Shark Night

Though it opens with a fair amount of promise, Shark Night inevitably devolves into a bottom-of-the-barrel thriller that’s rarely as much fun as one might’ve expected (and hoped) – with the puzzling addition of human villains cementing the movie’s place as an utterly misguided piece of work. The story follows a group of friends as they embark on a weekend of partying at a remote lake house, with trouble ensuing as it becomes increasingly clear that the isolated island is being circled by bloodthirsty sharks. There’s little doubt that Shark Night fares best in its early stages, as filmmaker David R. Ellis, working from Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg’s script, gleefully embraces the various conventions and clichés associated with movies of this ilk – with the incorporation of such elements into the narrative only heightening the film’s palpably tongue-in-cheek vibe (eg the friends run afoul of creepy locals en route to the house). It’s not long before Shark Night begins to demonstrably run out of steam, however, with the movie’s curious lack of gore standing as the tip of the iceberg in terms of its growing list of problems (eg the lulls between shark attacks become more and more difficult to stomach as time progresses). The end result is a horror effort that never becomes the guilty pleasure it clearly wants to be, which is a shame, certainly, given Ellis’ strong track record with such likeminded movies as Final Destination 2, Snakes on a Plane, etc, etc.

*1/2 out of ****