47 Meters Down (2017)

47 Meters Down is yet another 'shark horror movie,' and I should be annoyed with them by now. But honestly, there's something strangely endearing about the optimism here, of people thinking they can still do better than Jaws after all these years without massively changing up the formula.

To be fair, this does offer a different take on a shark movie. In this one, they're trapped underwater in a shark cage and are running out of oxygen surrounded by bloodthirsty, serial-killer-ish sharks, each ready to devour them whole. But strangely, they barely even do too much with THAT concept. It's a weird waste of potential. "Here's an original idea," I can imagine these writers saying, "now, just fart out a script. I am gonna take a nap."

Director: Johannes Roberts

Starring: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This starts off with our main characters Kate and Lisa, on vacation at a ritzy, gorgeous looking beach in Mexico. There are several pointless but nice-looking scenes that end very quickly, looking less like a horror movie and more like a travel agency's commercial. Or a hotel's commercial. Whatever it is, you know looking like a commercial is very much against what most horror movies should be about. Hint, guys – they're supposed to make you want to stay AWAY from places.

I guess we find out that Lisa's long-term boyfriend Stuart has just dumped her and that's at least partly why they're vacationing. They talk about how he got bored and left... I guess he had the attention span of a tiny baby. Did you try waving car keys in front of his face? Also, it's weird that they have all these short, pointless scenes and are just now dumping this on us. What prevented them from just opening with it? Maybe the contract for the cinematographer included 'must film footage that looks identical to a travel commercial in case this horror movie thing doesn't work out.'

Then they meet some guys late at night at a bar, partying and stuff, and the guys invite them to go shark diving the next day. As far as the movie shows, they barely exchange two words before agreeing to this. Later on, we see that Kate, the younger sister, is super adventurous and has a penchant for doing crazy stuff. I guess in this movie, that means she just agrees to whatever the weird guys in the bar invite her to do. Good thing she didn't talk to the OTHER guy at that bar who wanted her to play Russian Roulette. Or the third guy who was just a fucking rapist.

The next day they all go do exactly that, shark diving. There are a few scenes where the crew on the boat seems slightly suspicious and weird, like maybe they'll do something creepy and horror movie-ish. Nope. It's just a normal shark diving trip, with all the lack of regulations or rules that an off-the-beaten-path beach in Mexico promises... this movie just has such a lack of any imagination. It's barely even trying to tell a story. We were just waiting for something super creepy to happen, like right before the girls went under, one of the guys leans over and whispers that they've been stalking the girls for weeks. But nope. I guess that was too much to ask. Or, really, anything remotely interesting.

I'll throw the movie a bone here: it's pretty cool when they actually get underwater. It's a dark, isolated and gloomy setting. There isn't much else quite like it for horror. Most movies would wimp out and set a lot of it above the water, but this one, to what little credit I can give it, creates a definite mood by setting the entirety of the movie way deep down underwater.

Too bad they barely make use of it! There's very little in the way of scares. Most of this is just them talking in frantic tones about how to escape. There's a few scenes of very mild suspense that might make a nursing home grandma who's never seen a horror movie jump. Otherwise it's all a big old flatline. Like oh, really, they want to get out of the ocean? Tell us more, Shakespeare. Regale us with these mindblowing concepts.

They don't utilize the setting very well and there's maybe one scene where they go off and explore the darker parts of the ocean in any way. The sharks are bad at being serial killers and don't sneak up on them well or provide much tension either. Maybe they should've looked this up on WikiHow. Overall this is a limp tension-free slog much like the feeling of a deflated balloon.

They start running out of oxygen, though much later than I had thought. They get in touch with the douchebag who got them down there to begin with, who sends down some new tanks. The problem is, because they've been down there so long, they might start to hallucinate. Now, this was the point where I thought things might finally get cool and interesting. Here was an opportunity for the movie to truly show off its creativity and put in some badass, insane hallucinations under the fucking water...

Nope! That doesn't happen. Instead, Kate gets attacked by a shark and then Lisa manages to get free from the bars of the cage pinning her leg down and save Kate. Then the both of them ascend from the water on their own – which was really an option the whole time and I'm not sure why they didn't just try it even in spite of the danger...

...then it turns out all of THAT was all a hallucination and they WEREN'T saved! But don't worry, the national guard was coming down right at that time and saves them for really real.

Wow. That is some weak ass “horror.” You had the option to have fucking hallucinations under water and you did jack squat with it. This should have been a fucking freak circus like the climax of The Shining set underwater, with hallucinations used to their full effect and escalating until the characters lost their mind. I wanted to see the darkest recesses of their psychology. I wanted to see gore-streaked apparitions and creepy figures lurking in the shadows of the sea.

But nope. Nothing. There's no imagination here. This kind of stuff is the reason why nobody ever took horror seriously for years in the 2000s. All in all, I recommend just going diving in open water with sharks rather than watching this silly stuff. I'm gonna go watch Jaws again instead.

Image copyright of its original owners, we don't own it.

Piranha (1995)

Well, it's the end of summer. So, let's celebrate by doing another summer horror movie! I originally planned to review the 1978 Piranha this week – the original movie that people sort of remember. But unfortunately, I didn't do my research, and ended up watching something else entirely – the 1995 Piranha remake, to be exact; a movie I didn't know existed. Because apparently, I am going senile after six years of doing this site and can't be bothered to watch the right movies.

Director: Scott P. Levy

Starring: William Katt, Alexandra Paul

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This movie is good, if by 'good' you really just mean 'ripping off every creature flick in existence and doing a bland job of it without actually offending.' Which is what I always mean when I say good. So I guess it's cool.

The film begins with two kids going out onto the water, and yes, it's totally OK for the girl to get naked and the guy to be completely clothed – that's what feminism has brought us.

They blather on about how it's totally cool to be there, and no, nerdy guy, nothing bad will happen. Which is a surefire guarantee, really. It should be an insurance premium – if a hot chick in a horror movie tells you everything will be fine, it totally will be.

The nakedness apparently has all the answers.

They start swimming for a bit until one thing slightly inconveniences them – a swarm of hungry piranhas that devours them alive. I guess the insurance policy was a bit of a fraud. Oh well. At least we have Obamacare now, so this kind of thing never happens in horror movies anymore.

The main story starts when a writer guy named Paul living out in the woods is confronted by a scientist named Maggie, who is searching for the two kids who got killed in the opening scene – even though we will never remember their names, and even the movie sort of forgets them as we go along. We get a few bland scenes of them introducing one another, which of course ends with Paul joining her for a wacky buddy cop scenario like all bad movies have.

"Let's exchange pointless banter and then grow to love one another at the end!"
"Okay!"

They go and find some laboratory where some scientists were experimenting on piranhas, or some shit like that. They don't get very far, though, before a crazy woman attacks them with an ax. It's random and out of nowhere, but hey, the movie needed someone to spout exposition lazily later on, so they just threw this lady in. I've seen worse excuses for exposition... wait, no. No I haven't. This is the worst.

Put the ax down, Annie Wilkes. You're better off just getting out of this while you can.

They tie her up and bring her back to Paul's place, and the next day while they're searching for the source of the piranha attacks, the lady gives them some exposition about how the piranhas were created by the government so they could put them in the water of enemy countries and kill everyone off. That's so stupid, even most Internet conspiracy theorists would call it insane – but I guess in this movie it's a reality.

I also love how there had to be this whole big explanation of this plot. Isn't it just the same shit all these movies have? If the government wasn't behind this, it would have been aliens or something. Those are the only two options. After that, you just copy and paste all the other tropes and wallah, you have a bland and formulaic creature horror flick.

They do save a kid from the piranhas, but the crazy lady dies, because her purpose in the movie was just to tell the extremely bland backstory. Boy, these movies sure do have a weird, Darwinian view of purposes in life, huh? Once you give the exposition, you have no reason to live and can thus be ripped apart immediately. Heavy stuff for a movie made by people who I'm not sure could count past 12.

"Farewell, sweet princess. You have served your purpose and may now go to the Great Exposition Dump in the Sky, where Odin awaits you."

Also, while I'm on the subject, the piranhas make noises more like raptors from Jurassic Park or something, and it is annoying as shit. It's also always the exact same noise, with no variation. It's kind of like if they were puppets with the laziest sound-box in the world. Really? Couldn't even vary up the scary noises they make? Ah well – it's still better than the noise the mosquito made in Mosquito.

This apparently makes noises like a fucking dinosaur or bird of prey. Oh well. I'll go with it.

They then find out Paul's daughter who he never talks to is at a summer camp where all the piranhas are plotting to kill everyone. The movie doesn't say they're plotting to do that, but I think it's funnier to imagine a bunch of mutant piranhas sitting around with a map plotting out points on where to attack.

