Today's Review: Shark Night

Each time I've gone to write the title for this movie, I've almost typed "Shark Knight". Now that I'd gladly watch.

Shark Night is a horror movie. With sharks. In 3D. There's really not much to say about the plot, because it's pretty much the same as every other generic horror movie out there. A bunch of college kids go to a remote luxury house in the middle of nowhere, in this case it's the middle of the bayou in Louisiana. Of course, the luxury house is on an island that anybody can get to, but the locals are friendly, so no one thinks of stealing all the boats and jetskis and shit that are lying around.

Anyway, the kids all start to whoop and holler about what an awesome time they're going to have, doing flips on jetskis and playing beer pong in swimwear, but all of a sudden a guy called Malik (way to avoid the black guy goes first stereotype, guys) gets his arm eaten by a shark. Why is there a shark in a lake? I don't know, they'll probably explain that later. What I want an explanation for is why, in an area with no mobile phone reception, at the luxury house of a rich family who own several forms of water transport and lots of lovely furniture, is there no landline? You'd think they'd at least pay out the money to get some form of communication with the mainland aside from flares and bonfires. This isn't the 80s anymore people.

Well, let's get back to the sharks. Sharks are probably the least threatening thing to ever be featured in a horror movie. Sure, they can swim fast, and they have big sharp teeth, but you know the shark's biggest weakness? They can't live out of water. If the aforementioned communication was set up, the friends could call for an airlift, tell people there's a goddamn shark in the water and the movie would be over. But this is a horror movie with sharks, so instead we're treated to several contrived reasons for the friends to go back in the water, and plenty more sharks are thrown into the midst with a pretty half hearted reason given as to why they're there in the first place.

The acting is as bland as you'd expect, even though all that's asked of the actors is to scream a lot and constantly go on about how they have to save their friends, or seek vengeance, or say "Huh, why are there sharks here?" The 3D is obviously a gimmick thrown in there, but it's still not bad to look at. At least I made it through to the end without switching off from sheer boredom, but seeing as this is a horror movie the lack of the regular amount of gore and boobies really makes this one suck quite hard. If you're looking for a nautical themed horror extravaganza, just go with Piranha.

My rating: 1/5