Director: Scott Wheeler
Year: 2014
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: Sharkalanche; Snow Sharks
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Heading up to a ski-resort, a group of spring-breakers partying on the slopes find that the rash of disappearances around the mountain is the result of a monstrous shark summoned to take out the partiers and must try to get off the mountain alive.
Review:
This here ended up being quite the enjoyable if slightly flawed cheesy creature feature. One of the best features to this one here is the absolutely fun and cheesy action on display here which manages to get in quite a lot of fun utilizing such a patently ridiculous storyline. The idea of bringing a sea-faring creature out into an icy mountain range from the very beginning is such a goofy premise in itself that there's a rather great deal afforded here in turning the creature's origins into a Native American legend that it offers the film much more leeway with a questionable-if-still logical origin. Due to the loose connection with the previous film that gets brought up here where the idea of using the mutation from a shark that could move through sand and then turning that into how a creature could live in the ice, it makes some effort to do justice to the idea and has enough to move this along.
It also works well for the film as it goes through the idea of letting these types of action scenes come from this type of story, which is where this one really gets good. There's some rather fun times here with the sharks out stalking the people through the snow-covered woods, as the quick attacks on the skiers on the slopes, the attack on the troubled couple by the shorelines and the chase through the open fields where it takes out the racing friends in a pretty enjoyable sequence, while there's some other good fun in the attack on the resort itself. From wiping out the main lodge in front of everyone that sets things in motion to them swarming on the bunkers and the race to safety while finally allowing the big plan against it to be implemented gives this section of the film a lot of good, cheesy fun. Along with the great bloodshed and cheesy-looking creatures, these here are more than enough to hold this one up against the few small flaws here.
What holds this one down somewhat is the film's rather overlong beginning where it takes way too long to get all the different side-plots involved. The whole slew of couples all coming up to the resort, the different investigations into each of the missing persons from the authorities who manage to get annoyed at having to perform their job and the general dull-ness of these types of scenes all really makes this one quite bland to really get going here that the shark attacks are instead placed a little later into the film than expected. As well, the film also comes with the usual rather cheesy-looking CGI that has absolutely nothing realistic about anything towards their execution as even though they're kept at brief spurts they still look obvious while the transparent fin slicing through the snow looks hilariously bad. Coupled with the rather goofy storyline, these here are the film's problems.
Overview: ***/5
With plenty of strong cheesy atmosphere and action here that manages to hold this one up overall against the few minor flaws that are somewhat detrimental overall here. Give this a shot if you're a fan of these goofy and somewhat cheesy creature features while those that don't enjoy that kind of genre should heed caution here.
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