Shark Night Blu-ray Review

Like most critics out there, as the year comes to an end, I craft a Best/Worst list to suggest to friends, family and readers. As usual, I would crown two "Worst Of" winners – one award to the most genuinely terrible movie of the year (the Epic Fail award), and one award to the best worst movie of the year, a film so bad it actually works as a straight-faced comedy. A few years back, I gave a title to my best worst award: the Golden Wicker Man, in honor of the Nicolas Cage fiasco. (The one where he punches a lady while wearing a bear suit).

Over the years, I've awarded the Golden Wicker Man to several different films. Last year, I gave it to Wes Craven's hilarious misfire, My Soul to Take. The year before that, Chris Klein's over-the-top Interpol agent won me over in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. And, in 2011 – I award Shark Night with the Golden Wicker Man.

Shark Night is, without a doubt, one of the oddest, unintentionally funny efforts of the year. It's not Jack and Jill awful (my Epic Fail winner for 2011), but the kind of awful that makes the exploitative parts better, and the humorously inept parts even funnier. Admittedly, the film, directed by Snake on a Plane-alum David R. Ellis, is trying to be bad at times, and those parts are pulled off to perfection. But it's in the serious parts – the one-note dialogue, the wooden TV soap performances, the obvious 3D effects, the not-so-terrifying CG sharks – where the film really falls apart, in the all the best ways, of course.

A token bit of plot for those new to the film – Shark Night follows a group of late-20-somethings (pretending to be college students) as they head to a secluded island in the middle of a lake for a weekend of fun, drinking and debauchery. It's not long after they arrive (thank God) that they get attacked by deadly man-eating sharks, and find themselves trapped on the island. While the film's original promotional material, and even some trailers, touted the lake as being a fresh water lake (adding some mystery/scientific tomfoolery to the tale), the film pulls a fast one explaining that this lake is actually comprised of salt water. Yawn. From there, it just gets stranger, and dumber, culminating in one of the most asinine third-act twists I've ever witnessed.

If the half-cocked, boneheaded story wasn't enough, the rest of the film's wayward execution should draw up a belly laugh or two. Performances are thin, at best, with only the film's top-class character actors (Donal Logue and Joel David Moore) giving the film any weight. And even then, the film is sunk by performances fit for a cable TV crime scene re-enactment. CG effects are on par with a Discovery Channel documentary about sharks, which adds some cheesy flavor to the film's "scary" moments; those lack any real tension thanks to bad editing and ugly cinematography. Seriously, the film feels like an assembly edit, not the final product. Speaking of cinematography, the film boasts some of the worst, most obvious day-for-night shots ever committed to cinema. Just take a look at the nearly indecipherable still below and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.


But despite the film's ridiculous shortcomings, it's a jolly good time. Shark Night is hilariously overplayed and quite exploitative, especially considering the PG-13 rating (the girls remain in their bikinis for most of the flick), and almost always cheesy in one way or another. On this level, the film plays as a perfect party movie – the kind of film you watch while throwing back a few brews with friends. It's bawdy, terribly made, and also kind of awesome, just not in the way anyone involved with the film probably imagined. And be sure to stick around after the credits for one of the single best (and goofiest) post-credit cookies ever made. Seriously, it's incredible.

Shark Night swims to Blu-ray encoded in 1080p/AVC, mixed in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Only a 2D version of the film is being released at this time. Ironically, Shark Night's Blu-ray is about as inept as the film, though not as humorously so, unfortunately. The print is downright fugly, with a myriad of seemingly in-camera flubs, such as over-saturation, color inconsistencies, hazy whites, hot contrast, and flat black levels. It doesn't help that more than half the film is shot in the worst day-for-night I've seen. With the exception of a few dozen shots, there's little visual appeal to the movie. The encode's color banding in the underwater sequences is flawed, a common issue with films such as this. But with a film print this bad, it's hard to find the overall experience enjoyable in the slightest, even with a decent encode. What a shame.

The disc's lossless audio track is about as misguided as the film, too. It's not a bad mix, though hardly inspiring. The mix lumbers about, never quite sure where to place surround effects. Dialogue succumbs to minor distortion and crackles. And bass feels subdued. For a suspense-thriller, this clunky mix lacks much atmosphere, and ultimately does little to punch up the thrills, what few there are.

Extras are lacking, as I suspected. There's no commentary track, no trivia track, or picture-in-picture option. Hell, we don't even get an unrated cut of the film – something I had hoped for given the film's exploitative cues. Instead, we're treated to four flimsy EPK featurettes and some trailers. All told, there's less than 20 minutes of material, all presented in HD. The set also comes with a Digital Copy.


If you're looking for a good bad movie, Shark Night should do the trick. The film is a solid 2, but its replay value as a crowd-pleasing party movie raise it up to watchable levels. Alas, this Blu-ray isn't impressive in the slightest, which is why I'm guessing Fox is going to forget this was a 3D effort altogether (so don't hold your breath for a 3D release). You might just want to rent this one, or wait for it to go used. Regardless, despite the disc, you're bound to have a good time with the film itself, so take a bite.

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