Shark Hunter (2001)

I love shark movies. That means I love bad shark movies, because only a couple of them are actually good films. But Shark Hunter is particularly bad, mostly because it takes place almost entirely in a submarine. So we miss those wonderful shots of dorsal fins cutting through the surface, and hot girls screaming at the beach. Basically, all those things we love about shark movies are missing from this shark movie.

It begins with a flashback. A family of three is on a little boat on the ocean during a foggy night. The first big question is, What’s up with the boy’s voice? As we’re wondering that, something big attacks the boat, and sadly the boy survives.

Then, in the present, the boy – Spencer – is an adult (and is played by Antonio Sabato, Jr.). He is giving a college lecture, which is interrupted by his colleague, William (Christain Toulali - yes, that is how he's credited in this film). William tells him he won’t be able to use the special submarine that he designed. That couldn’t wait until the end of his lecture? College tuition is expensive, and these interruptions are being paid for by all of those students.

Meanwhile in some underwater laboratory (it’s really unclear what the purpose of this place is), a guy is smoking a cigarette. That seems unwise, and also unkind to the others who have to share that limited space. But then to simplify matters, a giant shark comes and starts eating people. It rams the facility, causing the place to explode.

Spencer and William are hired to investigate. Intense music plays while Spencer looks at slides of sharks. Then they go on the submarine that Spencer was so excited about. We meet the crew of the sub, all the usual characters, including Harrington, who displays an attitude for no particular reason. Playing one of the crew members is Velizar Binev, who also has roles in Shark Zone and Raging Sharks. Good for him.

A diver goes down and finds a body. Nice makeup job on the body’s face. Too bad they ran out of makeup before they got to his neck. Well, the diver finds a giant tooth (just like in Jaws, only bigger, and he’s able to hold onto it). It’s that of a Megalodon, a shark thought to be extinct. Spencer is certain it’s the same fish that ate his parents, and he’s out for revenge.

However, Cheryl  reminds him that they’re scientists, and that they should capture the fish and study it. By the way, Cheryl (Heather Marie Marsden) is the only woman in the movie, but fortunately she’s kind of cute. Except when she does her pouty face. The shark too has a pouty, angry face. Perhaps that’s why she wants to capture it, rather than kill it. She calls it “Meg.”

At one point Harrington says, “Guys, we’re gonna need a bigger sub,” briefly reminding us of a much better shark movie.

Shark Hunter was directed by Matt Codd.

Shark Zone (2003)

I love shark movies. And if you’re going to enjoy watching shark movies, you’re going to have to enjoy watching bad shark movies because very few of them are any good (at the moment I can think of only Jaws and Open Water as examples).  Shark Zone is certainly a bad shark movie. And yes, I truly enjoyed it.

Oddly, this film begins in 1712, when the Santa Cruz, a Spanish boat crossing the Atlantic, encounters a serious storm just off the coast of the New World. According to the opening narration, the boat disappears in an uncharted reef.

Then we are in current times, in San Francisco, where Mr. Wagner takes a group diving to tour the boat’s wreckage. Wait, the boat sailed from Spain to California?  He takes the group by helicopter rather than by boat. I’m not sure why, as they don’t actually go too far from shore. Among the diving group is Jimmy, Wagner’s son. Wagner calls him Jimbo, and so shall I.

They all jump out of the helicopter into the water, and though Wagner reminds them to stick together, they all ignore him and go off in pairs (except for his son, of course). Somehow they can communicate, though on the close-ups you can tell no one is actually talking (perhaps they communicate through telepathy). They find the wreckage of the Santa Cruz, which isn’t far beneath the surface, but then a great white shark attacks and kills them. Jimbo is the only survivor.

Ten years later in San Francisco, Jimbo (Dean Cochran), now a father himself, misses his dad. He is in charge of beach security, and the Beach Fiesta is coming up next weekend. That weekend is also the anniversary of his father’s death.

By the way, Carrie, Jimbo’s wife, is played by an incredibly inept actor. She is shockingly bad, and also completely unbelievable as a mother. She seems more like a porn actor. Instead of delivering dramatic dialogue, she should be shown with semen dripping from her face. And with a name like Brandi Sherwood, she probably was a porn actor.

In one of her early scenes, she and Jimbo are taking a boat ride. The sky is blue behind them, but as soon as they kiss, they’re in a squall. A shark begins eating their boat, and, graciously, eats Carrie. But then, what a bloody tease, it was only a dream. The awful wife is still alive.

Anyway, a shady businessman named Mr. Volkoff (Velizar Bineu) wants to know where the Santa Cruz is, because he believes the stories that there are diamonds in the wreckage.  If a diving team went down there, clearly its location is no secret. Hell, they did it just off shore from a helicopter. Plus, it’s really close to the surface. Are we really to believe that Jimbo is the only one who is aware of the boat’s location? Apparently. Well, Jimbo won’t tell him, because that’s where his father died.

Volkoff is funding the Beach Fiesta, but with the understanding that in exchange he’ll be shown the location of the Santa Cruz. He threatens Mayor Cortell (Alan Austin) that he will withdraw his support if he’s not given the information.  Hold on, the Fiesta is this weekend. Hasn’t the money already been spent? Also, this is San Francisco. Is the entire Fiesta funded by a single businessman?

When Jimbo’s son, Danny, learns that his grandfather was eaten by sharks, he says, “You know, I hate sharks. They suck.” Jimbo replies, “Yes, they do.” And that is a sweet father-and-son bonding moment.

Well, great white sharks start attacking swimmers at the beach. It’s cool that they use footage of actual great whites. But they probably shouldn’t have used the shot with the bait clearly visible in the water. It kind of ruins the effect.  Anyway, lots of people die. But the mayor refuses to close the beach. He tells Jimbo, “I know some people lost their lives out there. I’m not completely insensitive to that, okay? But I’ve got to deal with the people that make their livelihood in this town.” Jaws, much?

Jimbo is really like the Chief Brody character in Jaws, except this is San Francisco, not a tiny beach community, so it’s not really believable at all.  Jimbo tells the mayor that these sharks are bigger, faster and more aggressive than any he’s seen before. Then he goes to hunt the sharks with a team of three friends.

The geography is all weird when they go to hunt the sharks. They travel by boat for a while. But when Jimbo’s wife at home looks out her window, she can see the boat. By the way, beach security must be a high-paying job in San Francisco, because they have a giant beachfront home. I couldn’t even afford a studio apartment in San Francisco. Hell, I can’t afford the parking in that city.

Well, the guys in the shark cages are supposed to be killing the sharks. (And tagging the ones they’re unable to kill.) So I have to wonder why they have big yellow underwater cameras rather than guns. As the sharks attack the cages, one of the divers says “Get away” to a shark. But it doesn’t listen. When the sharks have finished eating the three men, Jimbo (safe on the boat) gets angry and shouts, “Bastards.”

I’m not sure if he’s angry with the sharks, or with his men for taking cameras rather than guns. Either way, he has to get more volunteers for his next fight with the sharks. As anyone would do in that situation, he turns to his bartender.  This time they bring guns.  (In the next fight, that shot with the bait is used again. Geez, once was bad enough.)

Then they get in a helicopter and drop explosives into the water in order to kill the sharks. Apparently they’re successful, so Jimbo quips, “Class dismissed.”  Seriously. I am guessing the line is intended as a joke on the idea of a school of fish. Of course, there were only three sharks, and I’m not sure how many sharks make up a school.

But the film isn’t over. Because Volkoff (remember him?) is still keen on retrieving the diamonds. He threatens Jimbo, and when that doesn’t work, he has Jimbo’s son kidnaped. Jimbo doesn’t tell the mayor or call the cops or anything. Instead, he cooperates. And Volkoff’s divers find the diamonds. And the sharks find Volkoff’s divers.

This film taught me that great whites growl like dogs. Wait, didn’t that happen in Jaws: The Revenge? Wasn’t that one of the things that made that film laughable? What a strange detail to rip off from a film that’s even worse than this one.

By the way, there is a nice bit of nudity with a cute brunette. But she is killed in about ten seconds, and no mention is ever made of her again. So I’ll just mention her here: nice breasts.

