Law Abiding Citizen

This was another article that I submitted to my class. Sorry about this, guys, but again, I've been really busy with classes and such all month long. I'll try to put more time back into the site soon though. For now, enjoy this.

A thriller is a film that relies mainly on suspense and anticipation to draw in its audience. With all of the attention-grabbing, explosion montages that are dumping out of Tinseltown on what seems to be a daily basis, it’s relieving to watch a film that utilizes genuine plot twisting as it’s primary ingredient. Among every one of those, once in a great while, a film is made that redefines the genre; 2009 saw the release of Law Abiding Citizen, which did just that.

Law Abiding Citizen begins with a very disturbing scene during which the main character, Clyde, who is played by Gerard Butler, loses both his wife and daughter at the hands of two intruders, named Ames and Darby, who seem to have haphazardly selected Clyde’s house for thieving. Both criminals are eventually tried in court where prosecutor, Nick Rice, played by Jamie Foxx, is lacking the necessary hard evidence to secure a solid conviction of both offenders. Rather than put his conviction rate at risk, he strikes up a deal with Darby wherein Darby must plead guilty for crimes that would garner a considerably lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against Ames. As a result, ten years down the road, Ames is on death row while Darby’s sentence is up, despite the fact that Darby was the real killer while Ames merely tagged along. What at first appears to be Clyde’s plot for revenge is soon found to be deceptively simple as it unwinds into small-scale war against the entire American judicial system.

Law Abiding Citizen never tells you who to root for. In the beginning of the film, most audience members assume that Clyde is the good guy. At first he seems as though he may be our heartbroken hero and/or vengeful vigilante when he takes the law into his own hands by arranging the brutally shocking deaths of both Ames and Darby. However, Clyde doesn’t stop there and he carries a personal vendetta against everyone involved with the case, including the system itself and ultimately intends to bring the entire thing down to it’s knees.

What makes this film stand out is it’s remarkable ability to keep the audience guessing. Law Abiding Citizen hardly gives its audience a moment to breathe as it hurtles through it’s complex development. Nothing that Clyde ever does seems to make immediate sense; he’s not a gun-slinging, action star. Rather, he relies on arranging the deaths of his enemies in such a way that he may never even be in the same room as them. He’s a tactician and nothing happens unless he wants it to happen. This further heightens the suspense knowing that death could come at any time for these characters and having to wonder if they’re making intelligent moves or if they’re just playing the part in Clyde’s convoluted game.

The acting in this film, namely that of Gerard Butler, is satisfying to say the least. Butler takes it above and beyond and delivers a performance that’s versatile in of itself. In one scene he’s grieving, heartbroken and pitiful  while in the next he’s intense, dark and sinister. Overall, it’s a great example of incredible acting ability that is just not commonly seen in everyday cinema. The remaining cast is pleasing as well, but no one truly stands out as Butler does.

Classifying this film as a specific genre can be a formidable task. Is it a crime movie? A political thriller? Just a story of revenge? Law Abiding Citizen can accurately be classified as all of the above. Beneath it’s aphotic tale of vengeance lies a deeper message. It asks its audience, what is true justice? It’s nearly parody of our judiciary world as the ones who are meant to uphold the law must learn to break it in order to save lives. It is in this way that Law Abiding Citizen gives the viewer something to chew on even after the credits have stopped scrolling and the silver screen has faded to black.

This is a prime example of an underrated film. Law Abiding Citizen is one of the best thrillers to have been made since The Rear Window and it deserves it’s recognition for that. It’s intelligent, suspenseful, unpredictable and it keeps you on your toes. With all of your run-of-the-mill shoot-em-ups that is Hollywood is gladly using to pollute cinema, with it’s gritty realism and controversial message, Law Abiding Citizen is defined. It doesn’t stop at just “thriller” but rather it is a thriller that is garnished perfectly with drama, intrigue and uniqueness making it a film that no one should miss.

Revisited: The Grey

Hey readers, I formally apologize for not posting any content for the last month. I was involved in an accident which landed me in the hospital and got me stuck in a cast for three and a half months and on top of that, I've been very busy with school and such and I simply haven't had time to write here or even go to the movies.

That being said, here's an article that I wrote for a journalism class that I'm taking. The teacher I submitted it to said that it was one of the best papers he's ever seen from a student so, yeah, enjoy it and please excuse the lack of sarcastic tone, as this was more of a formal review.

There are some films that take the same old, tired formula of movie-making, reskin it and call it a new thing and there are other films which seek to create something new. The Grey is the latter of these types.

The 2011 film, The Grey stars Liam Neeson and is about a small group of survivors trying to stay alive after a plane crash in the dead of Alaskan winter. The handful of men finds their situation to be increasingly dire as they realize that they’re being hunted by a pack of highly intelligent and territorial wolves.

While the rest of the cast is a bit dull, Liam Neeson does a phenomenal job at acting out the film’s emotionally distraught protagonist who is struggling to cope with the (implied) death of his wife. In the very first scene, he attempts suicide but is interrupted and loses his nerve. Over the course of the movie, he acts out some impressively dramatic moments that can be heart wrenching to watch such as in one scene where he fails to rescue a drowning man and the audience can really feel a sense of agony over the situation largely thanks to the convincing acting.

Despite the general blandness of the bulk of the supporting cast, this film does not take death lightly. Whereas in most films, characters are simply picked off and are hardly spared a moment’s remorse from the crowd members, here every death is an emotional undertaking. The Grey forces the audience to feel for every character and one of the ways it does this is through it’s remarkable ability to illustrate a situation in a way where it’s easy to insert yourself into the film.

The best example of this, and what is likely the most poignant scene in the movie, would be during a scene wherein one of the survivors, who has sustained a substantially damaging leg wound, decides that he’s gone far enough and sits down never to move again. The sequence is painted in such a way that it’s easy to put yourself into it. The feeling of sweat and humidity building up underneath your heavy winter coat, the exhaustion burning through your legs. Every step you take you’re trying to convince yourself to only walk but a few more steps, the sense of dread as the gap between you and your party-members becomes wider and wider. This scene goes on for several minutes before they arrive at the conclusion to leave the man to die as per his own request. The tragic process of simply losing the will to live is captured amazingly well during this sequence right down to a final lingering shot of this man just sitting there, waiting for death. It lets the audience fully grasp the impact of what’s just occurred, reminds them that this is not a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after and it lets the man ponder over whether he made the proper decision.

The film is accented with a fantastic score as well as unique and creative cinematography. What is overall a standout and impressive feat of cinema is belittled by the looming fact that the wolves depicted in the film are unrealistic. Audiences simply cannot buy into this movie due to that one absurd detail. Years of prior study shows that The Grey is anything but an accurate showcasing of wolves in action and for some reason, this is grounds to debunk the film in it’s entirety.

What does that say about modern audiences and the future of cinema? Today’s audiences have lost the ability to suspend their disbelief. The films of today are endlessly nit-picked for even the most trivial of details. Rather than stand back and look at the big picture, or simply allow themselves to forget about reality and enjoy the film, moviegoers today prefer to dissect every individual moment and scan for mistakes, unrealism and other such incidences of non-perfection.

This truly spells doom for the already bleak future of cinema. In a world that is diseased with sequels, remakes, recycled plots, CGI and shameless money grabbing, film must now also contend with audiences unwillingness to simply sit back and appreciate what’s flashing across the silver screen. What is truly an extraordinary display of emotion, drama, grit and tragedy is overridden by morose, over-analytical, acrimony; almost as if audiences watch films only to find it’s mistakes.

The Grey is a beautiful yet horrifying story of life and death. It’s a heartbreaking tale of men who are fully aware of their own impending demise and must struggle to embrace it of their own accord. Despite that many criticize it’s unrealism, one would be hard-pressed to find a film where death and hopelessness feel more real. With all of the movies out there, where faceless actors are killed off and thrown aside without so much as a flinch, The Grey stands out.

The Wolverine

I didn't have great expectations for The Wolverine. I kind of lost faith in the superhero franchises because every Marvel film that came out was a disappointment to me and after The Avengers, I decided to stop caring. This film takes the gruff mutant, Wolverine into the ninja-ridden land of Japan. I suppose that's not too bad a concept and, being that Japan is far away from the US, it works to separate Wolverine from the X-Men and give him his own movie.

The film starts right off with a middle finger and gives the audience some Inception bullshit as Logan wakes up from a nightmare in which he is present in Nagasaki during the nuclear bombing raid. He sits up in a bedroom with Jean Grey, the woman he himself murdered and is still madly in love with. Soon thereafter he wakes up again, this time for real to his humble abode (aka, makeshift cot) out in the middle of the Yukon wilderness.

Logan has gone full Into the Wild on everyone. He's dropped off the grid and grown a very rugged looking beard. Due to that, there are no appearances of any of the other X-Men at all. Instead what we get is a bunch of cliche martial-artists and ninjas.

The best way I can sum this movie up is, a ninja/samurai film with Wolverine. I felt like the only reason Wolverine was even in it was because the movie is called Wolverine. Seriously, you could probably go through the script of this movie, change Wolverine into any old guy and it would work perfectly.
The plot is a complicated, convoluted mess that's difficult to follow on a first viewing. There's no strong antagonist villain, the bad guys keep getting killed only to be replaced a few minutes later by some other bad guy. It makes me wonder why they even included characters like the evil lizard-mutant lady at all; the only things she really does in the film involve spitting acid on people, shedding her skin or dying.

Aside from all of that, I will grant that the film had some good action. There's a fight on top of a high-speed bullet train which was one of the highlights. Normally in train fights, the opponents stand and face each other as the wind and occasional overhanging object nonchalantly whizzes past them but in The Wolverine, the train goes so fucking fast that Logan and the henchmen he's battling can't even stand and the whole time they're just grabbing on for dear life. It's a great scene. I also liked one particular scene where Logan goes one on one with a samurai. It ends with the predictable, "What are you?" "...I'm the Wolverine." bit of dialogue, but it works.
All in all, I'm not really sure why this film was even made. I can't imagine that it's making all kinds of money and for the story aspect, it doesn't really change anything. Wolverine is still a depressed loner with post-traumatic-stress and the only difference made at the end of the film is that he suddenly decides to lets go of Jean Grey and move on. Big whoop. I don't really think we needed an entire two-hour sci-fi- ninja jamboree to get that plot point solved and how that resolution came out of that mess, I have no idea. It seems all too obvious that this film exists for no other reason than for just some action.

And artwork of Hugh Jackman screaming in the presence of samurai swords.

Most of the actual story development takes place after the credits where they always stick that apparently mandatory hook for the next film, during which Logan runs into a fully powered Magneto and a totally not dead Professor X at a crowded airport and they say some bullshit about how they need him or something, I can't remember. If the X-Men are getting back together, why didn't they just save Logan's "character-arc" for that movie and kill two birds with one stone?
My point is, sure it's an alright flick for what it is but, much like the rest of the plethora of superhero films surging out of Hollywood these days, it left something to be desired and, in this case, felt like a waste of time.

4/10 - Nice action, weak story.

Shark Week: Sharknado

It's real, motherfuckers.

It was only just last month that, for the price of a total loss of all credibility once and for all, Syfy bequeathed unto the world the masterpiece that is Sharknado. Sharknado is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. This made-for-TV film effectively preys on one of our deepest held fears and loathings: a shark tornado. Inclement weather that is so intense, that it cannot be scientifically explained beyond simply, "global warming". This gargantuan whirlwind of pure terror sucks up millions of sharks of all varieties and sends them careening across civilized land for miles, raining snarling, toothy death upon the hapless humanoids who are unfortunate enough to be standing anywhere within a ten mile radius of it. Indoors, on hilltops, in helicopters; there's nowhere that is safe from the horror.