Of course, because this is a dumb movie from the '90s, the authority figures don't believe Paul and Maggie when they say piranhas are going to attack. Because Mr. Bigwig Businessman wants money! So that trumps any and all warnings of danger, even from legit scientists who have no reason to lie about it. This is basically how the whole conversation goes:

PAUL AND MAGGIE: We need to evacuate that park, because piranhas are going to kill everyone!

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: No, we need money! You're just a bunch of liberal feminist hippies!

(Yes, that's an actual line in the fucking movie.)

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Wouldn't it make sense to at least check and make sure a bunch of child deaths aren't going to be on your conscience?

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: *plugs ears with fingers* LALALALALALA!

SHERIFF: I'm gonna arrest you now on no legitimate charges because I am in the businessman's pocket! That's how reality works!

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Damn!

So, yeah, really – they get thrown in jail for no reason and can't even make a phone call because “they're not arrested, they're just being held.” Which is so illegal that I'm positive the entire sheriff's department would be immediately overhauled in real life and Paul and Maggie would be able to sue them for millions. But this movie is more of a cartoon than anything, so we need a scene where they knock out a guard to escape and steal his pants because the key to the jail is chained to them, and we get to see this:

Amazing. I can die in peace now after seeing this.

Then we get the climax, full of kids dying and their parents dying while trying to save them. That's great because their lives are ruined forever now.

Aw. What a heartwarming summer image.

Paul and Maggie go out to the ocean and try to lure the piranha into this old barge thing, or something like that – Paul is underwater for much longer than any of the other characters who died, but he doesn't get attacked at all. Hmmm. Maybe that's incredibly poor writing based on lazy convenience and anyone who does it should be ashamed.

Nah – the fish were probably just hungover that day of shooting.

And plus, it's cool – later, the piranhas DO attack him mercilessly, which is what I wanted to see from the first time I heard that weenie talk. But he demonstrates that being the main character means piranhas devouring you just means you have blood paint on you afterwards and are mostly fine.

"No! That guy I knew for one day is DEAD! I loved him!!!"

"Arrrgggrrrrrhhhh! Even I don't know how I survived this!"

So they get rid of all the piranhas and then the businessman guy shoots himself. Yes, really – that's the end of his story. It's totally dark, and is the best suicide I have ever seen.

Best ending ever!

Then the movie ends with kids on a beach presumably going to get eaten by more piranhas, with a voiceover from the mayor or somebody telling them it's totally safe!

Which is totally original and not at all a lame Jaws rip off. Not at all.

This was pretty bad, but not offensive or anything – it was pretty harmless. The worst thing about it had to be that noise the piranhas made. Just for that, I give it zero stars. If it didn't have that noise in it, it could have been a solid three-star movie. But the noise the piranha made killed it, just killed it dead.

And what? There were plenty of boob shots and fanservice scenes I could have very easily put into the review and made it better? Damn. Just damn. Between getting the movie wrong AND not putting in those pandering fanservice shots, I'm really not at the top of my game. I could have edited this further and fixed everything in addition to watching the correct movie instead, but I'm just leaving all of this rambling at the end of this mediocre review. Oh well. I'll try again next week.

Images copyright of their original owner. I own none of them.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

There's really only so much you can do with a shark killing people as the plot of your movie, and really, the first Jaws film did all of it. Eventually, after so many sequels, you just start wondering why people don't just get the fuck out of the water and go home.

Director: Joseph Sargent

Starring: Lorraine Gary, Michael Caine

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This was the fourth Jaws movie, limply dragging its half-dead, Alzheimer's-ridden, gout-befallen, wrinkled corpse across a field full of younger and spryer films. But before I talk about this nonsense, what did I think of the other movies?

Jaws is a classic. It hits all the right boxes from the character development to the way the story is structured, and the tale of three arguing men who are stuck in a tiny box at sea making friends before two of them are brutally murdered by a shark, is a good one. While the effect may be a bit dulled because the movie is so iconic now, that shouldn't take away from the clear talent and merit in this film.

Jaws 2 is kind of like the runty not-as-smart little brother of the first one. There are a few kinda nice scenes here and there, but it seriously drags. Also, the whole plot is just redundant as hell. The same people who saw the shark wreak havoc in the first movie seemingly all got amnesia and now are skeptical that it could happen again. It's about as believable as the worst conspiracy theories you ever heard.

Jaws 3 is an asinine film that comes off like a fourth-rate Friday the 13th film with a shark instead of the usual slasher. The setting in the Sea World amusement park is hilariously awful corporate cock-sucking on a level that would be ridiculed even now. It's like if they made a Halloween sequel where Michael went and killed people in a Walmart. Is the fantasy here that having people killed in a movie at your park would somehow draw better publicity? Not sure that's how it works, bucko.

