This one takes place on
Palomino Island in Puerto Rico. And don’t worry if you haven’t seen the first
two films in the series. This one really has nothing to do with the others,
except that at one point a character says she’s heard of two and three-headed
sharks (she also makes a reference to Sharknado). Anyway, when the film opens, some girls are trying to act sexy on a
boat for a photographer. A shark with just one head is in the water nearby. Hey, what
kind of threat does that fish pose? None at all, because it’s soon dispatched
by a shark with four heads. Yes, four heads, not five. Four heads demand a lot
of food, and sexy girls and a photographer make a good snack.
Police find the photographer’s
digital camera, which has some last-moment shots of the four shark heads, and
they decide to take it to a marine biologist at the local aquarium. Uh-oh, the
props person must have lost the camera (or perhaps had to return it to the
store), because in the next scene the camera has magically become a phone. The
police officer says, “I found this camera
on the boat,” and hands Dr. Yost the phone. The head of the aquarium sees
this as an opportunity to save his business, and decides to assemble a team of
interns to catch and exhibit the shark. This four-headed shark doesn’t like to
be photographed, because not only did it eat that photographer, but it eats the
team’s underwater camera.
The team loses one intern to
the shark, but interns are easy to replace, so the group continues its hunt
after a little pep talk by the leader, who suggests they name the shark after
the dead intern. Sean The Four-Headed Shark doesn’t sound so fierce.
Sounds like a roommate who might misplace your favorite Devo record, but not
someone who will kill you and all your friends. Anyway, the team employs the help
of a professional shark hunter who apparently used to pee on Dr. Yost. He tells
the team leader he’s into watersports, then shares a knowing look with her. And
they all go off to hunt the shark.
Cait, one of the remaining interns, is feeling down, however.
A guy asks her, “Are you all right?”
She replies, “I can’t sleep.” Well,
it’s mid-afternoon and you’re on a shark hunt. Should you really be choosing this
time to take a nap? Soon the shark takes another intern, Lindsay, who turns out
to be Cait’s best friend. This does not help Cait’s mood. But when the guy
hands her a bucket of chum, she gets back in the spirit of things.
Halfway through, this film
becomes a little less believable. The shark’s tail suddenly becomes a fifth
head. Now obviously this is going to cause problems for the shark, as this one
head will want to travel in the opposite direction as the other four. Plus, it
must be hard to swim without a caudal fin. How will it manage? The aquarium has
an even bigger problem. Their insurance might not cover two dead interns. One,
sure, no problem. But two? There is a suspenseful scene where the team leader
is on the phone discussing the problem. Is the answer to go back into the water
and endanger the final two interns? Absolutely!
But if you think this movie is
all about people getting eaten by a silly-looking mutant shark, think again.
This movie is not without substance. It has an important environmental message,
about how plastic has altered and endangered our ecosystem. And for good
measure, the film mentions global warming, the receding coral reef and the
dwindling number of manatees. So there.
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