Rumor has it the government is starting a new project for weaponizing Sharknados.

This is not some highly elaborate phantasm of your convoluted subconsciousness, this is Sharknado and it aired on public television Thursday, June 11th, 2013, where it quickly became the second most tweeted televised event in all of Twitter history (i.e. about seven years). The movie is pretty much as straight-forward as it appears. A giant tornado sucks up a bunch of pissed-off, blood-thirsty sharks and all hell breaks loose in the city of Los Angeles. Now, so far on The Aculeus's Shark Week, we've seen sand sharks, snow sharks, Supershark and even a goddamn Sharktopus but good God of all that is holy, Sharknado might just take the all-encompassing, bat-shit madness cake. You haven't lived until you've seen mediocre actors, armed to the teeth with shotguns, chainsaws, bombs and boobs, vying for their very lives against hordes of flying, flesh-hungry fish.

But it really is one of those movies that needs to be seen to be believed. I could talk about every individual scene from sharks swallowing a helicopter co-pilot, to needlessly bitchy ex-wives and their douchebag boyfriends, to setting a pool on fire, to bombing a hurricane in order to stop it, this movie really has it all. The acting as I mentioned above, is definitely sub-par but is actually better than what you'd expect for this kind of movie. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick the nearly emotionless screams and such but it wasn't so bad that it seriously detracted from the rest of the movie and it's certainly better than most of the other films we've seen so far.

What was much worse than the acting, was the writing itself. There's a scene where an attractive female character tells a 'heart-wrenching' story about how she got her scars (she changes the story every time... sound familiar?) which involves a boating trip gone wrong. But this ain't no Robert Shaw in Jaws and she concludes her tale with a line that goes something like, "That's why I hate sharks so much." I'm not sure if it's necessary to throw in some heated emotions towards sharks because what it comes down to is that this movie is comprised mostly of cutting back and forth between stock footage of sharks swimming in the ocean and horrendously CG'd sharks falling from the sky. Oh, and speaking of the CG...

It's so fucking hilariously bad that it's not even worth commenting on. Would you just look at that shot with all of the sharks falling from the sky? That pretty much sums up the entire movie. As I mentioned above, this movie was so fucking popular that it was generating 5,000 tweets per minute at it's peak and had well over 300,000 tweets total and had participation from several celebrities.

As you read this, Syfy is already well underway in their talks about a sequel, which I couldn't be more excited for because out of all of the movies I can think of, all of those unjustly, unresolved plots out there, Sharknado is absolutely the number one in deserving of a followup. What could be next? Is Crocosaurus going to get in on the action? Perhaps the survivors of LA will know that the only way to stop the shark menace is to summon Cthulhu? Maybe this time it will be a super tornado that threatens, not just the west coast but the whole world and humanity as we know it! Whatever the plot could possibly be, I have no idea how they plan to top the original masterpiece.

Sharknado is essentially the newest The Room. So while some people may question the science, or the morals of sensationalizing on a highly sensitive topic such as murderous flying shark-storms, I will sit tight for Sharknado 2 because seeing a grown man dive, chainsaw first into the belly of a shark only one time is simply not enough of an adrenaline rush for me.

This gif sums up the daily struggles of the working-class American.

Shark Week: Sharktopus

I'll admit, it took me awhile to get around to watching this one. There's only so many shark movies an IQ can take before it begins it's decline. This is another one of those movies where the title is pretty self explanatory. The movie wastes no time at all and right in the first minute of the movie, we see Sharktopus killing the fuck out of a pussy, normal great white shark. We are then shown a "high tech" laboratory where they are controlling the beast and they explain that Sharktopus is a top secret weapon designed for the Navy. Now, just think for a moment: if you were asked by the government to design a hyper effective military war machine and given a huge budget to do so, what would your perfectly sane, college educated mind go to?

Well, a fucking remote controlled shark/octopus hybrid of course.
Despite the title of the movie and how catchy the nickname "Sharktopus" is, the monster is rarely referred to as such because the project goes by the uninspiring "S-11". Run in terror.

