Swamp Shark (2011)

Simply A Masterpiece

Sick Product of a Sick System

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie is rated R only for the brief instances of gore, I would assume, and maybe for the very brief nudity. There were several scenes with blood in the water, but you only saw one mangled corpse and one other man lose his head. It wasn't very scary. The jump scares weren't...jumpy. It was a boring movie.I'm not going to go into detail with how bad the acting was, but it wasn't plain stupid, as one would expect. But it was far from good. I mean, at the very beginning, when the giant tank of the truck crashes into the swamp. releasing the shark, the sheriff drops a terrible one-liner. After the driver leaves, paying no attention to the deaths of the other two men, the sheriff dramatically takes off his glasses, and, looking into the distance, says, "What a lousy way to start the summer." Speaking of these men's deaths, the bodies disappear in the shots immediately after the kills.There were several deaths. None were very bloody, except for the one when the shark chopped off a cop's head that was watching a girl strip with his binoculars. Pervert. He had it coming. The deaths of the boyfriend and girlfriend in the boat were not spectacular. Swim away, scream, and disappear underwater. Not a lot of blood. The girl's mutilated torso is discovered later, however. There were at least four other deaths, but none were shown. Only one had blood float to the surface of the water.It qualified more as a PG-13 movie than a horror, except for the one scene with the girl's shredded torso, which probably gave it the R rating.I'm not asking for more violence and blood. I'm saying it shouldn't really qualify for a horror. It's more of a thriller.As a whole, it was pretty boring. I was waiting for the gore to spice things up, and it never came.And they went ahead with killing off the black guys, because every horror does that.

Initially when I sat down to watch this movie I was expecting it to be yet another of those endless streams of crappy b-movies about killer animals, a movie with lousy effects and an equally lousy storyline. "Swamp Shark", despite its name, was actually surprisingly nice in comparison with so many others of the same genre.The storyline in "Swamp Shark" was pretty much as expected, a killer shark on the rampage, in a swamp nonetheless, terrorizing the people in the area and going on a feeding frenzy. Of course it terrorizes the wrong people and they decide to hunt it down. I mean, what else are restaurant owners to do, eh? Pretty much textbook storyline here, so don't expect any brilliant ideas or surprise plot twists. And you already know the ending of the movie right from the first minute of watching it. But hey, the movie was still entertaining.As for the cast in "Swamp Shark", well then I think they were actually alright, and put on good performances. Of course, with a movie like this, it is not going to be award-winning performances, but still, the actors and actresses did good jobs with their given roles. Most of the cast was fairly unfamiliar to me, so it was good to see some new faces.The special effect and CGI in "Swamp Shark" was good enough. Sure there were a couple of scenes where you don't buy into the CGIs, as they were just too much of an eyesore, but in overall general, the effects and CGI came off working well enough.Despite "Swamp Shark" being somewhat better than so many of the same genre, there just isn't enough entertainment value in the movie for a second watching. You watch this movie once, then bag and tag it on the DVD shelf.

The middle part of 2011 is proving to be a good period for the SyFy channel and their originals. Earlier this year SyFy's 51 (see review here) and BEHEMOTH (see review here) were promising, but both failed in their respective executions. BEHEMOTH promised a huge, planet-destroying creature but simply gave us a lazy, Lovecraftian-influenced beast who was attached to a mountain. But then last weeks ICE ROAD TERROR really surprised me with how fast-paced, gory, and fun it was (see review here), and now SWAMP SHARK, premiering on Saturday, June 25th at 9pm (ET/PT), once again proves that when the boys and girls over at SyFy really wanna make an entertaining flick, they can do it.SWAMP SHARK stars the original BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Kristy Swanson as Rachel Broussard, the owner of the Gator Shack restaurant located right next to the swamplands of the Atchafalaya Basin. She runs the restaurant with her younger sister Krystal (Sophie Sinise, Gary Sinise's daughter) and her older brother Jason "Swamp Thing" (Jeff Chase). Everything's going really well as the town prepares for their yearly big event, Gator Fest, until crooked sheriff Watson (Robert Davi), who sells illegal exotic animals (??!!!?) accidentally releases a shark into the swamps. Yeah I know; it's a silly and completely absurd set up, but it actually fits the entire campy world created in SWAMP SHARK. Swanson is one of the first people to spot the shark and instead of balling up into a panicking, hysterical woman, she grabs her hunting rifle, a boat, and anyone else who believes her and goes out to hunt down the swamp shark. I loved Swanson's character and since her best known film is the original BUFFY, it would've been hard seeing her as anything other than a butt kicking hottie.And what self-respecting SyFy Original would forget to include some kind of 1980's pop culture reference? Not too worry; SWAMP SHARK has Baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs as a red neck deputy. I would've like to have seen him in a bigger role, but his role is pretty fun.One of the people Swanson recruits to hunt the shark down is Charlie (D.B. Sweeney; where's he been?), a mysterious man hanging around the town. Their first hunting party doesn't, as you can imagine, go very well and they loose their boat and are forced to regroup. But in the meantime the town is preparing for Gator Fest and the shark has really gotten a taste for human flesh. Of course we get tons of nods to the granddaddy of shark films (and arguably all "giant creature" flicks), JAWS, but everything in SWAMP SHARK is done with such a fun spirit that you just sit back and go along for the ride. Davi's sheriff Watson is so sleazy that you can't help but smile every time he's on screen. The man knows there's a shark in the swamp (because he's the one that accidentally released it) but does nothing to try and fix the situation. He doesn't send out a hunting party and he doesn't prevent people from swimming in the swamp even after the dead bodies start piling up (in pieces). I loved Davi's character and it's nice to see he still "has it"!!And maybe I'm just getting completely desensitized to bad CGI, but I thought the shark looked pretty good!! SyFy actually exhibits some restraint and doesn't show off the beast at every opportunity. We see flashes of it here and there and get teased way more than SyFy usually does. Of course there's the standard, "must have" scene of the shark jumping out the water to kill someone. This is the best look we get of the shark (until the final reel) and it was actually pretty cool looking. The body count could've been higher for my tastes, but the killings we do get were well-filmed. Director Griff Furst (who also directed last year's flaccid SyFy flick LAKE PLACID 3), takes his time here and sets up some pretty suspenseful kill scenes. And if you're like me you'll wonder why the two twenty-somethings, who wanted some privacy to have sex, took a canoe out into the swamp not 20 feet away from their friends. Sex in a canoe? Hey why not!!And just like in ICE ROAD TERROR, we get a little more blood than the usual SyFy Original. We get to see a lot of post-attack, ripped apart torsos and appendages, and we're privy to a lot of blood spraying all over various cast members. Yeah people, this one is pretty fun. Maybe it's because Summer's here? Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for a fun "beast attacks" flick? Or maybe it's just because the people over at SyFy are putting in some time and effort into their scripts!! But writers Charles Bolon, Jennifer Iwen, and Eric Miller give us a fun, light- hearted, and fast-paced script that despite the holes in logic keep you interested up to the end. And just wait until you see how they finally kill the shark!! I thought we were gonna get a very JAWS-like ending, but the writers took a hard left turn and gave us something original, fun, and very bloody. Nice job.A great cast who're obviously having a really fun time, a solid script with some originality in it, and some well-crafted death scenes make SWAMP SHARK a really entertaining and fun summer flick. SyFy has renewed my love of the "attacking beasties" summer flick and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us next!! Catch SWAMP SHARK this Saturday, June 25th at 9pm (ET/PT) on SyFy. Seriously!!

What a title! Too bad you can't say what a film! It's routine low-budget Syfy Channel original picture fodder. During an animal smuggling trade involving the local town sheriff, it goes terribly wrong as a monstrous shark is accidentally released in the backwoods swamps. There it mauls the gators kept at the McDaniel's "Gator Shack" restaurant, where that night Rachel the owner saw a fin in the water. The sheriff "doesn't" believe her that a shark did it, but she along with some others decides to go out in bayou to prove it. Also to make matters worse, the Gator Fest is on which means more visitors to the area. Nothing startling here (although giggles occur watching the shark jump out of the water to fly across the screen)… as you know what you're about to watch. It's going to be ridiculous, which it is… but is it going to be enjoyable? It's one thing to be silly, but it's got to be entertaining. "Swamp Shark" has its moments, but I found it to tread water for too long with lapses of character's simply rambling on about what they are going to do, than actually doing it and when they do its rather unremarkable. Some crazy things occur, but simply not enough. However what they storm up to dispatch the shark has to be seen to be believed. Hey it's original, but it will have you bug-eyed. The story plays the trump soap operas, delivers annoying characters, throws around ineffective cheap jolts, consists of lousy CGI shark effects and the homage's to "Jaws" are obvious (from story threads to scenes), some even joked about (like the use of a gas cylinder for the climatic battle --- "That's not going to work"). Standing out more so was the photography, which frames some picturesque locations, by instilling some spacious shots and local flavour. While serious the humour is still there, but the b-script doesn't use that mock-style to get it across. Performances are acceptable. Kristy Swanson is looking comfortable and former football player Jeff Chase appears. Robert Davi is good fun in his slimly sheriff role and his comeuppance is a complete hoot. There's a mixture of crumby CGI (where the fin gets a good workout), but also old-fashion special effects of a rubber shark bursting out of the water. It was good to see some practical effects used. This Sci-fi original is ludicrous, but incredibly flatfooted.