You should be informed that this is not a sharksploitation film. I was bamboozled. Look at the poster! I feel a little betrayed. Oh, there is a shark in this movie. It attacks people. But it is definitely not a shark movie.
This movie really wants to be Good. I wish it was. It comes close. It motorboats Good. It kisses Good with tongue. Yet, Good never asks it out on a second date.
Poor Liz is having nightmares about a Great White attacking her in a dark, calm sea. She has survived an actual shark attack IRL that took the lives of her sister Peyton and boyfriend Seth. It’s been a year and she is going to therapy to help deal with the trauma and lack of sleep. Liz refuses to take any sleeping pills for fear of the Sharky Krueger that lurks in her dreams. She is starting to have hallucinations. Shark in the hallway. Shark in the window. Shark in the water glass. E-I-E-I-O.
Liz is also dating a woman named Roberta who is being very patient with Liz’s batshit bug eyes and lack of lovin’. Roberta says “making sweet love will keep the sharks away.” I wonder if that’s true. In my case, I don’t want the sharks to go away. I love sharks. Maybe that explains why I’m celibate? I digress. At any rate, Liz ain’t putting out.
Pretty soon, Liz starts seeing her dead sister and boyfriend. This gets a little too referential to Jack from American Werewolf in London. They are decomposing (with such a low budget, you barely notice) and crack wise about how dead they are. They are actually funny at times but not funny enough to get to third base with Good. They want Liz to murder Roberta but never explain why. In her sleep deprived cuckoo nuts condition, Liz is starting to listen to them.
It turns out that Peyton and Seth had been having a bit of the old in-out, in-out and Liz found out about it. During the shark attack, Liz hesitated in saving Peyton, giving the shark just enough time to make Peyton into a tasty numnum. This is causing a huge amount of deep rooted guilt for Liz. She hallucinates CGI sharks with horrible teeth, can’t get into her own swimming pool, never gets a proper night’s sleep and has cobwebs forming in her crotch. I mean, yikes. Sorry Liz.
Roberta is a fucking saint and stays by Liz’s side through all this. Zombie Peyton and Seth keep the pressure on Liz to kill Roberta. Liz dreams about the shark. This is pretty much it, folks.
Why did I say this movie might have had some over-the-shirt action with Good? It sounds like a snoozer, right? It is. But I still wanted to see where it was going. The movie is dripping with obvious metaphors about guilt and trauma. The shark is a big whopping fishy representation of mental illness. There is still a little bit of gore during the pseudo shark attack scenes, enough for this movie to make it into the genre. Not enough for it to satisfy those of us thirsty for toothy carnage. Yet, I was interested enough to see it through to fruition. Boy, was I disappointed!
Unfortunately, Good put his unused condom back in his wallet, said a polite “I’ll call you” and peeled out of the driveway right before the ending. The finale was as bland and flavorless as a communion wafer. Now I’m not sure why one would randomly insert a bastardized version of the Land Shark SNL skit into this movie, but that’s kind of what happens.
Ooooooh, but it’s a metaphor!
I’m not opposed to films that use plot and imagery as metaphors for mental illness (looking at you, Fright Club) but could you at least do it well? At least well enough to get Good to take you to Prom or to go see a much better movie?
I’m starting to think Good might be a metaphor for my high school boyfriend. I better go now before I start seeing sharks in my Lone Star.