Shark Zone was directed by Danny Lerner, who also directed Raging Sharks and Sharks In Venice (and yes, both of those are in my DVD collection).

Bats: Human Harvest (2007)

The opening scene of Bats: Human Harvest is a bit confusing. What seems to be happening is that some bats have set a trap for Russian soldiers using a child’s bicycle and some recordings as bait, and then filmed them in the woods when they attacked them. The movie then quickly moves to Iraq, at an Al Qaeda training camp. The trunk of an old car leads to a series of underground chambers. Is that how they fit all those clowns in the tiny circus cars?

We next move to a meeting of CIA folks, who say that through that raid on the camp, they learned of a network trying to obtain nuclear weapons. (Is it the FOX Network?) One of the factories is located in the Belzan Forest, in southern Russia.  The mission is to extract a certain doctor from the area. I think they refer to him as the “WMD Doctor,” so if you have a missile that’s feeling under the weather, you should take it to see this guy.

The film then introduces us to the military team that is going to retrieve the doctor. About the forest, the men are told, “It’s bigger than New York City, and more dangerous.” Maybe so, but it’s certainly also a lot prettier, and without those fucking Yankees fans. One of the team is some Russian chick who, boasting of her patriotism, says “On the fourth of July I like to blow things up.”  Hey, who doesn’t?

We then suffer through a hard rock montage of military guys getting ready for the mission. Who cares? It’s the same garbage we’ve seen hundreds of times. It’s brief, but not brief enough. Once they’re in the field, they find bits of dead guys from the film’s first scene. And though it’s daytime, the bats are flying around. Plus, these bats are meat-eaters, and are like chameleons, having the ability to blend in with their surroundings. Well, not with the sky, or the leaves, but with the bark of the trees they land on.

Soon this military team hears the recordings that lured the Russians into the area. And even though the speakers are plainly visible, attached to the trunks of trees, the sounds seem to confuse the military folks. And though the cameras are high up on the trunks and aimed in one direction, the footage they capture is close-ups at ground level.

Several of the military guys are killed by the bats, but three of them live to capture the doctor, who is running some experiments on the bats. The doctor says the bats were bred to like human blood, except for his own. Apparently he has some kind of special blood that no one else has.

This film is somewhat realistic, in as much as the military team finds no weapons of mass destruction at the location – just some bats.  And it is a bit of harmless fun.  Also, it’s short, coming in at less than 90 minutes.

This brilliant tagline graces the cover of the DVD: “Don’t go near the dark.” Of course, it’s even more stupid, as these bats fly around in the daytime. Bats: Human Harvest stars David Chokachi, Michael Jace, Pollyanna McIntosh, Martin Papazian, Melissa De Sousa and Tomas Arana. It was directed by Jamie Dixon.

Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid (2004)

Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid is surprisingly enjoyable, at least for a while. The opening sequence of some guy running through the jungle is pretty cool. And all of the shots of the snakes under water look good. (When the snakes are out of the water, they look less convincing.) The major problems of this film are the script and the acting.

Basically some corporate types travel to a jungle to collect a rare flower because they believe it will grant humanity immortality. The flower only blooms once every seven years, and then only for a short time. So they have to get there immediately if they want to make their billions of dollars, which they do.

When that group hires a boat, it’s a complete rip-off of the scene where Ben Kenobi hires Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon. Seriously. And then when the group sees the boat, it continues to be a Star Wars rip-off. You can almost hear Luke say, “What a piece of junk.” The dialogue is only slightly different.

There is lots of terrible dialogue in the film. One character offers this tip to another character early on: “You want the best young talent – recruit early.” Right. You mean while they’re young. It’s difficult to get the best young talent if you wait until they’re forty before recruiting them. There is also this excellent observation: “Everything gets eaten out here. It’s a jungle.” (It’s nice to know that no food is wasted in the jungle.)

Anyway, a big deal is made of it being the rainy season in this area, and yet the moment they’re on board the boat, it stops raining. And it doesn’t rain again until near the end of the film. Of course, that’s better for the actors. Wet work is pretty fucking miserable.

