SHARK SWARM
Alternate German Title:
Shark Swarm - Angriff der Haie
USA, 2008
Director: James A. Contner
4,5/10
"Shark Swarm", the11th film in the SyFy Maneater Series, isn't exactly a good shark horror movie. It's much too long (about 160 minutes!!!) and in terms of story and plot development, it strongly reminded me of mediocre crime/fish-flicks like "Barracuda" or "Killerfish".
Nevertheless, I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.
The CGI isn't great but far better-looking than I expected (Asylum, eat your heart out!). There's lots of shark attacks and a pretty high body count. Unfortunately, there's hardly any gore.
The cast is good (decent performances of F. Murray Abraham, John Schneider, Armand Assante and the super-pretty Heather McComb), the direction is ok (James A. Contner, cinematographer of creature flicks "Jaws 3D" and "Moneky Shines") and the soundtrack is solid.
Alternate German Title:
Shark Swarm - Angriff der Haie
USA, 2008
Director: James A. Contner
4,5/10
"Shark Swarm", the11th film in the SyFy Maneater Series, isn't exactly a good shark horror movie. It's much too long (about 160 minutes!!!) and in terms of story and plot development, it strongly reminded me of mediocre crime/fish-flicks like "Barracuda" or "Killerfish".
Nevertheless, I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.
The CGI isn't great but far better-looking than I expected (Asylum, eat your heart out!). There's lots of shark attacks and a pretty high body count. Unfortunately, there's hardly any gore.
The cast is good (decent performances of F. Murray Abraham, John Schneider, Armand Assante and the super-pretty Heather McComb), the direction is ok (James A. Contner, cinematographer of creature flicks "Jaws 3D" and "Moneky Shines") and the soundtrack is solid.
As for the flaws: it's too long, the script is lame and badly paced, there's a high amount of incredibly boring, incredibly dull scenes and sequences, the climax is disappointing and Daryl Hannah's performance is surprisingly absolutely terrible. What the fuck happened to her?
Overall: ok but nothing too special.
Wiki ~ Imdb
Overall: ok but nothing too special.
Wiki ~ Imdb
Posts
I have this one but haven't watched it yet. Sounds okay - surprised at the length too! Heather McComb is the ex-wife of my old buddy James van der Beek - they met after her sister guest starred on a first season Dawson's Creek episode. And Jim Contner directed an episode of American Gothic which was a series I worked on. Nice enough guy. Great review, Mr. B!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Craig! :)
DeleteGawd yeah, the length is insane. Should have trimmed it to a 90 or 100 minute movie.
So you know Heather McComb? Awesome! Could you get me an autograph? :)
I never really liked shark movies. Don't know why. Never really blew my skirt up. I didn't even like Jaws. :/
ReplyDeleteWhat? Not even Jaws??? I'm shocked O_o
DeleteI love a good shark attack. There's something about those teeth and fins. John Schneider is still one of my fave cheesy actors. I've loved him since he was Bo Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard.
ReplyDeleteHaha yeah, he was fun as Bo Duke :)
DeleteHi there. I'm one of the writers of SHARK SWARM, and I have to agree with pretty much everything you wrote here. One thing to know is that this was originally written as a miniseries, thus the extended length. As far as the scene order and pacing goes, once the shoot was finished, the producers drastically changed much of what we'd written and what Jim Contner had directed, completely rearranging scenes and often rewriting and reshooting huge chunks without our input (as it stands, the movie now actually opens with the final scene from the script). The original version actually made logical sense and also featured tons of gore. Our climax was entirely different and much larger, but it was entirely redone. We weren’t even aware of all the changes made until it aired on TV (though it was intended to debut on NBC, it ended up going to the Hallmark Channel for reasons still unknown to me).
ReplyDeleteI actually have a rough copy of Jim’s original cut, and it’s a much better film than what ended up getting released. There was certainly a better movie in there than viewers ultimately got. As it stands, there are still a few scenes I like, and we ended up getting plenty more writing gigs afterward and are still working today. Glad you found a few things to like about it. Thanks for the review!
Wow, what an epic post! HUGE THANKS for sharing all these information. I had no idea that the whole shooting was so problematic.
ReplyDeleteWith your permission, I'd like to use your comment in a separate post. I think my readers need to know about all the rewriting and reshooting.
Absolutely! Feel free to make a separate post using this stuff.
ReplyDeleteThere was plenty more that went wrong from the get-go with SHARK SWARM. Initially, they had signed a great fx artist to design some amazing prosthetic sharks, but they undercut him and went with someone far cheaper at the last moment. Turns out they discovered firsthand that you truly get what you pay for and fired the second guy a week into the shoot, thinking erroneously that they could fix it in post. That’s why you see a ton of repeated cgi-shark attacks in the final cut and very few prosthetics. The entire miniseries was supposed to take place over a rapidly intensifying three-day period while the town was being emptied out by corporate developers, thus explaining how people could go missing and not be immediately noticed. Additionally, our version was conceived along the lines of John Carpenter’s THE FOG, only with sharks instead of undead pirates, and the idea was to have the attacks start off small, building in ferocity until the finale when our heroes had to directly deal with THOUSANDS of the toothy creatures. We also had all kinds of assorted mayhem that featured massive underwater explosions and collapsing lighthouses, which were partially shot and then abandoned as the production began to run out of money. So the whole last section was redone.
During the screening of the workprint, an unnamed exec randomly asked “what are the sharks doing when they’re not eating people?” Because of this completely odd question, random scenes of the sharks swimming around and attacking each other were added. The whole thing got progressively smaller and slower. Certain actors (take a guess who) had no desire to work on what was intended to be a fun killer shark b-movie and phoned in their performances.
It was intended to air over two nights and was written as such, but was then rearranged and aired in a single viewing, thus killing any momentum it might’ve had.
By the time it was set to air, no one was happy with the end result. But hey, sometimes you have to take one for the team. At the end of it, we had a movie produced, which led to more work. We later did a fun little satanic cannibal biker flick called HARD RIDE TO HELL and currently have several films in development.
Oh, and one final funny note. Although I'm not a huge fan of what the film ultimately became, I did get a little pumped a few years back when none other than ubergenius Stephen Hawking tweeted about watching and enjoying it! Go figure!
ReplyDeleteI actually really had fun watching Shark Swarm. The concept of a mad real estate developer poisoning the whole ocean because of a stubborn fishery only to inadvertently create killer sharks, has a certain camp appeal to it the Though I've seen it twice on the SyFy Channel it is interesting to learn that it ultimately went to the family friendly Hallmark Channel - a channel that shows a lot of re-runs of The Golden Girls and Little House on the Prairie and, apparently a shark flick.
ReplyDelete