Rating: C-
Dir: Tommy Wirkola
Star: Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak, Djimon Hounsou, Stacy Clausen
Wirkola has made some entertaining films in the past, such as Dead Snow and Violent Night. But, all told, I think there is probably good reason why this bypassed cinemas and ended up going straight to Netflix. To be fair, it seems to have done decent numbers there. However, as shark movies go, I didn’t find it all that impressive. It felt mostly like a remake of Crawl, with someone having done a global search and replace of “alligator” with “shark”. There is, once again, a “one in a century” storm, in the face of which, certain people make the poor decision not to evacuate to higher ground. The storm surge brings with it hungry fauna. Chomping ensues.
Albeit, in this case, only on the characters you want to see eaten. Weirdly, there are two completely separate and independent stories here: I was expecting them to link up at some point, but it never happens. The main one sees heavily pregnant Lisa (Dynevor), trapped in her car, from which she is rescued by agoraphobic Dakota (Peak). Of course, this being the movies, her fear can easily be overcome by Dakota pulling herself together and giving herself a stiff talking-to. That’s how phobias work, as we all know. Meanwhile, Dakota’s uncle Dale (Hounsou), a convenient marine biologist, is on his way to the rescue. And in the rest of the plot, three orphans are stuck in their home after their welfare scamming parents get eaten.
The actual shark attacks aren’t at all badly staged, with some enthusiasm and in quite a convincing manner. The main problem is, there is never any doubt about exactly who is going to be eaten. Per Joe Bob Briggs, one of the marks of good horror is that anyone can die, at any time. That is so far from what we get here. It’s one hundred percent predictable, and if you are not on the sharks’ hit list, the resulting plot armour is +5 plate mail quality. As a viewer, this realization renders the whole experience less interesting, because there’s no sense of peril. You’re less interested in the central characters, than waiting for the next person who might get eaten to show up.
I also wonder if Wirkola has ever been to South Carolina (this was filmed in, um, Australia). I have, and did not see any tankers full of blood in the streets, ready to crack open conveniently and act as chum. As well as the many medium-sized bull sharks, there is one very large great white. She shows up, right at the end, and… underwhelms severely, vanishing after one cool moment. I will say, I did like Hounsou, who plays against type to good effect. But neither Dynevor nor Peak make much impression, and as for the orphans, would it have killed Wirkola to sacrifice one of them? It’s all more or less what you would expect a Netflix shark movie to be, and will be forgotten in weeks.