Director: Griff Furst
Year: 2013
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genres: Sharks
Plot:
After several of their friends are killed, a group of friends try to convince the authorities that the culprit was a spectral great white shark, but when no one believes them they are forced to go out alone to defeat the bloodthirsty, murderous spirit haunting the town.
Review:
This here was quite an enjoyable and entertaining SyFy Channel effort. One of the best parts to really like with this one seems to be the channels' penchant for supernatural-inflicted action scenes that could have no possible basis in reality. That there's a lot great scenes here that seem to be usual for such films like the opening attack in the boat where the shark gets killed and then turns on the crew, the follow-up ambush on the beach where it attacks the group to the complete shock of everyone and the spectacularly cheesy scene at the pool party where it appears suddenly to interrupt their festivities.
This leads into the wholly enjoyable series of scenes where the shark emerges from areas like a slip-n-slide, kitchen sink pipes, a garden hose used in a car wash, puddles and even the spray from a busted fire-hydrant, among other places of a similar caliber that are so far-fetched and ridiculous that there's no possible way it conveys any sense of reality. These feature such goofy action setups that it manages to really let loose with the concept of the shark in ridiculous areas and gives this one a fine setup into the longer action scenes from the appearance in the flooded museum where it stalks the group inside or the method of finally defeating the creature which is pretty inspired due to the lengthy battle that takes place to set the scene up, all of which pace the film along and make it quite enjoyable overall.
There's also a lot to like here by trying to tie it into a historical-based reality with the implication of the ancient burial ground where it was spawned. This is a great move that at least offers a sense of balance for the ludicrous action presented by turning to a potential source in other genre movies that's spawned similar actions in those films so that makes for a more logical buy-in on those antics. It's always fun to have a high body-count for these films, and there's naturally a lot of bloodied CGI death shots as people are bitten in half, decapitated, snacked on, chomped and dismembered here to provide some nifty gore scenes. These here hold this one up over the few minor flaws featured.
Among its only complaints to be found here is the same common attribute found in the majority of their films, the lame CGI that's found in bringing the shark to life. While it is a ghost in this case and a lot of its scenes are then by-design supposed to be off, as well as the storyline dictation of what it can do, but there's just far too much time given to this that it really becomes distracting after a while. The other big issue here is the rather cliche formula addition of the skeptical authorities disbelieving everything for the sake of the town as this makes no sense seeing as they have plenty of evidence to suggest it's there and all it does is add them to the body count. These here are the few issues to be had with this one.
Overview: ****.5/5
One of the channels' most enjoyable and overly impressive over-the-top cheesefests, there's plenty to like here and not too many flaws which manage to make the film a real blast. This is highly recommended to any and all fans of the genre or the channel's output while those with no interest or turned off should heed caution with it.
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