Shark Night 3D tells a tale of Sara (Sara Paxton) who has her friends over at her family's lake-side house to celebrate her friend Malik's (Sinqua Wall) good results with the help of protagonist Nick (Dustin Milligan) as his tutor.
So here come a whole bunch of good-looking individuals that even include American Idol finalist Katherine McPhee having a fun time at a remote lake-house.
Things go awry almost right away as they get attacked by various sharks (yup there's more than one breed) in the salt-water lake.
And of course their only method of escape gets blown up in the most spectacularly unlikely manner.
To add to the mess are locals Red (Joshua Leonard) and Sara's ex-boyfriend Dennis (Chris Carmack), who are just too disturbingly creepy to not be ruled out with having something up their sleeves themselves.
First off, it's no secret that the film is a B-grade Jaws rip-off... in 3D. Good thing it doesn't try to be something it's not. With a title like Shark Night 3D, you pretty much get what you expect (the film was almost called "Untitled 3D Shark Thriller).
There's the usual 'innocent-victim-gets-killed' intro (albeit pretty cliche by now), a pretty cast with minimal clothing, some killer sharks and you'll even easily guess who-dies-and-who-doesn't.
Too bad Piranha 3D did all this a whole lot better. For a water-based horror flick, there isn't much suspense, nor enough skin or gore for that matter.
It feels like a rather toned-down creature-flick even for a person who gets freaked out by horror films like me.
However, Shark Night 3D does have some good things going on for it. The bunch of unknowns playing the various characters were actually pretty decent in the acting department and also rather likable.
But it's just hilarious how the film-makers went to great lengths finding numerous ways to get these people into the water.
I also found it kinda funny that the resident nerd, Nick's gamer roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore) was actually hanging out with a group that looked like they belonged to modeling magazines.
And oh, Sara Paxton is just so totally hawt in every single scene (plus she's in a lil blue bikini almost the whole time).
The sharks were pretty alright too, having a variety of species instead of stereotypically just one was a nice touch - this included bulls, tigers (albeit oddly shown as sand-tigers instead), hammerheads and the all-famous great whites.
Some love were even given to the cookiecutter, a childhood favourite of mine (feel free to Google them up). Despite the occasionally-dodgy CGi, the use of 3D in this flick was pretty good, and many will give you jumps - debris fall onto you and sharks jump out of the screen.
And as an added bonus, if you're not a fan of Katharine McPhee, you get to see her get munched-up as shark-snack.
The story however, borders on the absolute ridiculous. The twist halfway is so nonsensical that makes you wonder if the film-makers were trying too hard explaining a shark-infested salt-water lake scenario.
This is made worse by some scenes that are just absurd, like how one guy is out hunting sharks just moments after he was seen almost dying from losing an arm, blood-loss and shock.
With a few changes and a slightly bigger budget, this could have been a much better film. The camera angles used were pretty alright, and often gave sufficient suspense to scenes. It is still a rather fun flick, after all how can you not enjoy watching hot young peeps turning into shark food in friggin' 3D?
And oh, do stick around till after the credits for an extra that's as ridiculous as the movie's plot.
3 Stars (out of 5)
2 comments:
the movie was shit but seeing paxton in a tiny bikni was worth the price of admission. dat body. dat ass!
hahaha yeah man she sure was hawt! :P
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