Jersey Shore Shark Attack [Blu-ray]

Several times during Jersey Shore Shark Attack, I had to keep swatting at the back of my head to reassure myself that no one was pressing a gun against my skull, forcing me to watch. Such is the case when I volunteer for a film so recognizably non-essential for Cinema Blend. Since I?d reviewed seasons one and three of Jersey Shore proper for this site, I seemed to be advantageous where enjoying this semi-spoof was concerned. And guess what? I lucked out. This is grade-B hilarity trapped inside of an abysmal F-bomb. I?m certain the writers were breathing at least 75% pure oxygen when they thought ?Gym, tan, harpooning? was the perfect send-up line.

The Movie:

I stand before you (sitting at a computer) wholeheartedly blaspheming against everything that is cosmic about film by admitting I?ve allowed the douche-friendly cast and crew of JSSA to land largely on my good side. I previously had no idea it was a straight parody, in the loosest sense of the words. It made fun of the Jersey Shore cast while simultaneously existing as a really shitty shark attack movie, in the usual Syfy style. I can only hope the Real Housewives will be battling piranhas at some point in the future.

If there is any single person still left reading this, I commend you. Hey, I didn?t want to believe that the laughter escaping my face was genuine either. This is a movie where a guy gets attacked by a shark, and his cap washes up on shore, bitten in three different places. Three places! As if a shark?s bite, or appetite, was small enough for a hat to enter into it. Maybe it?s because the sharks were all rendered in some of the shittiest CGI this side of the Jaws cut scenes from the original Nintendo system. Maybe CGI sharks have a smaller bite range. Then how are they leaping out of water and biting entire people in half? For that matter, how are they leaping out of water? And is that seriously Paul Sorvino? Yes.

Sorvino?who is onscreen long enough for you to get three good sneezes in--plays a mayor/shareholder for a company who wants to keep deep sea drilling (CGI drilling, no less) in a spot that is populated by vibration-sensitive sharks with a thirst for human blood. That?s a ?situation? that calls for a hero to step in. Six heroes actually. (Make hero-zero joke here.)

Enter ?the complication? (Jeremy Luke), also called T.C. by everyone in voices that sound amazingly like Top Cat?s feline brethren. (If you can go the whole movie without calling Luke a ?Guido Jimmy McNulty,? you are the better person here.) There?s the beef-brained Donnie (Joey Russo) and Paulie Balzac (Daniel Booko). Booko probably comes the closest to his TV influence, though mostly because of the immaculate head of hair. On the female side, we have the completely interchangeable trio of Nooki (Melissa Molinaro), J-Moni (Alex Mauriello) and BJ (Audi Resendez). (I don?t even understand how ?BJ? is a character pun.) In case you were like me and thought this was a slasher film where one of these characters would get shark-chomped every few minutes, it isn?t. This gang of meatballs and cleavage is the film?s source of heroism. The bad guys are rich pricks, albino sharks, and drilling-friendly businessman William Atherton. But only Atherton has a swanky purple tie.

The basic story is that sharks attack the shore and eventually these goombahs and goombettes inexplicably bring out a bunch of guns and blast sharks in the fins until they die. Everything else is souped-up lingo liberally sprinkled through scenes that would have gained quality had nudity and cursing been allowed. That this material is largely PG-13 (although it is rated R), and isn?t drowning in alcohol and pheromones, does more to separate it from its MTV counterpart than the actual sharks involved, even with the occasional ejaculation joke. Examples of the mostly Italian lingo: gnocchi, preppy strunes, spuntini, pazzo, cugini, fazools. No Mario Bros. references, though there are unseen characters named Vinny No Neck and Vinny Bumbaza.

The sheer cult potential of a movie that includes the line, ?The shark that killed Joey Fatone has been shot,? so soon after referring to Fatone as ?a legend,? should intuitively be countered by Fatone?s actual presence within the movie. However, it?s a fun, self-deprecating cameo that ends in a fairly awesome death. Less fun is Vinny Guadagnino?s turn as a News Jersey reporter, which looks as if it was filmed after one of the filmmakers happened to catch Vinny out to dinner.

Since this movie is extremely useless without having watched even a single episode of Jersey Shore, I am almost impressed by Syfy?s willingness to exclude the viewers that would have avoided the movie based on its shark elements alone. There is nothing here for Shore-loathers or anyone else who doesn?t appreciate intentionally bad quality, as any plot-heavy scenes without the crew aren?t worth the trouble. But if you?ve got some friends over and a bong or a bottle of booze to share, then consider this a recommendation. No ugatz! I have no idea if I used that correctly.

