Part of The Horror Times “SHARK WEEK MADNESS”
As many can perceive the summer season is filled of shark invested waters, after all it is their home, but for horror fans it’s another wave of animal attack flicks, none ever achieve the popularity nor the longevity of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws [1975]; although The Meg [2018] came close in box office returns only. However, now the spectrum has opened to multiple streaming platforms, namely Tubi, which is where this film landed but originally produced by The Asylum, so that holds some clues to the creative process. A screenplay from Anthony C. Ferrante (Haunted High (aka Ghostquake [2012])) and from director Jared Cohn (12/12/12 [2012]). A decent script and few shark chomp moments but nothing too graphic, but those special effects fairly lackluster.
This is basically a shark attack in a house, and with that simple understanding let’s dive further into the surf, we have the Samson family heading to a beach house rental as a freak storm rages many miles away, their father Hudson (Joey Lawrence (Rest Stop [2008]) is unable to attend with them due to work, and a cancelled flight, meanwhile everything is in the capable hands of mother Lacey (Jennifer Field) who is caring for her elderly slow moving father Noah (Andy Lauer (Screamers [1995])) who uses both a cane and oxygen; lastly her teenager children Charlotte (Brett Hargrave), and Tucker (Daniel Grogan). We quickly learn about the house’s problems, all from a surprise inspection and how cheap and unorthodox the rental owner Henry Hamilton (Anthony Jensen (D-Railed [2018])) is, though there’s a slight foreshadowing in the dialogue and Cohn wastes no time showing-off his lousy CGI effects, of shark fin which just vanishes from the surface instead of slipping silently under the water-line. Soon we discover another issue, the intermixing of deeper seas and shoreline wading levels for a kill scene. Nevertheless, no one is really watching the film to the heavily analysis of storytelling or character development, this merely images on screen to provide escapism. Shortly after arriving, the family meets a neighbor Tad (Rib Hillis) cruising around in his vette, while looking for his daughter Becky, a former friend and perhaps love interest to Tucker, surprises him. Meanwhile we meet a handyman who is primarily there to offer a little tension and primarily add into the body count. Becky learns the hard way how sharp shark’s teeth actually are, later some more trouble as the waves increases and the family struggles in the basement turmoil with a shark crashing the homecoming affair. As the storm changed in direction, it cut off escape routes, the family returns to the house for refuge, but instead of climbing to the second floor we have more stupid decisions, and work on eliminating another cast member if you followed along there’s a great chance you can guess who it is. Meanwhile a simple observation concerning the shark, it’s nothing especially weird about, normal size, no disease; just hunting for take-out meals. Finally realizing they can and do go higher, the fathers have teamed up and attempt to make a miraculous swim for the beach house, we all know how this going to turn out, and even a rescue crew had received an earlier 911 call too were enroute, all meeting with dire situations, but that Mr. Lawrence shows the determination and gusto to battle the beast of nature with some previous foreshadowing devices.
It’s just one of the many films that the characters don’t realistically think about their dire situations for example climbing to the highest point possible, but aside from that lack of judgment, let’s travel down the path of problems and discuss just few of them, first, CGI water effects are problematic for limited budgets, and add to the mix, kill scenes occurring off-screen to avoid this area, but it robs the carnage caring viewer. Next many points to Joey Lawrence limited screen time. This is nothing new, many notable stars do limit screen time in these movies, their name is there to sell the film, to be placed on the cover, Eric Roberts does it often, and some have wrongly done to Tony Todd in namely Candy Corn [2019]. Another atrocious act committed must come from the dialogue, which is as lame as possible with the actors attempting to not make it seem awkward and stiff but this time nothing much solves it. One plus goes The Asylum studios for their stock footage of storms, giving it some credible standing in the diameter film standards. The cast does plenty, yelling, screaming, crying, and worrying, while waiting for the final few minutes and Joey’s heroic moment.
Ah, the critical moment of my opinion, well the story has obviously done before and better by Crawl [2019] and if you want to keep it in the same species of ‘sharks’ then that would Bait [2012] which was set in both an underground park lot and flooded supermarket. However, for a time waster and free on Tubi it’s decent, though filled with commercials, therefore one can enjoy it before it drowns into obscurity.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14973630/
IMDb Rating: 3.0/10
Baron’s Rating: 3.0/10