Short Thought(s): Bad Shark Movies

In recent weeks, I've watched a lot of bad movies. And, for your entertainment and edification and possible warning, here are the worst of the worst:

Shark Attack in the Mediterannean, 2004. This has to be some of the worst of the worst of the worst. A German (dubbed with no real care into English and Italian) genetically engineered prehistoric giant killer shark movie. There are boats, helicopters, and a Rolls Royce. The hero is a dude who looks like he really wanted to go up against Schwarzenegger for Mr Universe back in the 1970s. There's an evil German geneticist, for heaven's sake, and a recreated prehistoric shark! You'd think there was real possibility there!

And you'd be wrong. It is so bad it's good, but only barely. Mostly, it kind of hurts. The actual shark footage is ok -- they got half-way decent documentary footage from somewhere -- but the giant genetically engineered thingummy? Oh, heavens, no. It just simply doesn't work. Your eye looks at it and says, "No. No, I don't buy that." There's some kind of altruistic hoohah about the shark having been created to "cure cancer," but that line didn't work in Deep Blue Sea either and that had way better sharks.

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Shark Zone, 2003. Excellent documentary footage here but you'd really do better to avoid this movie entirely and watch Air Jaws. The Shark Zone sharks look vaguely embarrassed to be in such an awful movie and, frankly, they should be. Someone on the production team decided that a great white isn't frightening enough as is: it also needs to make some kind of noise.

Like...like a dog kind of noise.

So these sharks don't just bite you -- they growl when they bite you.

I'm not kidding. You'll wish I was.

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Blue Demon, 2004. Now these sharks: they have a moral purpose. 

These are anti-terrorist sharks. I'm not kidding about this, either. 

This is another "lets break open sharky brain and see if we can make 'em worse" movie. In this case, two scientists have been genetically engineering them -- some days, I think screenwriters, if they want to write screenplays involving scientific concepts, should be forced to attend seminars at MIT or CalTech or something so that they know what these words mean -- to be border patrol guards from hell, essentially. 

Of course, they get out; of course, the Good and Kindly Scientists want to warn people; of course, the Evil Military Dudes won't let them. You can write the rest in your head, really.

These sharks -- suck out loud. They're clearly computer generated -- I think on some kid's Mac PowerBook in his bedroom at about 2 a.m. They look like the sharks from EverQuest -- and I mean EverQuest I, here, back in the late '90s.