuring the fine connection to the shark's appearance through her necklace, this is all quite enjoyable and makes for a decent first half. This connection with the necklace and how the shark appears causes many of the sudden shark appearances to come forward. The idea of it appearing out of the blue from within the necklace whenever she's aroused or excited causes some enjoyably cheesy moments where it comes out to attack, chomping on the skeevy assistant trying to get out of the trip, the attack on the boyfriend who wants to get with her or the later scene with the remaining couples who are left. Since this also plays around with her growing enjoyment over the power and becomes quite devious taking out those who are tormenting her, there are a few enjoyable aspects to be had with the film. This one does have some issues with it. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome is the somewhat unnecessary padding that goes on here which is always obvious about what's being done for this extra running time. The overlong scenes of the girl ogling the guy she has an unrequited crush on as he takes a swim in the pol, the constant pans around the house to take in the environment or the numerous side-stories about the class hanging out at the house which takes up nearly the entire first hour to this one. Each of these takes up way too much time before actually getting to the actual horror elements in the story that it's insanely obvious these are dragging the film out to a longer running time. The other aspect that holds it back is the fact that there's not a whole lot of actual shark action which comes about due to these factors as well as other issues. The time-padding doesn't leave this much chance to work with much in terms of chances to let a shark loose, but that all of this is spent on land with the shark appearing as a mystical being out of the necklace with no gore or bloodshed at all leaves such a sour taste in the first place that it can feel like an absolute cheat to even lump this into the genre with the first appearance nearly halfway through the film. Combined with the cheap look and overall underwhelming CGI that looks off, these are what hold this one back overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Mild Violence.