Rating: B
Dir: Anthony C. Ferrante
Star: Matthew Dame, Chelsea Gilson, Kacie Patricia, Hector Becerra
Ferrante might be to shark movies what John Ford is to Westerns. After the fairly serious entries of Blind Waters and Great White Waters, this is a return to a more humourous approach. It’s all the better for it, I’d say. There are definite echoes of Piranha 3DD though, with the setting – and I trust this isn’t a spoiler – of a water park, which becomes infested with toothy aquatic creatures, intent on eating the customers. Indeed, both films also have a supporting role from an actor best known for their appearances on Baywatch, and it all becomes a bit meta as a result. This is certainly tamer, in both gore and nudity, but is more amusing.
The story sees former high-school football hero Austin Dillard (Dame) return to his home town, and take up a job at the Wicked Waves water park. He re-connects with old flame Peyton Ivy (Gilson), who is now the police chief, and whose sister Makhaila (Patricia) is chief lifeguard at the park. What they don’t know, is local mayor Clark Calhoun (Becerra) is siphoning off electricity for his cryptocurrency mining scheme, operating off servers located in the tunnels under the attractions. But the pollution is both drawing in and mutating the local sharks, which are consequently coming into Wicked Waves, without bothering to purchase a season pass. It’s up to Austin and pals to stop both the imminent slaughter, and the mayor’s scheme.
Right from the start, which begins with a definite nod to Jaws, followed by a shark coming down a water-slide, it’s pretty clear this film is perpetually winking at the audience. This helps it get away with effects which aren’t exactly stellar: however, they are good enough for comedic purposes, which is the aim here. The climax makes entirely appropriate use of The 1812 Overture: I’ll say no more. It helps that, from top to bottom, the characters are fun to be around. The acerbic Makhaila might have been my favourite, though even the Austin-Peyton romance was not as annoying as these things often are. There’s an adorable toothless shark called, inevitably, Gums, and I am here for the future spin-off in which it gets its own movie.
The pacing is decent, with occasionally sharky interludes which are always fun to watch between the escalating drama and personal relationship stuff. The plot is fairly predictable, and any sense of threat is muted by the eventual realization that nobody you care about is going to be in genuine peril. A likely PG-13 rating is always going to limit things, though I have still seen shark movies with less blood. It’s never going to be more than a disposable piece of fluff (where is the SyFy Channel when you need them?). Yet I sense that was exactly the target: I was consistently amused, and literally LOL’d on more than one occasion. Fits very well into the Sharknado universe.
This review is part of our feature, Shark Week 2026: Gill-ty as charged.