And that brings us to this one, which is pretty funny after the previous 12 years of mishaps that someone really thought they could pull this off. Did anyone seriously look at this script and go 'yeah, sounds awesome'? I just don't know.

The movie begins with shots of a town at Christmastime, the perfect setting for a shark attack movie, where the Brody family still lives. If you're thinking you're gonna see Roy Scheider again – well, sorry, that doesn't happen. But at least we get the rest of the family! Wait, where are you going? Why are you running away?!?

And don't get me wrong – Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody is a talented actress, and the others in the movie are fine too. But it's just not very interesting to watch them because the other Brodys were never the real focus of Jaws. Roy Scheider's Sheriff Brody was a cool character to watch because of, and solely because of, his hunt for the shark. We don't really need to see the continuing history of the Brody family after that.

So the plot begins when the younger Brody son is eaten by a shark while out on the water doing his job as a cop. Obviously, the family is crushed by this. Hell, when the other son gets there, you can see how distressed Ellen is because she's standing with her back to them outside, facing the water in an extremely cliché way. That's some real grief there. So real, you guys.

"It started raining hailstones the size of trucks, but we still didn't bring her in. She has been out there for days."

Shouldn't you be used to this by now? Geez. Get over it!

Later on, she tells the family at dinner some very troubling things that make me think she's ready to go to a nursing home. Number one is that the family should stay away from the water from now on. Well, no shit. I think we should go a step further – the whole town needs to move. I mean holy shit; three movies of sharks attacking and terrorizing them, and they still live here in this fucking town. Not to presume anything about peoples' motives, but there's got to be some kind of point where you go “okay, time to move before I get eaten by a shark.” The level of willful denial involved here is more than most serial killers need to convince themselves they're doing God's work.

The other one, which defines the film, is when she asserts very clearly that she thinks the shark is “hunting” her family for revenge. Her familiy specifically. Yeah, I remember the day in marine biology class when I learned that sharks had a capacity to want to enact revenge on people. That's just how life is – some days you're doing fine and other days, a shark wants to kill you for killing its family members. That's called the Shark Mafia, and they are ruthless motherfuckers.

She also says her husband – Sheriff Brody from the first one – died of fear of the shark. I love the delivery the actor playing the son goes with to say “Ma, he died of a heart attack!” But really, the main thing about this scene is the “fear” that killed the courageous main character of the first Jaws. I guess after two movies fighting that thing, the PTSD caught up with him. Maybe it was constipated PTSD and just took a while to come out.

But seriously – I do get what the movie was going for. They were trying to have some kind of character development here. But that's a bit difficult when Roy Scheider wasn't in the movie. Like talking about someone who left a party an hour ago, trying to convince everyone else they were cool.

The movie just kind of rambles on after that. I guess they go to the Bahamas so Ellen can heal, or something, and that's where she meets Michael Caine, the only British man in the Bahamas.

"I've been on Quaaludes ever since filming started!" 

She also continues to espouse her rational belief that one shark is out for revenge against the family by telling her granddaughter not to play on a rope, because the family needs to indulge her rampant paranoia and likely senility. The other kids around the rope are thankful for it, anyway – they're just glad that crazy white girl isn't playing with their rope anymore. Paranoid Grandma was good for that much anyway.

A lot of the rest is just Ellen and Michael Caine hangin' out. The two share a couple of nice scenes together, and the acting is fine, but again – why should I care? They're not really that good characters, and in a Jaws sequel, this isn't something I want to see. This isn't some Lifetime movie about two elderly people bonding, it's a fucking Jaws movie. Like yes...I totally needed a scene of these characters hanging out at a casino. That's what I think of when I think of Jaws.

"I'm gonna need more than this to get through the movie!"

Michael Caine also has several scenes flying a small plane, which he lets the daughter sit in his lap and pretend fly it while he does ridiculous dive bombs and stunts like a daredevil. It would have been funny if Caine's ridiculous plane stunts ended up crashing the plane. After all, any movie with a killer shark just needs more damage being done. I live for this bloodthirsty, indiscriminate carnage. What will kill the Brody family? A mad Englishman in a plane or a shark? The suspense is just killing me.

"Heh heh heh...I haven't been sober since 1963, and somehow I'm allowed to fly planes!"

Maybe if Michael Caine was the shark, in disguise, then it would be funny. But unfortunately they didn't have the budget to buy a Michael Caine suit for the shark to dress up in, so they had to nix that.

