Unseen Terror 2012: Day 23

I'm actually going to do today's reviews a little differently. Instead of typing a separate review for each film, I've decided to do a comparison piece, since they're essentially the same, shitty, waste of time.

The plot for Blood Surf revolves around a group of people who travel to the Island of Never Specified for a new sport known as "Blood Surfing." This sport revolves around surfers throwing chum in the water to attract sharks, and surf around them accordingly while people film it for television. Our group stops by another island while doing this nonsense, and soon find that they're being pursued by a large Salt Water Crocodile. On the other side of things, Shark Night's plot revolves around a cast of students who decide to vacation at a Louisiana lake, where one of them used to frequent when she was younger. Almost immediately, they're subject to a variety of different shark attacks.

If you think the plots for those sound stupid, you'd be wrong. They're AMAZINGLY stupid. For one thing, Shark Night's plot shouldn't even make sense when you consider that most sharks survive in SALT water, not fresh. True, they offer a very brief explanation as to how these ones can and how they got there to begin with, but it still reeks of laziness. At least they explain from the get go in Blood Surf that the animal is indeed a "Salty," so nobody can nitpick them to death.

I was tempted to say that Shark Night had the advantage with its casting choices. Nobody in either film is good mind you, but at least you can recognize Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), Katherine McPhee (American Idol), Joel David Moore (Dodgeball), and Donal Logue (Grounded For Life). Blood Surf's acting reminded me of something from an early WCW skit. Like White Castle of Fear-level stuff. The characters are cardboard cutouts or painfully cliched (this could apply to either movie to be honest), and the Australian lead actress was the equivalent to X-Men's Mimc when it came to accents. But after thinking about it for approximately ten seconds, I chose to say that it's a draw, and for one reason only: Blood Surf has nudity. Seeing as how it didn't receive a theatrical release, they most likely figured they could get their starlets to do whatever they wanted. Meanwhile, Shark Night is rated PG-13, so of course, we'll get a brief shot of sideboobs and nothing else. Those might be the holy grail for a twelve year old who hasn't discovered that the object downstairs is more fun to use than you realize, but it will annoy everyone else.

On the monsters and gore front, Shark Night can be described as no guts and no glory, since the blood and kills here are flat out lame. Every kill essentially amounts to pools of blood in the water while herky jerky camerawork frustrates you and robs you of anything potentially "cool." Blood Surf's kills are rather disappointing too, save for one scene with a human shish kabob. Shark Night loves its CGI, and naturally, it looks terrible. Would it have been too much to get the folks who worked on Deep Blue Sea to show you how to do a computer-generated shark properly? As for Blood Surf,  even though it was filmed during the "transition" period in movies (a.k.a. when CGI overtook practical effects and animatronics), the CGI looks ATROCIOUS, but we do see some shots of an actual animatronic crocodile! It also looks pretty silly, and I'm convinced they could only afford to make a head, but it was appreciated. Advantage, crocs.

However, both films are guilty of ripping off one vastly superior product: Jaws. I know we can't deny its impact on the horror genre, but for the love of god, they aren't even subtle about it. Blood Surf steals the Quint character, while Shark Night steals the opening sequence and several other key moments from that classic. Utterly shameful. I know Shark Night was also released in 3D, but even that cheap gimmick wouldn't have been able to mask its flaws.

This is like choosing which end of a double headed dildo covered in broken glass you want forcefully shoved up your anus. Neither is pleasant, neither is fun, and ultimately, you'll feel hurt having gone through either one. My advise is to just stay away if you know what's good for you.


Tomorrow, we're (hopefully) back to the good bunch with the much discussed DEADGIRL.