Blue Demon

...you know you must be watching a United Film Orginization production. Rarely does a film contain so many inappropriate elements. The score is far too jazzy, character's expressions are frequently out of place, and the spit-and-polish general is not nearly spit-and-polish enough(his name tag is lop-sided, his ribbons out of order). It is never fully explained why the air force has jurisdiction over killer sharks, although it is quite likely that the studio had surplus uniforms and decided to go with what they had to save money. In addition, there are precious few actual shark attacks. Is the movie bad? Yes, but it was at least somewhat entertaining.

OK, i'm still watching this joke as i type, but GOOD LORD, it's bad, as in 'don't watch it' bad. some lightweight extreme reasons lead to me needing/wanting to watch this. i would have left this film alone and not bothered with a comment, until one scene that made me NEED(?)to review. i won't bother explaining the scene, if you've got this far you'll understand. perhaps if you're damned enough to be in the same position you'll understand, i only hope you'll never be! this has been a movie i've kept an eye on as a 'maybe' for a few weeks and now, it seems, is the time. i've been put here on my own since nobody will take on the task with me. understand this, it's free and i still had to ENDURE it on my own. i say again, i'm STILL watching the (lack of) beast! not even for free. OK? not even for free! unless you're weird and drinking at 5am!NOT EVEN FOR FREE!

Whoo. This was an overly ambitious project considering its obviously LOW budget. Five super-sharks poised to deliver Jaws-like terror. The opening credits were wonderful. Wetting the appetite for a slick movie. To be fair, the production values are decent throughout, except for the cheesy shark fins. Computer animation is above par for such a low budget flick. Unfortunately Dan Grodnick doesn't have a clue about creating suspense or delivering scares. Although his actors for the most part tried to deliver credible performances, his characters have all the depth of those found in bad 80s porn movies. A few are so far over-the-top that they deflate any pretense of this being an actual horror movie. Played for humor, their scenes are tedious to an extreme. A blundering pop-jazz soundtrack adds to the annoyance factor. The action sequences are pathetic, no doubt due to the ambitious task of compositing the animated shark action with live actors on a shoestring budget, or choreographing the plastic shark fins. For adolescent fans interested in the T'N'A factor, it is non-existent here. There are some talented babes in very minor roles. Hopefully they'll turn up in better movies with more substantial roles.

Once a horror (or creature feature) fan has seen Jaws, they have seen the ultimate creature feature with a shark as the antagonist. Orca was awesome in places (and is not a shark, obviously), but Jaws is the epitome of a masterpiece creature feature. It stands comfortably alongside The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and represents some phenomenal film making skills.

This work, on the other hand, attempts to bring the "mad scientist" ploy into a cheap, slip-shod version of Jaws, attempting to class with the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, or even Bats. Sadly, it does not measure up, even to Bats.

There are multiple problems with this work. The main problem I found (and there ARE many) is the simple lack of kills, on screen or off. However, a close second is the painfully wretched writing, and an even closer third is the utter lack of acting talent featured within this flick. Fahey is the best here...what does THAT tell you? Further, dialog delivery is so plastic it goes to cement somewhere after the first 20 minutes. And speaking of plastic, once you get a load of these characters, you'll completely understand the tone of this review. These characters are less than one-dimensional! Nothing about them is believable. Every single aspect of this work breaks the suspension of belief trust any good movie must engender.

More importantly, I feel, is that the believability is utterly destroyed once the premise is introduced. Sharks are not capable of being "trained and taught" as featured in this work. That's why the government used dolphins in their earlier debauchery in the first two World Wars, so the whole thing falls apart and leaves the viewer hanging there in the conundrum of a wholly unbelievable story, terrible acting, and poorly done sharks.

SO poorly done were the sharks, in fact, that even the FINS, which is basically all you see except for 3 or 4 times total, look like shiny plastic triangles. They didn't even bother to paint these things to make them look as if they had any texture whatsoever! All in all? This was pretty sad and a huge disappointment, as I love creature features! Even straight-to-video films can be entertaining, but this didn't offer a single moment of entertainment. Every single aspect of this work breaks the suspension of belief trust any good movie must engender. This film fails on all levels and really isn't worth your time.

It rates a 0.4/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Saw this listed on a premium channel on cable and thought it could be mildly entertaining despite the over-used motif of "killer sharks." I was wrong. What a waste of time and energy...not to mention BORING. Won't say it was the worst film of all time however I've not seen any worse than this one. Poor acting, weak overall story, lame exposition and cheesy special effects. In fact the special effects were only slightly better than the graphics on a Vic-20 or TRS-80 computer (OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration).

No wonder there are no goofs listed for this one; I wouldn't know where to begin listing them.

And to think was such a fan of Jeff Fahey as The Marshal.