The Disc:

Is it worth stating how useless Blu-ray technology is on a movie like this? Watching it on Syfy on a television from the 1970s is the way to go here. For features we get a commentary that tries to glorify everything seen on screen, and has volume problems where film dialogue is way too loud. It is occasionally interesting,to say the most. In the five-minute ?On Set? feature, the cast talks about how hilarious the movie is. It also shows characters too boring to bother mentioning earlier. If you aren?t saying ?Pound it. Explode it. Rain it down!? in fist bumping succession, then I cannot judge you negatively. That?s the B-side of my earlier recommendation.

Jersey Shore Shark Attack [Blu-ray] DetailsDistributor: Anchor Bay EntertainmentStarring: Jeremy Luke, Joey Russo, Melissa Molinaro, William AthertonProduced by: G.E. Furst, Fred Olen Ray, Kimberly A. Ray, Peter SullivanWritten by: Michael Ciminera, Richard Gnolfo

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Shark Night 3D

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.There is only one definitive shark movie: Jaws. All others (Open Water, Blood Surf, Deep Blue Sea) are just pretenders to the aquatic throne. You can cheese it up (Megalodon), confuse it up (Cyclone), or straight out copy it (insert name of foreign rip-off here) and you still can't better Steven Spielberg's original Summer blockbuster. Luckily, something like Shark Night 3D doesn't even try. Instead, it goes for a more semi-schlock oriented approach to underwater horror. Sadly, the decision to go PG-13, and the lack of a significant sense of its inherent strengths, all but destroys any potential fun.

With Finals rapidly winding down, a group of students from Tulane University decide to head out to a nearby Louisiana lake and participate in a little drunken R&R. They include conveniently pre-med Nick (Dustin Milligan), bad girl Beth (Katherine McPhee), gamer geek Gordon (Joel David Moore), football star Maliki (Sinqua Walls), his soon to be fiancé Maya (Alyssa Diaz), male model type Blake (Chris Zylka) and the owner of the island pad, rich misunderstood ice queen Sara (Sara Paxton).

Arriving in the adjoining small town, they run into the local rube sheriff (Donal Logue) and rude hicks Red (Joshua Leonard) and Dennis (Chris Carmack). They also discover that the waters are somehow filled with multiple man-eating sharks. Soon, it becomes readily apparent that someone is using these underwater killers as fodder for a fiendish plot - with our undergrads as the less than enthusiastic bait.

Shark Night 3D is such a disappointment. At least the last time we saw partying teens being attacked by evil fishies, it was in service of the slyly subversive and satiric Piranha 3D. There, director Alexandre Aja understood that nothing spells mindless exploitative entertainment better than an abundance of B's - babes, breasts, blood, buffoons, and beasts. The result was a jokey genre mash-up where lewdness and laughter went hand in severed hand. In this case, however, director David R. Ellis must have been under strict orders to make the MPAA happy. There's no gore, no naked women (we do get to see Chris Zylka's butt, if that's any consolation), and definitely no excitement. It's as if someone decided to make a shark attack movie and then restricted themselves to avoid splatter almost all together. Boo!

Besides, who begins by blatantly ripping off Spielberg and thinks they can get away with it? The script, by Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg starts out with a couple getting frisky in the water. He swims away, she stays around, and the next thing you know, our victim is doing a lame Susan Backlinie imitation. As she swirls around in the surf, bits of pint foam indicating the carnage going on beneath the surface, you'd swear it was 1975 all over again. You'd also swear that had Jaws been this way, that new kid Steve...Someone would never have gotten a second job.

Indeed, all throughout Shark Night 3D is a sense that Ellis doesn't know what he's doing. Give him some Snakes on a Plane or a Final Destination or 2 and he's more than capable. But with the underwater footage (confused and muddied by the inclusion of the unnecessary 3D), the kills are crappy. We don't come to a nature gone wild movie to hear boring backstory and crudely drawn character traits. Shark Night 3D overdoses on these while keeping the body parts and bobbing torsos to a bare (if clothed) minimum.

When we finally hear the reason behind the appearance of these uncommon critters, when the motive for the wild wicked waterworks is made clear, Shark Night 3D finds a brief moment of goofy charm. The rest of the time, this is subpar SyFy Channel chum.

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