Sand Sharks (2011)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the beach, along comes Sand Sharks to remind you that no environment is safe from the dangers of horrible CGI. It's a familiar story to fans of much better movies, including Jaws and Piranha, as a small seaside town is about to become the setting for a big, moneyspinning, party until one or two people go and spoil everything by getting themselves munched. By sand sharks, no less. These creatures, in case you didn't realise, are just like sharks except they can move through the sand as if it was water.

Corin Nemec plays Jimmy Green, the man hoping to keep the party going even when the lives of others may still be in peril, while Eric Scott Woods is Sheriff John Stone and Brooke Hogan (who seems to have an affinity with strange sharks - she was also in the dire 2-Headed Shark Attack) is a pretty scientist type who may be able to help save the day. Vanessa Lee Evigan is also trying to help keep things safe while the wonderfully-named Edgar Allan Poe IV plays the mayor and Robert Pike Daniel gets to embarrass himself enormously with a terrible riff on Robert Shaw's classic Quint character.

Director Mark Atkins and writer Cameron Larson get a few things right in this cheap 'n' cheerful flick but there are too many things working against them to help raise the movie above the level of the godawful. It's fun in places and lacks any sense of shame whatsoever as it references the best shark film of them all and also includes one or two nods, for some reason, to Apocalypse Now. The cast do okay with the laughable lines that they're given - as well as those already mentioned there are a few scenes for the lovely Gina Holden and amusing performances from Hilary Cruz and Delpaneaux Wills.

And that's it. Nothing else can be praised. The special effects are only special if you've not seen any other movie in the last 30 years, the comedy misfires a lot more often than it works, the few scenes that require literally tens of extras hardly feature anyone remotely convincing and the central idea is mishandled - it's just not treated with enough seriousness or humour to make it work as either a decent creature feature or a fun, tongue-in-cheek, b-movie romp.

I almost feel bad for giving this movie such a low rating, almost. It was fun and it certainly tried often enough to rise above the low budget and cheesiness with a bit of wit but even though I was never bored while watching the film I had to concede that I was laughing AT it more than I was laughing WITH it.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sand-Sharks-DVD-Gina-Holden/dp/B0062MCH60/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342212789&sr=8-1

2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)

If you've seen a number of killer shark movies and often found yourself thinking "well, sure, they're scary and dangerous but they would be even scarier and MORE dangerous if they had two heads" then this is the film for you. It's another gem from the folks at The Asylum and it's pretty bad, I'm sad to say.

2-Headed Shark Attack is yet another movie that you can't possibly begin viewing without knowing what to expect. Would you be astonished if I told you that it concerned a group of young adults being attacked by a 2-headed shark? No, no you wouldn't. The biggest stars in the cast are Carmen Electra and Charlie (brother of Jerry) O'Connell while everyone else seems to have been chosen for their willingness to act alongside some of the worst special effects since "Button Moon". Brooke Hogan tries to acquit herself as the lead but she's ill-served by the material, as are all of the other actors.

Christopher Ray gets to sit in the big chair and direct stuff based on a screenplay by H. Perry Horton and it's hard to think of who to blame more for the final result. A movie that could have been a bit of dumb fun (as so may of the other creature features from the studio are) is bogged down by a mix of laughably poor practical effects, CGI that looks like it could have been created on a mobile phone and a script that, I kid you not, includes the following clarification about 3/4 of the way into the movie: "Two heads is twice as many teeth".

I know that movies of this kind aren't going to be the most stimulating movies around, I know that the budget is limited and that logic often has to take a back seat. Anyone who has knowledge of the many low-budget horror movies that I've enjoyed already knows that I know that. Yet there's no excuse for something quite this irritating. A bunch of characters that you really don't care for are terrorised by a bunch of pixels that don't provide one iota of tension. I was tempted to give this an even lower rating but it's saved by two things. 1 - it's never dull. 2 - unusually for a creature feature from the studio, there's some gratuitous nudity in the mix (not for long but it's at least a bonus for male viewers enduring the whole movie).


3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/2-Headed-Shark-Attack-Carmen-Electra/dp/B00623N54C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341604720&sr=8-1

Yes, this is a completely gratuitous opportunity to post a pic of Carmen Electra in a bikini but, trust me, this is a damn sight better than any images that I could have posted containing the laughable 2-headed shark.