Giant Octopus was all the invitation needed for horror’s silliest subgenre to take its final step toward wanton dissoluteness. Finally unmoored completely from reality, like Skynet achieving sentience and then immediately emptying its nuclear arsenal, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus exploded into the Very Online cultural consciousness with the image of a giant shark leaping into the air to snag a passing jet airliner, and it returned to the sea dragging whatever small scraps of remaining dignity one might have associated with the genre of Jaws. Courtesy of the mockbuster specialists at The Asylum, Mega Shark vs. This was the final abandonment of any kind of pretense of horror or suspense in the shark genre, and the embrace of complete camp and bad-on-purpose absurdity. Giant Octopus, and truly, shark movies have never been the same in the 12 years since. That moment was the release of a trailer for the film Mega Shark vs. Shark films didn’t truly ascend to their current level of absurdity-effectively jumping themselves, as it were-until one prominent moment in 2009. Preposterous as they were, however, these films were at least still trying to market themselves as half-legitimate horror movies or thrillers at the end of the day. This set the stage for the era of crappy direct-to-video (and then VOD) shark movies that has persisted to this day, starting with the infamous likes of Shark Attack 3: Megalodon or Raging Sharks in the early 2000s. The moviegoing public slowly but surely came to think of shark films as bottom-of-the-barrel fodder, and studios began increasingly producing them as such, catering only to the most inveterate creature feature junkies or ironic viewers still consuming this dreck. This level of abysmal quality eventually cast a pall over the idea of “shark movies” in general, which not even the occasional quality effort ( Deep Blue Sea, Open Water) could dispel. But even Jaws 3-D pales in comparison to the abominable Jaws IV: The Revenge, which manages to not only feature a vengeance-seeking shark with a psychic link to police chief Martin Brody’s widow, but also a shark that: 1983’s Jaws 3-D, on the other hand, is truly a mess, featuring a nonsensical story and effects that were laughably bad even for that era’s abortive 3-D cinema boom. This actually means that Jaws 2 is a pretty serviceable shark movie, nowhere near as compelling as the original but perfectly competent. ![]() Each subsequent Jaws film that was released is significantly worse than the one that preceded it-a 45 degree angle of descending quality. In the years that followed the critical acclaim and blockbuster receipts of the original Jaws in 1975, the franchise went through what would eventually be cited as a very conventional, genre-defining devolution. How did these films take on the mantle of “dumbest in the horror genre?” Well, it actually started with Jaws, funny enough-or more accurately, the Jaws sequels. ![]() Sharks that eat people.Īlthough I suppose that’s not entirely fair, is it? Shark movies have changed over the years in at least one prominent way, as they became an impetus that propelled low-budget quasi-horror in an increasingly absurd direction. In almost every instance, they are no more and no less than the title “Shark Movie” would imply-films that are full of sharks. But where zombie cinema has been used over the decades as an inroad to numerous clever dialogues on topics such as class, race, romance, economics or entropy itself, the shark movie aspires to no such allegorical heights. And then, from below, a moment of unease … did something just brush against your leg? I’m sorry to report that the chances are excellent you’re about to become a victim of the film industry’s most stubbornly prolific horror subgenre: The Shark Movie.Īh yes, the shark movie-bone-crunching, blood-frothing, teeth-baring and, so often, budget-lacking, it’s a corner of the horror/thriller world that seems to possess a type of self-sustaining momentum seen nowhere else, except perhaps in the zombie genre. Truly, nothing could spoil the perfect scene. Only now it’s not day-it’s a moonlit seaside evening, and you’re bobbing in the surf with a member of the opposite sex, intoxicated and reveling in the bloom of youth, which clearly stretches out ahead of you like an eternity. Imagine for a moment that you’re a nubile teenager once again, in the midst of a glorious summer beach vacation filled with sun-soaked days without end.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |