The Shallows (2016) Review

Medical school student Nancy Adams is still reeling from the passing of her mother, who has unfortunately succumbed to cancer. Feeling the need to clear her head and seek out some sort of tranquility, the young lady travels to a cloistered, seemingly remote beach, bringing along her surfboard for good measure. While there, she meets and manages to briefly interact with other fellow surfers. As the the latter decide to leave one day, Nancy paddles out further to the sea, glancing at what appears to be a large rock. After coming closer, however, she makes a horrifying discovery that leads to the woman beginning a fight for her own life, beached on a large object while a large great white shark circles nearby, waiting for her to become its next meal.



Over a good number of years, the reputation of theatrical and home releases in the realm of "natural horror" has gone downhill at an alarmingly quick rate. There may exist the possibility that this generation believes that given the number of options and useful tools at their disposal, there is truly no other way to be harmed or maimed by mother nature. Perhaps the most unfortunate victim in this decline of quality has been the always recognizable shark family. Yes, we are still blessed from time to time with a project like 2003's Open Water, but for every one of those exceptional efforts, we were treated to FAR inferior, or worse yet, laughingly bad forays that were clearly meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I'm speaking of motion pictures along the lines of Shark Night 3D, any and every film that premiered on the SyFy Channel, or the rather rubbish creations by production company The Asylum. Maybe it was just the old man in me that was shining through, but I went into Jaume Collet-Serra's fourth foray into the horror genre, the cleverly-titled The Shallows (fun fact: the original title was "In The Deep," which makes the tagline that much more clever), with a very open mind and an eagerness to finally find anything that reminds you that yes, sharks are very, very dangerous, and you should absolutely, positively be afraid (especially when they aren't being thrown around inside of tornados).


At first glance, The Shallows could be misconstrued as Buried at sea (don't you dare throw in a joke about the band that shares such a name). If your familiarity with the aforementioned film is poor or nonexistent, I can simply describe Rodrigo Cortes' underrated gem as "Ryan Reynolds is buried alive inside of a coffin for ninety minutes with little-to-no contact or help." And for the first act or so, it does appear to be a similar sort of dilemma for our protagonist Nancy (coincidentally played by Reynolds' current wife Blake Lively). But when it comes to this particular problem, she isn't lucky enough to have a cellular phone with her when she finds herself stranded on a rock or other nearby commodities. The only thing our heroine is blessed with is a decent amount of medical knowledge, a paltry understanding of the Spanish language, and a willingness to not give up, as tempting as it might be. Though the marketing of The Shallows as just another "killer shark" movie isn't too surprising, this is arguably more of a breakout performance from the actress herself, who manages to one-up and conquer her previous accolades in other masterful works like The Town. You are given just enough background and brief chattering between others so that you may get to know her and root for her should things go south.


And man oh manischewitz do they ever. Once our slow game of death between Nancy and the great white shark begins, the tension is palpable. At no point did I ever find myself bored or feeling that The Shallows was losing me. I felt as if I had melted into my seat, eyes glued to the screen, with nervousness coursing through my veins. The pacing and cinematography (it is a deceptively beautiful piece to look at) help up the ante, as does a criminally overlooked score from Marco Beltrami, who has worked with juggernauts such as Guillermo del Toro and Kathryn Bigelow in the past, and has even received a Satellite award for another film he scored that has small connections to this. Impressively, the cherry on the top of this palette of quality comes is the surprisingly great guiding and commanding from the usually, if not unfortunately maligned Jaume Collet-Serra, whose previous releases included the 2005 remake of Williams Castle's House Of Wax and 2009's Orphan. It goes without saying that this is the man's best job to date, and one can only imagine of what is to come in the future from the Catalonian director.


Oh, and before anyone asks, why yes, the shark that lurks beneath the ocean, stalking the oh-so-talented and lovely Nancy like something out of a slasher movie, is unquestionably relentless and flat-out intimidating. It may sound like high praise, but I can't recall the last time that I uttered as many concerned grunts or whispered "oh jeez" on more than one occasion, at least when it comes to a movie about an adult being pursued by, well, a carnivorous fish. Bruce the shark may be long gone, but his legacy lives on, and I would go so far as to say that our villain seen here is equally as frightening, even if this ancestor is computer generated (though it is incredibly hard to tell) . Hell, at least Brody and co. had a boat to climb onto, alcohol to drink, and food to eat in between daily sessions! Blake Lively? Well, she's got a seagull who happens to like hanging around her. And she has some fairly gross crabs..............yeah, I don't feel very good about that one either.


