One of my ALL TIME favorite horror movies is Exorcist, and that being said who does not love JAWS? Also with so many great campy b-rated shark films coming out recently (I won’t name them but if you watch SyFy you know the ones I am speaking about.) So when Shark Exorcist was announced oh so many moons ago I was like a kid in a candy store. When our recent round of movies came in recently and I saw it in our movies I was quick to grab it up. The cover looked amazing the Black Shark who shows his demonic possession by having fire and brimstone all over his skin.
The movie opens with a nun who appears to be fed up with everything and goes to a local lake, where she is confronted by another woman who verbally attacks her. The Nun (yes the NUN) stabs the other woman and tosses her body into the lake. At which point she praises her Lord Satan and asks for his help. We jump One Year later to a group of three girls who are visiting apparently the same lake. At this point in the film the joy I had when putting the movie in the DVD player slowly began to die. One girl goes swimming and is attacked by a red shark with glowing orange eyes (the possessed shark). They pull the girl out the water and she has very little Party City blood on her leg, they did not even try to just lay a prostetic on her leg. The girl and her friends are trying to over act like her leg is missing. They put no effort into the special effect at all.
We again jump a week to a news report about multiple people being attacked by a shark who they dubbed a man eater. Next we meet the “cast” I use the term loosely as it is one girl who is the host and cameraman of “Ghost Whackers” who are in Paris Landing to investigate the recent shark attacks. The host uses the film cameras to do her news report I must point out at this point this is not a found footage film. So while she is breaking the fourth wall talking to us like it is a news report, she has her back to her Ghost Whacker cameraman.
The film does not get any better from there. The acting is lackluster to put it nicely, the sound editing was done horribly and camera work just flat out stinks. The film does not have a real identity as it tries to be a campy 80s film with pretty girls and dumb jock guys, it tires too be a shark attack film, also it tries to be possession film, and even tries to take hidden and outright stabs at any religion it can.
In closing Shark Exorcist is a Z-rated film and takes everything we have grown to love about good or even campy horror movies and campy and good shark films and cram them into one film. But it does all this HORRIBLY wrong. I have to say I usually try to find some redeeming quality in every film I review because people put their hard work, blood, sweat and tears into it. So to just rip a film outright always seems unfair to me. But as for Shark Exorcist it did not succeed at anything. Shark Exorcist is one of those films that proves good cover art can get people to buy or at least watch your film. If you want to venture to see what the film is all about and cannot trust the critics (much like myself) be sure to hang around till the mid-credits for what has now become the expected “extra” scene (thanks Marvel).
Reviewed by Shawn
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