Sand Sharks (2012)

Welcome to the second installment in my SHARK ATTACK WEEK TRILOGY, where I'll be looking at 3 different shark movies to see how they stack up. The first one, "Shark Week" by The Asylum was pretty lame. What horrors from the deep await me next? Read on!

You know, there comes a time, every once in a while, when I have to admit to myself that I've seen way too many movies, and that I may have a problem. This thought occured to me while watching today's film, "Sand Sharks," a movie that was picked up solely for the premise.

I mean, come on. Look at that majesty on the DVD cover. A shark that swims in the sand? That is ingeniously stupid. But it became clear to me that I may have a problem when I began watching the movie and realized that it was the second film I've seen this year starring Brooke Hogan, daughter of Hulk. (Actually, her name sounds amazingly bad-ass when said in that fashion.)

She was the star of the Asylum Film, "2-Headed Shark Attack," which I reviewed earlier this year. Also of interest was the fact that "2-Headed Shark Attack" was also directed by Christopher Olen Ray, who directed yesterdays "Shark Week." And now, without meaning to, I'm watching another shark movie starring Brooke Hogan. I don't know whether to be amused at the smallness of the world, be impressed by my movie consumption, or simply cry myself to sleep over my wasted years.

I can see it now. My tombstone will read: "Here lies Patrick Jackson. He watched low-budget creature features starring the children of professional wrestlers." Classy. Can't wait to die.

Why couldn't I have Royal Tenenbaum's tombstone?

I'm going to cut to the chase with this one. "Sand Sharks," while not good, is a measurable step up from "Shark Week." The reason for this is that A) The production value is slightly higher, B) It's meant to be more of a comedy, and C) It's basically a ripoff of "Jaws" to the point of spoofing several iconic scenes. And while this mostly just made me roll my eyes, in theory if you were to perhaps slam your head in a car door several times and get a severe concussion, then blindfolded yourself and simply listened to the movie with earmuffs on while sticking your head under a pillow, it might be possible to pretend you were watching "Jaws." So that at least puts it up over "Shark Week," although the prep-work involved is a tad excessive.

So yeah, the movie is about sharks that can swim through the sand. They start by snacking on some bikers and random beach-goers before threatening to ruin a "huge" party that the mayor's douchebag son is trying to throw in order to generate much needed revenue for the island town. And just like "Jaws," despite early warning signs and deaths, the authorities refuse to close down the beaches on account of bad business practice.

Now, I said "huge" party because it's clear that "Sand Sharks" only had about 40 extras to use for the party scene, so there's never any wide establishing shots of the crowd, which is kind of annoying to watch because it's clear that if the camera were to scoot a mere inch to the left there would be only sand and air. Also you can see the same handful of people show up many times. This gives the impression that they can either teleport via camera edit, or that during the panicky running around scenes, they are simply running in circles like idiots.

Seems legit.

The funniest part about the party scenes, however, is the fact that you can clearly hear the same 2 guys doing ADR every time you see the crowd. And of course the mixing in the booth is far clearer than the sound they picked up on the beach, which makes it sound really artificial and canned. Just imagine watching "Beach Blanket Bingo" with a guy standing behind you saying "Yeah! Alright! This party's awesome! Wooo! Spring Break!" anytime they started dancing. Sounds fun, right?

Brooke Hogan shows up as the Matt Hooper equivalent, as she is playing a marine biologist. In much the same way that "Alone In The Dark" included Tara Reid as an archeologist, this is a little tough to swallow, to the point that the movie actually makes it the subject of a joke at one point, with one of the characters asking "Doctor of what?" when she is introduced with her professional moniker. On the plus side, unlike Tara Reid, Brooke Hogan has the capacity to actually pronounce the words that are coming out of her mouth. So good job on that one.

Why can't I escape you? And why are you constantly one of the better actors in these movies?!

I'm actually not joking when I say that Brooke Hogan wasn't bad in this. For what this movie is, she did just fine, and is the only character that plays her part fairly straight, which is out of the norm for most of the rest of the cast, who play up the goofiness full blast. Some are worse than others, none more so than our main character, the douchebag throwing the party, played to the zany hilt by Corin Nemec. And while I did appreciate the fact that they're not trying to kid us into attempting the thought of taking "Sand Sharks" seriously, the line between "quirky" and "obnoxious" was obliterated almost the instant he walked on screen.

Just imagine Dane Cook playing Van Wilder imitating Jim Carrey. And never sleep again.

We also have Asylum veteren Robert Pike Daniel playing the Quint equivalent, and yeah, I guess his performance is genuinely salty enough. Although I must say that it's quite distracting whenever you have a guy talking like a pirate in your movie. Especially when it's not about pirates. I just always find myself thinking how much more interesting the film would have been had it been set in the Caribbean in the 1700's. I dunno. At least it'd be unique.

I guess I just don't understand why he's doing a pirate voice instead of Quint's gruff Bostonian accent. I mean, as long as we're ripping stuff off right? Hearing a dude saying stuff like "Yar, I be valuin' me neck fer more'n two thousan' bucks! I catch 'em fer ten, matey!" just does not have the same ring to it. I'm just saying.

I also don't remember Quint having a flamethrower. I'm also pretty sure those don't work that way.

Not so scurvy nor entertaining was Eric Scott Woods, playing the Brody equivalent, whose method of acting appears to be to clench his teeth to the point of shattering between every line reading, and then just look kind of sleepy. I guess being the least interesting person on the screen improves your survival odds in these films.

"Na-hurr...acting."

Finally, the issue of the CGI sharks must be addressed, because like all these movies, the sharks are CGI. And maybe it's just a thing, but I don't understand why it's so hard to make a shark look decent using CGI. I've never seen it done well. Not once. And this is no exception. Again, like "Shark Week," the sharks in this film look like Playstation 1 graphics, although they are a slight step up from "Shark Week." Maybe late era PS1.

Not helping is the fact that there is a real bad disconnect going on with the scale of these things, since once minute they're 30 feet long, and the next minute they're half that size. The worst example was at the end when the momma shark appears, at first literally appearing to be bigger than a blue whale, but then fully emerges from the ground in a building not 10 feet wide, comfortably fitting inside, fins spread and all. It tends to undermine the hugeness of the object.

I guess it was a slight step up from "Shark Week," if only because it didn't take itself too seriously, but it makes me wonder why it's apparently so freaking hard to make a good shark movie. Was "Jaws" just an inconceivable fluke? What happened?

This trilogy seems ill-fated...

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Sand Sharks" is a silly, low-budget creature feature which contains sequences of point-for-point rip offs of "Jaws." Honestly, if you wanted a shark movie that didn't take itself seriously, just watch "Deep Blue Sea." At least that one was somewhat unique. Skip this one.