31 Days of Fright, Day 17: Shark Night

Welcome to day 17 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe takes a bite out of...

SHARK NIGHT
2011
Rated PG-13

Oh, how the mighty have fallen... Well, I could be overstating the case with the word mighty. Able, perhaps? Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, how could Sara Paxton have gone from a superlative piece of horror like The Innkeepers (CLICK HERE for that review) to starring in this debacle?

And it is a debacle, make no mistake.

debacle [dey-bah-kuhl] n.
A complete collapse or failure.

It doesn't surprise me to see the studio touting this as being from the director of Final Destination. A lot of people loved Final Destination. It spawned four sequels (and counting), and made about a shitillion dollars, so of course the studio wants to cash-in on that success, but that's not what I'm talking about. The reason I'm not surprised to find it's from the director of Final Destination is because Final Destination (along with its misbegotten offspring) is a load of absurd, un-entertaining garbage, much like Shark Night.

I have nothing against absurd horror. I just want to state that for the record. I love a good, ridiculous creature feature. What I don't love is a horror movie that has neither the requisite talent at the helm to make it genuinely scary, nor reckless abandon enough to make it halfway entertaining. What I don't love, in short, is a shark with no teeth.

What is the draw of this movie? When I saw the preview, I thought it might be something fun and ridiculous - a bit of B&G and T&A mixed with a little LOL - along the lines of the recent Piranha films. There's blood, sure, but not enough to make it silly. In fact, considering how little blood there is for the subject matter, I would have expected something subtler. T&A? Yeah, but it's all a tease. If you're going to make something trashy, I say, "Make it trashy!" If not, go classy and cut the sophomoric setups! And as for the LOLs, I can assure you, there are about as many laughs to be had here as at a funeral.

So what's the draw? If it falls flat on the silly side of the horror equation, then how about scary? Again, Shark Night gets a big, scaly F. You can see every single kill coming a mile away, but rather than building suspense, this caused me a great deal of relief, as I pretty much hated every character as soon as I met them. You can't create a sense of jeopardy when the characters are so insipid that they inspire contempt rather than sympathy. I kinda wish this had been a Final Destination film, because then I'd at least have gotten the pleasure of knowing for a certainty that they'd all be dead by the end.

"But," I can hear you say, "was it really all bad?" No. Of course not. I've yet to see a movie that has absolutely no redeeming qualities (Well, except maybe for Eragon, but that's a whole different review!). There are two things that keep this movie from languishing at the absolute bottom of the horror barrel. The villains' motive, and the jet-ski kill. I'm not saying any more than that! It's damn near impossible to spoil a movie this bad, but just in-case you ignore my advice and actually watch this piece of trash, I won't spoil those two moments for you, as they are both so absurd as to actually be enjoyable. You're welcome, I guess.

Bottom line: If you loved the Final Destination movies, you might actually find this tolerable. I hated them. Need I say more?

2/10

-GABE


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