SHARK NIGHT DVD (2011)

SYNOPSIS: A sexy summer weekend turns into a blood-soaked nightmare for a group of college students trapped on an island surrounded by voracious underwater predators. Arriving by boat at her family's Louisiana lake island cabin, Sara (Paxton) and her friends quickly strip down to their swimsuits for a weekend of fun in the sun. But when star football player Malik (Walls) stumbles from the salt-water lake with his arm torn off, the party mood quickly evaporates. Assuming the injury was caused by a freak wake-boarding accident, the group realizes they have to get Malik to a hospital on the other side of the lake, and fast. But as they set out in a tiny speedboat, the college friends discover the lake has been stocked with hundreds of massive, flesh-eating sharks! As they face one grisly death after another, Sara and the others struggle desperately to fend off the sharks, get help and stay alive long enough to reach the safety of dry land.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Every possible creature that bites and swims has been made into a movie in Hollywood. Think anacondas, alligators, piranhas and of course sharks which no doubt “Jaws” comes to mind. From director David R. Ellis whose past works include “The Final Destination” and “Snakes On A Plane”, “Shark Night” is yet another cheap exploitative flick that tries hard to cash on the 3D, gorefest craze.

Ellis and his writers waste no time killing their cast members - a group of seven college students out on a vacation trip to a holiday house situated on a remote lake over the weekend. There’s the main protagonist, Sara (Sara Paxton), a geeky medical student, a goofball, the handsome blonde guy, the obligatory athletic African American and two scantily dressed girls. I don’t even need to delve deeper as we all know this is not Steven Spielberg’s JAWS. Amity Island? Shark Hunter Quint? Police Chief Brody? Nah, you won’t find any of these interesting characters or premise in “Shark Night” too.

For a movie that features man-eating sharks, there’s zilch atmospheric tension and this clearly shows Ellis at his worst. Scene after scene of watching the sharks killing its preys only has the audience laughing at how silly it is. Even the deaths are nothing imaginative and one or two scenes have the predators jumping out of the water at their victims as if they are dolphins gone wild. The equally bad subplot featuring Sara’s sinister ex-boyfriend, Dennis and his accomplices is trashy and unnecessary not mentioning the fact that how the sharks reside in a saltwater lake in the first place and Dennis’ cringing effort to educate us on the number of species of Sharks.

To make matters worse, the brakes are pulled with the nudity and gore factors heavily toned. I guess “Piranha 3D” at least deserved what we called ‘gulity pleasure’, “Shark Night” on the other hand fails at all ends unless you desperately crave for unbelievably bad CGI sharks or Sara Paxton in her turquoise bikini which warrant half a star more.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The DVD transfer is nothing extraordinary with the images; colours look just fine on the small screen. The screams, shrills and ambient effects such as water splashing etc sounds passable.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee