Let me just start off with a warning. If you suffer from a crippling fear of blondes this movie is not for you. Damn near every woman in this movie is a blonde. Also no man does anything at all unless it leads to the promise of sex. I am a devout feminist and yet the misogyny was so rampant that it almost became breathtaking to behold.
Besides the boobalicious flaws in this movie, the shark attacks are quite fun and gory. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them. For some attacks, we are warned of impending doom with the haunting sound of a slide whistle. Seriously, I cannot make this shit up. They swim through snow and ground alike. I don’t even need to mention that they growl, right? Of course they growl. They always growl.
The film focuses on several vapid characters in a spring break mountain resort. I am not sure who casted the actors in this movie but I do a better acting job when I call in sick to work. There is one character, a crazy mountain man named Duffy, who runs around warning everyone how these sharks have tasted human flesh and haven’t had a meal in 25 years. He has sled dogs who all get eaten. Now, these filmmakers may have the taste level of a rice cracker but they at least know NOT to show dogs getting eaten on screen.
The sharks are paranormals which is my favorite sub-category of sharksploitation. They glow and are all bumpy and icy. This movie is so deeply confused that it offers us three different origin stories. One is about an alien race of intelligent sharks. Another is about Great Whites finding their way into an arctic lake and getting possessed by a spirit. The last is about native people being slaughtered and the shaman invoking a vengeance spirit. Maybe the real story is a mix of all three but for fucks’ sake . . . this film is only 88 minutes long (praise Satan) so no one has time to sort out all this shit. What all three stories have in common though is Skookum! Skookum is the spirit of the mountain that somehow controls these ghostly sharks. You see, in the very beginning of the film, someone blasts the mountain and triggers an avalanche. The avalanche knocks over some twigs. Apparently, as we find out at the end of this shit show, those twigs were totems that held our toothy little Caspers at bay. Literally, someone just straightens up the twigs and the sharks disappear with little fanfare. That’s the finale. That’s it. Twigs.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you the ending. I kind of spoiled it for you, you say? On the contrary. I just saved your ass from spending 88 minutes of your life watching douchebags trying to fuck each other with an occasional Skookum story thrown in. Oh by the way, I looked up Skookum legends on the world wide web. It is a Chinook legend and the creature is supposed to be like Bigfoot. Now, where and why sharks came into this picture is unclear. But if Sasquatch’s choice of supernatural vengeance is sharks, we can totally be friends. I mean, I already liked him but now I want to rip a bong hit with him and watch Shark Week. Maybe a little over the shirt action but that’s it. We’ll just see each other once a month. Keep it casual. Wait. . . what are we talking about?
See ya next time!
Director: Scott D. Wheeler
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
Broken Nails
Splatterpunk nominated author Susan Snyder’s debut chapbook of poetry.