I am fairly certain that The Shallows could prove to be slightly divisive to what makes up most of today's pickier horror audiences. Some may be put off by the idea that you couldn't just try to fight back when swimming towards safety (which easy to say, but it's far from being the easiest thing to do. Also, IT'S A GREAT WHITE SHARK). Others may wish for a higher body count, complaining that you can't make a truly frightening killer shark flick unless it's been given a hard "R" by the MPAA (not true). For me personally, I highly recommend letting your guard down (because the best kind of scares are the ones where you're willing to let it happen), and taking a trip out to the cinemas to give this one a try, especially if you have longed for an honest-to-god great reminder of why the ocean can be cruel, ghastly, and unforgiving.



Plus, if you have the courage to stick around after the credits have finished, you will be graced with the presence of an unearthly, horrifying, familiar terror that has been waiting nearly twenty years to resurface.

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.

Jersey Shore Shark Attack Review (Plus Some News for October!)

You know, I don't want to waste much time on this one, so I'm not giving it a dignified synopsis or plot summary. It hasn't earned one.

First and foremost, this is NOT a movie based around the 1916 shark attacks that occurred with sharks swimming up the Jersey Shore and attacking people. No, that would be too interesting (though it is referenced here). Instead, I propose a question: have you ever wanted to see the increasingly annoying and popular cast of the now-canceled Jersey Shore get devoured by killer sharks? Well...this isn't the film for you then. Also, this may contain spoilers. Why? Because, fuck you, that's why.

This goes beyond dumb. It isn't even the enjoyable kind of dumb you can get with a Roger Corman flick; it just ends up being a real chore to watch. It fails as a comedy, it fails as a horror film, and it fails as a parody. The best you can do with parodying something easy to lambast and tear apart in the first place is change the names of the main characters from "Snooki" and "The Situation" to "Nookie" and "The Complication?" For fuck's sake, who were your inspirations, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer? For that matter, who is this suppose to appeal to? These characters are our heroes throughout the agonizing ninety minutes this film takes to finish, and the production values and script aren't going to be enough to convince fans to stay around (the sharks themselves look similar to Wadzilla from Chillerama, but with a budget that makes Gwar's stage show look like Tom Savini's). Non-fans will be equally outraged and irritated when they discover that NONE of the cast is killed. No, you didn't misread that, I said NONE. It even degenerates into a Jaws parody at the halfway point, but you'll be too bored to care. Joey Fatone shows up temporarily, most likely to collect a meal check, and is promptly killed within no time. Joey "Coco" Diaz shows up for approximately three minutes and is given absolutely nothing to do other than look concerned and die an incredibly LAME death. Paul Sorvino just looks embarrassed to be here, and I can't blame him. Going from Goodfellas to Jersey Shore Shark Attack certainly isn't the path you expected your career to take. I would have said the same thing about Tony Sirico from The Sopranos showing up, but that was less surprising considering his track record isn't exactly perfect outside of portraying Paulie Walnuts.

I know some will attempt to defend this and say that because this was most likely intended to be a bad film, that it shields itself from any criticism whatsoever. I call BULLSHIT. As I've stated before, the best kind of bad films aren't made with any intention of turning out bad, they're the ones that directors and screenwriters conjure up with only awards and/or financial success in mind. Films like The Room, Troll 2, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon are great examples of bad movies worth viewing at least once in your lifetime. This one just stinks, and is somehow even worse than the show they're attempting to mock.

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Well now that I've gone through THAT mess, I have some very fun news to announce: last year's 31 Days of Horror blog is returning this year! I'm currently assembling another list of thirty one horror films that I've never seen in their entirety/never seen whatsoever, and am planning on blogging for every single one of them. As before, there will be some surprises in there, such as a few Stephen King adaptations that I've never bothered to watch until now, and even a few more "necessary" horror films that come highly recommended by horror purists around the world. Stay tuned for more news regarding this year's incarnation!