Not that I have much sympathy for this group of actors. Basically, apart from the Han Solo character, none of the cast has any acting ability. The monkey is actually the best of the actors, at least at expressing emotion. I believe him when he acts scared. Yes, there’s a monkey.

But like I said, a lot of the film looks good. They found some great locations, and obviously spent a good deal of time drawing up their shots. I really dig the fight with the crocodile. It’s actually pretty cool. And the underwater shots after the boat goes over a waterfall look really good too.

Toward the end, the movie gets a little ridiculous. Once it strays into a Goonies rip-off (you’ll know exactly what scene I’m talking about), it’s basically time to stop watching. And at the end we don’t even know if the survivors managed to get any of the orchids or not. It seems like they would have, but they don’t say anything about it. Maybe we’re supposed to believe that all of the orchids were destroyed. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

This Is 40 (2012)

I recently saw This Is 40, and I was kind of baffled. I have a friend who works for Judd Apatow. This friend did a little poking around at my request, and managed to find Apatow’s original notes for the film. I persuaded this friend to send them to me in an email. And now I’m passing them on to you. Obviously I’m not going to name my source, but what follows are Judd Apatow’s original notes when he came up with the idea for the movie This Is 40. I think they shed some light on the film.

“I want to deal with someone turning 40, and the problems associated with that age. So, let’s see, I’ll start with a husband and a wife. I’m not sure which one is turning 40, so for now let’s make it both of them, and I’ll figure it out later. They should be having some sort of marital problems, but I’m not sure just yet what sort. Maybe financial, maybe communication problems, maybe problems at work, or with the kids. I’ll just include all of those, and sort it out later.  Oh, maybe problems with their parents. Perhaps a parent has remarried and has much younger children. I’m not sure if it should be the wife’s father or the husband’s father who does this, so for now let’s make it both and I’ll sort it out later. Either the husband or the wife owns a business, and it’s in trouble somehow. Wait, better make them both own businesses, and both businesses are in trouble, and I’ll figure it out later. Maybe someone at the wife’s business is stealing from her. I’ll put a hot girl in the store, so people will think it’s her, but it’s really the other girl. I’m not sure how to resolve this, and right now all I can think of is that the other girl is Asian and she just acts crazy at the end. That’s believable because all Asian women are completely fucking bonkers. Seriously. Why is that? I don’t know. But I’m not going to get into it with this film. How do we make people think it’s the hot girl? I know – she has new clothes and a new car that she could never afford on her salary. But how can she afford that stuff then? Of course! She also works as a prostitute. That’s the only way a woman would get that stuff. That’s where she makes her real money. So why does she bother working at the store? I don’t know. Do I need a reason? Maybe I’ll come up with one later.  Oh, by the way, the wife is having trouble coping with turning 40, so she lies about her age. That is brilliant and original. So she doesn’t want a party. But the husband does. Also, the husband likes cupcakes. That just came to me. Just now. He loves them. Can’t get enough of them. Maybe I can show him eating an old cupcake that’s been in the sink. That would be a really funny scene. The wife hates that he eats cupcakes. So who keeps buying them – him? Does he do the grocery shopping? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There are just lots of cupcakes. Fuck, I’m a genius.  I feel like the script is almost done. But we need some sort of chase scene or someone should be in danger somehow for some reason.  I almost got in an accident yesterday. I almost hit someone on a bicycle. Fucker kept swerving out of the bike lane. I’ve got it – the husband loves riding his bicycle, and he goes for a really fast ride on his birthday, and ends up in the hospital. That way the husband and wife can tell each other they love each other. Scenes like that always work in hospitals. Hospitals, hospitals.  I have an idea! Let’s have an early scene where the husband or wife is getting a check-up, and it’s really embarrassing. Turn and cough, finger in the butt, all that stuff.  Should it be the wife? I’ll just have them both go to the doctor, and I’ll figure it out later. This is going to be a great movie. I just need to work in some fart jokes somehow. Doesn’t matter how, or when. Yes, I’m ready to cash my paycheck for this one. Fuck it, you know what, I’m just going to use these notes as the script. Done, done, done. Now time to go order lunch.”