Shark Movie Sunday: COCAINE SHARK (2023)
The Asylum would be proud of this one.
Welcome to Shark Movie Sunday - where every Sunday we will take a look at a random shark movie from around the world.
I should have picked a better title for the inaugural edition of this hopefully regular feature, but it is what it is.
And what is it is a terrible, terrible, terrible no budget shark movie designed to ride the success of Cocaine Bear and trick the audience into thinking this movie could be as cool as that one.
Now that we’ve established what this movie isn’t (good), let’s see what this movie actually is…
THE STORY
The worst undercover detective in the world, a guy who wears his gun and holsters to a public meeting with a mafia kingpin in a restaurant that looks suspiciously like someone’s living room, somehow manages to infiltrate the kingpin’s crime world in order to attempt to take down his empire.
His empire includes a drug called HT25, a hallucinogen that created from the extracts of a shark. When taken, the user hallucinates that they are a shark that goes around murdering people.
At the same time, a mutant shark that looks strangely like a crawfish crossed with a hammerhead, is stalking anyone who enters the water. Those ‘anyone’ seem to be the kingpin and his cohorts who are trying to double cross a scientist.
Somehow the story all comes together, held up by scenes in a hospital where the detective has a full beard, even though according to his own flashback he shaved it off before he ended up there.
THE SHARK
Honestly, what shark?
There is some weird stop-motion hammerhead-crawfish thing, there is a guy who is clearly in a papier-mâché costume and then there is stock footage of sharks. Which one are we referring to?
Having said that, I did like the papier-mâché shark. It takes a special kind of filmmaker with a huge set of balls and a massive “I don’t give a fuck” attitude to make that costume, put someone it, film it, edit it and then release it on a bluray disc in Germany.
THE EFFECTS
Being a micro/no budget movie, the effects tend to be a bit more “creative” than most movies.
For example - if you don’t have a drone or a helicopter to take sweeping city scape shots? Just get some stock footage from a website.
Can’t get access to shark to film them? Stock footage.
Don’t have any police props? Have a guess what you can use for that?
What about when you do manage to film on location - like on a lake - but want to show there is a shark there? Easy, just use After Effects to mask a shark fin and some water splashes into the frame. Print and Cut.
WHAT DID I LIKE?
When a movie has this micro of a budget, with grating acting and a story that seems stupidly silly, finding bits to like about the movie are difficult.
I like the fact the filmmakers tried. That’s worth something. It’s worth a lot actually. Most people fear doing something because they’re afraid of failure or ridicule. But not director Mark Polina and writer Bando Glutz - who also wrote Christmas Craft Fair Massacre which I would like to watch but I am afraid is the same quality as this film. These two guys looked ridicule and failure in the eye and owned it.
Except this movie isn’t really a failure. We’re talking about it, and that makes it far from a failure. And ridicule? Well, I think they’re laughing along with us at how ridiculous this movie is.
I also really like how low budget the effects are. It’s a pure case of not giving a flying fuck what anyone thinks and just making something so outrageous and stupid. The litmus test would have been if everyone around them was laughing with them. Sometimes these silly moments are the best. Like when the face melts, or those scenes of the shark eating people where it turns into some kind of Robot Chicken episode.
Robot Chicken. That’s what this movie reminds me of.
WHAT DIDN’T I LIKE?
No offense, other than the crappy acting I do on my YouTube channel, I’ve never tried acting before, but I can smell bad acting when I see and hear it. And this movie both stinks and hurts my eyeballs.
A story can be bad. The effects can be terrible. And the plot non-existent if the actors can at least sell their roles to me. But all the actors in this movie fail to do that.
Coupled with the editing that doesn’t even attempt to hide the action points - it literally feels like the editor has cut the scenes based on when they’ve heard the word “action” on the sound track and not tried to create natural, free flowing dialogue scenes.
How did a piece about exploring shark movies end up a critique about acting and editing? I wanna talk about the damn sharks!
RECOMMENATIONS
Who do I recommend should watch this? Well maybe the title of the movie is a clue.
No, not sharks. I don’t think are interested. I think it must be cocaine users. They’re the ones who will probably get the most mileage out of this one.
And student filmmakers who want to know how to create dodgy special effects with no budget. There is some creative stuff here if you can look beyond the fact this isn’t Terminator 2 or Jurassic Park or Lord of The Rings. Or The Meg 2.
Genre Sci-Fi Horror Maybe
Director Mark Polonia
Starring Titus Himmelberger, Ken Van Sant, Natalie Himmelberger
Original Title Cocaine Shark
Country of Origin USA
Release Date 23 May 2023
