Director: Mark Atkins
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Arriving at a marriage boot-camp, a team hoping to rebuild their relationship instead find a multi-headed, nearly invulnerable shark created through a series of experiments patrolling the waters and must find a way to trust themselves in order to save each and get away alive.
Review:
This was quite a decent and enjoyable effort. A lot of what really works for this one is the fact that the film really plays up the action of the creature on-screen. The fact that this one features plenty of nice creature action early sets the stage for the big confrontations within here from the first ambush on the boat back in the past to the early appearance swallowing the rafters and finally attacking the group out on their exercise in the middle of the ocean forcing them to have to swim back to the shore with the creature coming for them. The great idea of moving the shark onto dry-land in order to chase the victims through the logical method of using it's dorsal heads to walk around and chase them onto the sand is quite the novel idea which comes to help out the fun of the finale. As this all gives the film a chance to show off it's great shark design alongside plenty of nice gore, there's a lot to like here.
The other big plus here is the fact that there's some great work to be done here with the whole setup of the film. The concept of the people being stranded on the island with the whole marriage council retreat in the middle of the ocean is a fine concept which doesn't really come up all that often and has a creative air in the form of isolating a group of people together in order to unleash the chaos of the attacks. On top of that, the idea of the creatures' conception is handled rather nicely by going for a pretty naturalistic route here in terms of it being a naturally-occurring mutation that sprung up in the area with the early hints here nicely setting the stage for what's to come involving the actual discovery about it's true origins. The replicating ability it possesses is worked into the film rather nicely and works as another rather enjoyable element to the film. Coupled with the nice blood and gore featured here, there's a lot to like here that holds it up over it's few flaws.
The main problem with the film is the fact that it manages to introduce a few too many outside plotlines that aren't really needed here. The addition of the ex-wife is only there simply so that the redemption angle can be fulfilled as well as adding more bodies to the fray, while the inclusion of the weather storm affecting the island doesn't add anything to the overall presentation so it doesn't make sense to be an extra added obstacle when it's dumped seconds later in the race to get away. Likewise, for as much fun as the concept of the marriage retreat actually is in the scope of the story, not enough is really done with the concept here since way too little is known about the group as for why they're at the location since it drops the shark so early in the story. It's in the middle of the second exercise that it attacks which is great for the pacing yet never allows this one to really exploit it's main premise. As well as some stodgy CGI in places that really didn't require it, namely in the bloodsplatter on the victims, these here are what hold it back.
Overview: ****/5
Once again another really fun entry in the series, this one has a lot to really like that manages to offer this as a really likable and entertaining effort. Give this a watch if you're into the other entries of the series or can appreciate a fun, cheesy creature feature similar to these entries, while those that don't really appreciate that kind of genre effort should heed caution.
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