Shark Month – Film 16: Jurassic Shark

As a play on words tying to the Steven Spielberg classics, Jurassic Park and Jaws, the title Jurassic Shark is brilliant. It is the only thing brilliant about this film. After you get past the poster image (which, for some reason has a sub heading of “Attack of the”) it is a shit storm, the likes of which I’ve only ever encountered once before.

Jurassic Shark is hands down one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It is an independent film that obviously did not even have the budget of a film made by The Asylum. The cinematography is terrible and looks like it was shot with a handycam from Target, the acting in frame is even worse, and the audio recording of dialog may as well have been done from the bottom of a well for as tinny and echoey it sounds. From a technical standpoint, the film is utter garbage.

And the tacked together story doesn’t help things. A mining corporation has dug too deep and melted an underground ice pocket. We are led to believe that this ice pocket is where a megalodon has laid sleeping for millions of years and the mining has awoken the creature. This is pretty standard stuff and isn’t far off any other ancient shark film. It’s lazy but its a workable premise. However, the shark is really just the B plot.

The A plot involves two groups, one is a crew of art thieves that have escaped from their pursuit and decided to row across the lake to this island where the mining corp is drilling. The other is a group of college kids, who are there to investigate the island and the potential illegal mining (they come equipped to do this in bikinis). Both groups row across the lake and have their little boats attacked stranding them on the island with the shark prowling the waters (which all looks like shallow water). And then the criminals creepily enlist the college kids to help them retrieve their stolen (and now submerged) artwork.

And let’s talk about the shark. It’s hardly ever shown. The reason for this is that their CGI effect solution for a shark was really, really bad. It’s a cartoon shark, at its best, and completely unbelievable. I can’t say that if the shark had been included more that I’d be more upbeat on this trash but it couldn’t have hurt. As it stands this is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I can’t even be bothered to give it one star.

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