I’m really not sure how to reconcile what I’m about to do. Our motto this past year has been “Want to like the movie” because I truly believe that cynicism is becoming far to prevalent in the film criticism world, it’s become too popular to hate things that other people like or that are just trying to be fun because it makes the critic look smart. But I’m starting a series here that I’ll return to throughout the year where I’m gonna hate on stuff. But not just any stuff, this stuff is real, genuine shit that no one has delusions about being good—except, it appears, maybe Brooke Hogan. If you’ve been listening to the show, you know that I love torturing myself with really bad films, and I love the idea of bad shark movies with low budgets and silly premises, but I haven’t seen enough of them. So I’m about to get educated.
2-Head Shark Attack
“It’s got two heads.”
“Two Heads is twice as many Teeth!”
You know what’s scarier than a two-headed shark? Two sharks.
2-Headed Shark Attack drops a boat full of students who are studying… sextants?… into the waters around an unstable atoll where a mutated shark with two heads has been eating water-skiers two at a time. When they come upon the carcass of a large shark that the shark-and-a-half has killed, they accidentally guide it into their propeller, punching a slow leak in the hull, and they are forced to evacuate to the atoll. This is the point where you look up the definition of an atoll, since this one is apparently sinking because the two-headed shark keeps running into the corral supporting it. As they plunder the island for “scrap metal” to fix the boat they find plenty of reasons to motor back and forth between the atoll and the ship so that the shark has more opportunities to pick them off.
There are “good” things about 2-Headed Shark Attack. Hmm… no, let’s try again.
There “are” “good” “things” about 2-Headed Shark Attack. Better.
The two heads of the shark have pronounced jowls that are either an homage to the design of Bruce from Jaws or evidence that the makers of 2-Headed Shark Attack don’t know what sharks actually look like, so they just re-watched Jaws and modeled the shark heads after that. Note: I just realized how much better this movie would have been if one of the shark heads had an eyepatch and the other one had some missing teeth or a beard, so that they were individualized like a two-headed ogre. The other “good” “thing” about the CG is that it is sometimes actually unique to the scene taking place. What I mean is that in most Asylum movies they simply create a few CG animations for their creature and then reuse them, so that the monsters never actually feel like they are interacting with the scene. In 2-Headed Shark Attack they still reuse plenty of footage but they also have a sequence where the shark attacks a guy and throws him up in the air and slaps him with its 1-tail, and another shot where they attack someone and the two heads pull the victim apart underwater like the T-Rex’s (T-Rexi?) in The Lost World. It’s not particularly convincing, but it’s evidence that anyone tried. Part of the fun of the idea of a two-headed shark is what interesting ways it might kill someone, or that while the shark is eating someone you still aren’t safe, and at least 2-Headed Shark Attack “tries” to fulfill on that promise.
“The boat just needed a little tuning up. Now we just need gas.”
“We just found this gas can.”
“Is there anything in it?”
“It smells like gas.”
Asylum films are fairly desperate, but I’ve never seen them moving in the direction of straight to DVD American Pie films that make them money on teenagers who want to rent films full of nudity, until now. 2-Headed shark attack isn’t full of nudity, but it wants to be. I’ve never seen a director so excited to have Carmen Electra in their movie since Baywatch: White Thunder at Glacier Bay. There are a bizarre, if not creepy, number of shots of Electra laying on the deck of the ship in a bikini, zooming in and out like the eyes of a lusty animated wolf. Nine out of ten of the students are busty women who, if they aren’t wearing a bikini are either made fun of for their one-pieces, or are wearing a shirt that they later take off in order to cover one of the men’s wounds. Every minor occurrence is followed by multiple reaction shots of bikini clad ladies screaming or running. Especially if the law suits against Asylum continue, then in three years these movies will have titles like Shark Attack in the Grotto or Busty Beauties get Hammer-Head.
“Once this atoll sinks, we will be.”
If you’re like me and you love these bad movies, there are plenty of funny scenes to appease you. The excruciatingly long topless makeout sequence ends with both the fine young ladies attacked by the shark-and-a-half. The shark doesn’t eat them though, it apparently has some kind of power to cause them to spasm and cough up blood before falling over in waist high water. Considering the depth of the water the shark can use this power from at least thirty-five feet away. As can usually be expected there is plenty of disembodied dialogue, clearly added in post, but what’s great about it here is usually that kind of ADR is to clarify clunky plot points, like someone yelling “it’s being drawn towards the electro-magnetic pulse of the welder,” but there are also some lines that are clearly added and just as clearly unnecessary. And that’s another thing, there is a whole subplot about the shark being drawn to vibrations, but sometimes it’s electro-magnetic pulses, and in the end they just draw it in with blood… so none of that matters. Their final plan to kill the shark-and-a-half is to feed the shark a barrel of oil with a lit fuse in it… but the fuse is a guy’s shirt… which is soaked… and they actually say that they’ll wring it out… which wont do much good since while they try to light it the fuse the shirt is still floating in the water… and then they are surprised when it doesn’t work.
“I think it’s a Jellyfish.”
I genuinely think that Brooke Hogan thinks she is breaking in with these films. I think that she expects someone to see her irritable delivery of lines like, “fears don’t get over themselves” and hire her to be in their movies. I hope that doesn’t happen though, because I need her to return for 2-Headed Sand-Shark Attack.
I’m going to rate these movies on a scale from 1 to 5 based on how much fun they would be for you and your friends to watch drunk. 5 being something genuinely good but still crazy and knowingly tongue-in-cheek like Stephen Sommer’s Deep Rising, and 1 being a movie that is bad, but boring, like Dragonheart 2: More Dragons, or whatever that movie was called.
2-Headed Shark attack gets an un-ironic 2. If the scenes didn’t feel like they dragged on so long and the attacks weren’t always preceded by what feels like eons of the shark’s approach then the movie might be higher. The acting is horrible, sure, but the real gem here is how deranged the plot-points are. This isn’t a bad movie to put on in the background while your friends are over, but it’s one you’ll find yourself drawing everyone’s attention to during the best-bad parts and then ignoring the rest of the time.
– James Hart
SH*T SH*W REV*EW will return with Pinata: Survival Island.
Seen 2-Headed Shark Attack? Tell me why in the comments below!