Whatever the Navy was planning on using this unwieldy bastard for, we'll never know because the very first test they attempt, which was simply to follow a speedboat carrying two innocent, unsuspecting civilians, was a failure. A bump over the head and the collar that controls Sharktopus is knocked loose and that's all it takes to turn it into a reckless killing machine. The first thing it does is send the boat into a rock formation which causes it to explode in a fiery ball of CG.

As hilarious as the first kill is, some of the many other ones are even funnier. Take this one for instance where a hapless bungie jumper is picked off in mid fall:

Or even better, a zip-liner who apparently zoned out Sharktopus murdering everyone at the tropical beach resort he was residing at.

I always knew those things were dangerous.

When you're not watching Sharktopus shred everything in sight, you're plugging your ears lest you be subjected to the abhorrently cast actors in the film, most of whom only existed to die and could've been effectively cut out if need be. The main characters are, for the most part, tolerable but just about every extra is either so over-the-top you'd think you were watching The Wiggles or they're duller than cardboard.

I was actually surprised that I recognized one of the actors. The scientist who created Sharktopus, who sort of takes the role of a bad guy, is played by Eric Roberts, who you may recognize as Salvator Maroni from The Dark Knight. His daughter is like the co-creator or something, but it's weird because not only do the two actors bear no resemblance but they're not even the same race (and no, there's no mention of adoption or anything) and the daughter seems to be hiding an accent of some sort because she occasionally slips in and out of it.

The way the "scientists" go about explaining things is hilarious. They weren't even trying with this one and honestly, as annoying as it was, they made it much more "believable" in Super Shark. Here, it's just utter gibberish that basically means nothing at all. It's like whenever they're asked about it they pull the ol' college know-it-all and completely circumvent the question but try to make it sound like a legitimate answer. It's not like it's even important anyway, it's a fucking shark/octopus that kills people.

So the whole premise of the movie is that the Navy wants it's million dollar project back and they just can't get the damn thing to stop murdering people. Eric Roberts, who's character is named Nathan Sands (yes another sand related name), is trying his darndest to get Sharktopus back unharmed because it's his life's work... God, can you imagine if you live your whole life in scientific pursuits and all you have to show for it was Sharktopus? Anyway, he tells his bounty hunter to use specialized darts to inoculate it so he can haul it in and repair it, I guess. Unfortunately, he only has two of them, so if they miss twice, it's all fucking over. My only question is why not get more darts? Really? Two? This isn't something he built in his backyard, it's a US Navy project. He had the budget to engineer the shark but he didn't have enough to buy more darts which are the only thing standing between success and a complete project shutdown given the highly likely chance that a contingency plan is needed?
Eventually, Nathan Sands dies and the bounty hunter guy, sick of Sharktopus and his shit, takes it upon himself to kill the thing. What I don't understand is that the military was literally standing by just before Sands was killed, Sands just kept refusing to give the order so his precious baby wouldn't be hurt. The Commander actually says,

"If you can't [capture it], I'll send a team in to terminate it. They can be there in an hour, turn that freak of yours into chowder and leave no sign that it ever existed." 

So, if the military has this capability, why didn't the main characters use it? Instead they go after it alone and get about a dozen more people killed along the way.

The thing just goes around impaling people on it's tentacles in all of it's CG splendor. I figure by now it should go without saying that it looks like shit. It's awful. Certainly not as bad as Snow Shark but at least in that movie they had an excuse; it was a damn film festival submission, Sharktopus was made by Syfy (keep it up, by the way). It's hard to really gauge exactly how shitty it really is until you see it in action.

Walking always seems to induce that exaggerated head swinging.

I don't know, it's just such a weird movie. There's a scene where, after searching with a metal detector for all of five seconds, a beach babe digs up a fucking gold doubloon only to have it taken by an old guy after he watched her getting eaten by Sharktopus; The Shark keeps changing sizes, halfway through the movie it randomly goes into that stylish, multi-panel thing from 24 and then never does it again, there's a scene where a girl screams but the actor's mouth doesn't move, characters go from hating each other to being abruptly intimate, the bounty hunter manages to miss the shark from literally five feet away with his fully-automatic machine-gun and there's even a Wilhelm scream thrown in there. Not to mention, some of the dialogue is just really bizarre. Take this one for example:

"He was a nice guy, smelled kinda funky but he was still a nice guy."

Like, what fuck is going on in this film? It may have a lot more action than Super Shark but it's a hell of a lot dumber even considering the random bikini girls, serving no purpose but to be hot that litter that film, a crime which Sharktopus is no less guilty for.

Sharktopus doesn't really come under the "so bad it's good" genre and it's more of the "so bad it's bad" variety and I don't recommend it.

Shark Week: Sand Sharks

Sand Sharks is pretty much what you get when you combine Super Shark with Snow Shark. Basically take Super Shark and stick it in the ground. I can start by saying, it's certainly better than both of those movies.

For starters, the dialogue in this movie is actually pretty well written,with little exception. Unlike Snow Shark, the characters interact in a seemingly non-forced way and, unlike Super Shark, most of the science bits didn't come off as if they were just making up words (It's called Wumbology and I still can't believe you haven't heard of it). Yeah, this movie tries to dazzle and baffle as well. They try their darndest to make the audience understand how the sharks can move and survive in the sand and whatever but it still feels sort of out of place considering how stupid the concept is and there's no mention at all about where the sharks came from or why they've never been seen before. But at the very least, they did try to make some sense of it and they pulled it off better than they did in Super Shark.

What this movie does have that the others do not is enough shark/sand related puns to make your head explode.

"I would've never guessed she was such a shark."

"This spring break is really going to bite."

"Better watch out she might come biting for your job."

"I'm going to see what I can dig up."

"I'm still the big fish in this pond."

And on and on and on. If you're still not convinced, one of the main characters name is Sandy Powers. Durr..

That Sandy Powers by the way is played by Brooke Hogan who has starred in other fondly remembered classics such as Two-Headed Sharks and Avalanche Sharks. But speaking of the acting, it's actually pretty good in this movie and by "pretty good" please understand that I'm grading this on the shark-movie scale. The characters are actually defined from each other and it's certainly a hell of a lot better than Snow Sharks and a bit better than Super Shark as well. The only character I could say is actually memorable was Corin Nemec as Jimmy Green. If you look up that name on IMDb, you may recognize him as that guy that you're totally going to beat the shit out of because he tried to hit on your girlfriend at a club. His character is such a cliche douchebag that it hurts just looking at him but it's actually pretty funny and he plays the jerkoff well.

But we don't watch a shark movie for the writing or the acting, oh no, we watch a shark movie for the mother-fucking sharks.

You don't get a really clear look at them at any point, whereas in Super Shark we get plenty of time to check the bastard out, but the screen time is innumerably longer than Snow Shark so it's not that bad. Despite looking more like enlarged catfish than sharks, the special effects are passable mainly because at this point I'm so desensitized to horrendously rendered fish that it doesn't faze me anymore. Sharks change sizes, they jump out of magical sand puffballs, severed heads are obviously placed in digitally, yeah, yeah. Obviously no one would say they're good but they're not completely laughable.

What I think is weird is that this movie actually bears a striking resemblance to Jaws. I wrote down a few of the similarities.

1. Movie takes place on an island.
2. Shark goes around picking off random people.
3. Town meeting is held, everyone argues about what to do about the shark.
4. Sheriff is the only one who thinks there's a shark.
5. Wants to close beaches.
6. Mayor wants beaches to stay open.
7. Annual party that keeps the town's economy alive is starting soon.
8. Meeting is interrupted by Robert Shaw lookalike who says he'll kill the shark if the reward is greatly increased.
9. Sheriff calls in a shark expert.
10. Everyone goes out to kill the shark.
11. One guy comes back with a dead shark that's hung by it's tail over a pier.
12. Dead shark is examined by the shark expert.
13. Dead shark is not the shark that's been killing people.
14. Big party happens anyway.
15. Shit goes down at the big party.
16. Shark is killed via explosion.

Seriously, even the poster is the same.

And if that wasn't enough, the tagline is "JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE OUT OF THE WATER..." Now, most of this obviously could be chalked up simply to references and nods to the original masterpiece, but it goes too far and it's sort of a lack of originality if you ask me.

Another pretty strange thing I noticed about this movie, one of the scenes where a shark is blown up, they use a sound effect from the 2001 Halo: Combat Evolved video game. It's the plasma grenade sound and I would recognize it anywhere. I've heard movies egregiously rip sound effects from different sources but that was probably one of the strangest ones that I've caught.

Another thing, that big party I was mentioning above? According to the film, there were thousands of people showing up, but they couldn't get enough extras for that and it's obvious that there's only about a hundred or so people.

Possibly less.

Well that's Sand Sharks. Better than both Super Shark and Snow Shark but still a campy flick that's entertainment factor is inversely proportional to your intelligence.

Shark Week: Snow Shark

We're really digging into the bottom of the barrel with this one. Snow Shark is as lame as they come and is a B-movie in every sense of the word. If you thought that Super Shark was trash, oh boy, Snow Shark makes it look like a Hollywood Blockbuster.

The basic concept of Snow Shark is that, for whatever inexplicable reason, there is a shark swimming around through the snow and terrorizing the citizens of an otherwise small, quiet town. Whereas in Super Shark I complained about the over-exposition and talking way too much about science things that don't really matter, here it doesn't even try. It's just a fucking shark in the fucking snow and you have to fucking deal with it. Makes me wonder, where does the shark go when the snow melts? Is it limited to just swimming in snow? It's not like the snow in the movie was ten feet deep, it was barely above the actors ankles most of the time so the shark must've been burrowing underground. The only explanation they ever give is, "It must be ancient". Not trying to be hypocritical here, but this sort of thing deserves a little more backstory then "It's ancient". How did the bastard get so far inland? The setting is obviously nowhere near any oceans. Who gives a shit? It's a damn shark movie.

Viewers of this movie may be disappointed to find that 90% of the shots of the shark look like this:

and that 100% of the kills look something like this:

You get some very, very brief shaky shots of a shark head grabbing people and the rest happens off screen and they just throw blood everywhere. I suppose I could understand not wanting to give a lot of screen time to what is likely one of the more embarrassing-looking movie monsters in existence but you never get a single good look at it, most of the time it's just a dorsal fin and people being dragged off screen.

The acting by the way is an absolute joke and the whole time I was expecting some kind of plot twist where everyone in the town is actually a Terminator which would explain why there is nary an emotion to be found. It doesn't help that they're delivering some of the most awkwardly written dialogue I've ever seen which includes screenwriting gems such as:

"Promise me you'll kill that damn snow shark if it's the last thing you do!"

"Tom, where are you going?"
"I have a shark to kill."

"Mom wouldn't treat me like this if she was still around."

"Well she isn't around is she?"

"I hate you!"

The list goes on. Every character interaction is worthy of a cringe or two and it's laughable when the movie tries to be serious.

It's also got some all-too-obvious horror cliches like no one believing in the Snow Shark at first or going off alone to take a leak at night. There's not a single shark attack scene where you wouldn't know what was coming a mile away.

Ah, the ol' brush-snow-on-top-of-your-legs-and-scatter-some-blood effect never fails to get the Oscar.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on this flick. I guessed about halfway through that it had been an entry in a film festival of some sort gauging that the budget appeared to be about a week's worth of allowance. As it turns out, I was right and this was in fact submitted to several horror-festivals and actually won several of them. So, if you look at it that way, it's not that bad. As far as the entertainment factor goes, it's certainly less boring than Super Shark but there are much better shitty shark movies out there. So, if you want something campy and stupid, this is a good choice.