kannibalcorpsegrinder

Trying to get her show off the ground, a wannabe cryptozoologist and her cameraman arrive in a small town where the locals are convinced a humanoid shark haunts the local graveyard, and when they find the truth about the creature set out to stop its bloodsoaked rampage with their help.

There's quite a lot to enjoy with this one. Among its better qualities is a highly effective setup that manages to provide an endearingly cheesy setup in a shockingly atypical killer shark film. The main point of treating the creature not as a creature of the sea but as a cryptid that the community has encountered but has no evidence to prove the existence of the shark, which draws her to the location to prove its existence with the help of the other survivors who are sure the creature is alive. This is given a lengthy backstory about her struggles with the past involving a cryptid killing her father, which helps to ensure her viewpoint to help them out, and when placed alongside the wild origin story of the creature, it ties the story together nicely. That allows for the film to generate a ton of fantastic encounters with the creature. The initial idea of the creature being played as a slasher villain with a series of short, shock ambushes on victims in the graveyard and surrounding woods makes for a fun time here demonstrating the different encounters by the survivors of the club where they recount the attack that brought them together as survivors which end up producing a rather fun series of ambushes that are featured throughout here. Later scenes, with the creature attacking stragglers or fighting off the creature in the graveyard, there are some immensely cheesy attacks generating plenty of carnage and brutality in these scenes. As well, there's also the immensely fun series of cheesy elements present within this one, from the design of the shark to the involved backstory of its creation that explains how it's haunting the graveyard, all giving this one quite a lot to like. This one doesn't have too many wrong with it as it's mainly just small nitpicks. The overlong running time tries to infuse a bizarre sense of comedy that exists here, from detailed explanations of the extramarital affairs that spawned the creature in the first place to the psychedelic dream sequence showing her becoming awkwardly intimate with a guy in a cheap Bigfoot costume, which are more likely personal preference type of scenes than anything else. The attitude of the police officers who treat everything as a joke can be tiring despite the revelations that make it all make sense, and with everything coming about with the type of low-budget origins that are featured throughout here, end up being the few small factors with this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity, and mild drug use.

Heading out to a remote island, a woman joins other models on a special photoshoot with a prized necklace at the centerpiece of everything, but when they realize that someone might be on the island with them looking for the necklace, they must try to get off the shark-infested island alive.

Overall, this was a pretty solid if flawed genre effort. Among the better aspects here is the way this sets up the intrigue of the photoshoot and how everything is going to take place in that location. With the setup involving them traveling to a tropical, remote island with an expensive piece of jewelry as the prize piece in the shoot, and how the whole mystery involving what the necklace means to others on the trip gives this a decent touch for a starting point. As the series of events escalates beyond the photoshoot, including the dead bodies that are discovered, the double-crosses that take place involving who's trying to steal the necklace, and the struggle to stop everything from going down, this allows for some fun aspects to go along with the great scenery present with this one. There are some big flaws to be had with this one. The biggest issue here is that, for a film concerning the group supposedly coming together for a photoshoot on a remote island, the entire setup comes across rather weakly. Insisting on going for numerous signs of red flags regarding the nature of the shoot, from a last-minute change to the photographer in charge, a lack of proper security going along, the secretive nature of the treatment towards the necklace, the lack of access to the location, and damaged emergency equipment when they arrive, all highlight how obvious it is that something's going wrong yet there's nothing here that brings about any means of figuring out the intent behind it all. Since this all makes the sharks barely essential and not even meaningful to the plot beyond a marketing scheme, this lowers this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.

Living in Los Angeles, a beauty influencer trying to get over a scandal in her career, meets a woman who soon steers her into a bizarre world of madness, obsession, and psychosis as she starts a downward spiral not just in her career but in her sanity, the more they stay together.

This was a mess of a film that has a few redeeming qualities. One of the only positive factors here is the way this one starts to showcase the fractured sanity and mindset that develops in the film. Starting with her already on edge due to the initial controversy that she faces with her rival being disfigured over a regiment that she promoted only to forgo any kind of public apology, the stalker who's threatening to get ever closer to her, and the general state of the world she lives in, there's a great opening point that allows the downward spiral to come about naturally. The more she gets involved with the seedy figures in the world around her, the more her degenerate status and mindset affect what she does, seeming genuinely and openly appropriate. By the time everything comes to the forefront and it features the whole comeuppance angle at the end, providing some bloody deaths, all of which give this some enjoyable elements. Aside from this, there's little about this one that seems to be worthwhile. The most egregious factor in this one is that there's just nothing interesting about the universe being presented here, and it's insanely difficult to care about anything. With the opening painting her as a callous, uncaring, and just plain obnoxious millennial beauty influencer who's terrible at her job, never makes any interesting content, and spends her life trying to partake in that lifestyle, it becomes an uphill battle to remain invested in her or her plight by the five minute mark before anything starts happening. As nothing is particularly glamorous or appealing about the drug-infused lifestyle her friends get her into, not even the downward spiral has any stakes, with it seemingly obvious what's going on and nothing to be gained from getting her hooked on the lifestyle. That all makes for a distressing and generally underwhelming feature.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, Nudity, drug use, and sex scenes.