There are also scenes of Brody's son and his wife having arguments about money and how she doesn't want him to work out on the water doing science stuff anymore. Then they have sex in a tool shed in broad daylight right in front of the windows. Awesome. That scene was totally worth filming.

Does she burn his balls with that blowtorch?

After some more boring scenes in which Brody's son gets trapped underwater with the shark and somehow survives without a scratch because these movies are allergic to having any real tension, we get the climax. First there's the award Brody's wife gets on the beach for the sculpture she did. The shark wants to join in on the festivities too, and so it shows up like a big lunkhead and tries to join in by eating someone who has no connection to the Brodys.

This = THE SHARK IS COMING FOR US FOR REVENGE SPECIFICALLY! RUN!!!

Ellen of course sees this as a clear sign that the shark IS out to get the Brody family, and so she plays Captain Ahab and goes out alone on a boat to kill the shark. She has zero experience hunting sharks, but so what? Who needs any experience doing something that dangerous?

One wealthy, weak white lady against a man-eating shark on a mission...wait, no, it still doesn't sound like a good movie when you put it that way.

Her son finds out and teams up with a co-worker of his and Michael Caine, who was just coincidentally sort of hanging out nearby in a boat, where I'm sure he was doing copious amounts of quality British cocaine. He takes them up in his plane, and they go and find Ellen to fight the shark. It's a woefully long and boring fight scene with the shark just flailing around like a blow-up pool toy and the main characters scream like they're being castrated to make up for the lack of drama the shark brings.

The only real funny part is when the co-worker guy, who has been completely annoying for the entire film, gets eaten by the shark but later is revealed to have survived.

Eh, he's okay...no, really.

What, really? Either that guy was so asinine of a person that the shark just coughed him up whole immediately, or the shark really is just a pool toy and had no actual teeth or digestive system.

Aw, look, it's actually kinda cute.

Also, we get a bunch of scenes of Ellen Brody "remembering" all these moments lifted from the earlier films, which are shown in sepia tone, like the past always was in. Man, that's some prime-grade nostalgia for you! Movies may have colors that persuade you otherwise, but make no mistake - up until the late 1990s, the entire world was just in a permanent sepia-tone filter. Ask your parents. They might act coy and try to deny it out of respect for your fragile frame of mind, but it's true and they won't be able to deny it for long.

Fuck that, even memories from any time you weren't there were sepia toned! This movie really gets it. Also it's not weird at all that she remembers stuff that she never saw. Nope. Not at all!

This movie isn't fit to be shark food for even the lamest sharks. Its story is ridiculous from the start and the characters just aren't very interesting. The effects are bad and there are no good scares or thrills. I never got the impression anyone was terribly inspired to be making this. It strikes me mostly as a movie made just to churn out another sequel, because hey, they made three other ones, so how bad of a risk can it be? All I can say is – I'm glad we don't just get stuck with shitty summer movies like this one anymore.

Luckily, all hope is not lost, though – because Michelle and I saw a theatrical performance of an original script kinda based around Jaws. It was called Jaws: The Movie: The Musical, and it played at the Orlando Fringe Festival here in Florida. The story was about a bunch of playwriters trying to put together an idea for a musical really quick. Bereft of good ideas, they take the easy way out and make a musical about Jaws. So it's a play about a musical being made about a movie based on a book. If that isn't meta enough for you...I'll eat this review.

The whole thing was a lot of fun and very tongue in cheek. The humor was of the bawdy sort that makes most people laugh big and loud on hot summer afternoons after long work-weeks – lots of simple but effective jokes about sex and work and other such things. The actors were full of personality, and the story moved along with a bouncy verve and style that was addictive to watch. The whole thing only lasted about an hour, and I could have watched even more.

I guess it wasn't very much about Jaws itself – though there was a very entertaining musical number where one cast member played a sharks' rights advocate who was protesting the musical being made. The play was mostly just about show business in general, and the folly of hack writers and producers putting out garbage for money – one of its main motifs is “it doesn't have to be good!” as sung by the bigwig producer character. Beneath the more sophomoric humor, there was some pretty good satire going on of the mindsets of those who just churn out mediocre sequels and adaptations just to have them out, just to get money coming in.

Y'know. Like Jaws: The Revenge.

Not sure how you can actually track this down, as it was an original production just at the Fringe Festival here. But you can certainly go support your local theater in putting out cool stuff like this. Hell, it's a thousand times better than Jaws sequels at any rate.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.