Spin Off - Quint (Jaws)

“Jaws” it’s safe to say is a franchise truly run into the ground by a combination of increasingly outlandish plots and the general opinion that all was required to make the giant rubber shark scary was to recycle the now legendry theme music and find ever unique ways for the human cast to become shark chow.

So with “Jaws: The Revenge” having driven a stake through the series could there be any life left in the franchise? After all once you have your shark seemingly capable of wanting to claim revenge on the Brody’s let alone suddenly gaining the ability to roar your kind of already clutching at straws even if these ideas half as strange as some of the ideas being thrown around in the current development hell with currently surrounds the attempts to adapt Steve Alten’s prehistoric shark on the rampage series “MEG”. Where could a possible spin off go? The answer it would seem is with the character of Quint.

Memorably played by Robert Shaw, who interestingly wasn’t Spielberg’s choice having originally wanted to cast either Lee Marvin (who preferred to fish for real) or Sterling Hayden for the role before he cast Shaw who as we all know now would go on to be one of the most memorable characters in the film let alone steal every scene which he was featured in. Ironically Spielberg would later go on record to state that he would have cast local Craig Kingsbury in the role had he met him sooner and ultimately would cast him to play Ben Gardner and who would also be highly memorable in the film as one of the best scares when his decapitated head plays peek-a-boo.

When we meet Quint in the original film he is a grizzled shark hunter and captain of the “Orca” who is the first to step up to killer the monster shark, only to get shot down by the town authorities who baulk at his demands for $10,000 rather than the $3000 bounty originally on offer. Right from the start he is established as being a man who only cares about himself with a heightened dislike for men in positions of power and authority, with a unique sense of humour as he frequent makes wisecracks and limericks for seemingly his sole amusement.

As we get to know more about Quint during the climatic shark hunt we also learned that he is a survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in one of the most memorable scenes of the film and one which was used as the basis for the rumoured “Jaws: Dark Waters” which would focus on the story Quint tells about how the survivors of the ships were forced to fight off a pack of sharks with the film being based around this story leading to the crews eventual rescue.

Unquestionably from this simple moment which Shaw made unquestionably so gripping (Richard Dreyfuss admitted that he didn't fake his gripped expression) , we learn so much about his motivation and general demeanour as it was the officer top brass who made the mission of delivering the Hiroshima bomb so secret that no one knew the location of the ship and in turn further delaying their rescue and perhaps goes a way to explaining why he is so driven on hunt as many sharks as he can.

It is of course this period from Quint leaving the navy and coming to the town of Amity that my proposed spin-off would start from as Quint arrives in the sea side town and constructing his shack and starting up his shark fishing business.  Over the course of the film we would see him also putting in place the other sidelines the source novel mentions such as his moonshine and whale oil business he uses during the off season, aswell as his frequent battles with both the mayor and other fisherman which he fought using layman’s legal knowledge gained from legal books in the Amity library.

The book also makes mention of another epic shark hunt which Quint undertook prior to the events of the film, in which he battled another large shark (if not quite the size of the film’s shark) while on one of his charter fishing trips, with the shark equally requiring three barrels to capture it. The hunt ultimately ending in one of Quints trademark blowouts when the tourist wanted to claim that he caught the shark on line and reel rather than with the use of barrels. Despite Quint in a surprising moment actually tries to reason with the tourist who is adamant over which story they wish to use and ultimately ends with Quint dumping the carcass overboard in a scene which would make for the perfect ending and ultimately a lead into the original film.

The perfect opening though for the film can also be found in a scene removed from the original script were Quint is introduced watching “Moby Dick” at the cinema, the scenes of Gregory Peck battling the mechanical whale causing him to laugh so hard that other people in the cinema walk out as his laughter can be heard echoing into the street. Sadly it was a scene cut which Spielberg explained

“Gregory Peck felt it wasn’t his proudest work; he didn’t want it to be made fun of or even be in the film at all”

True this would be an issue which would still stand even now, but with so many giant sea creature movies it wouldn’t be such an issue to find one whose actors aren’t perhaps so sensitive about the footage being used

While the background of Quint is patchy outside of what we are given by both the film and the book, further inspiration could also be taken from the life of sport fisherman Frank Mundus who was a key inspiration for author Peter Benchley when writing the book aswell as while working on the screen play, having first heard of Mundus when his publisher told him about how Mundas caught a 4550 pound great white shark off the shores of Long Island which he caught via harpoon. Mundus also holds the record for the largest fish caught via rod and reel when he caught a 3,427 pound great white, a fibreglass copy of which still hangs on the Lake Montauk waterfront. Unlike Quint though Mundas would towards the end of his career go from shark hunter to conservationist (much like Benchley) through to his death from a heart attack in 2008.

 

The main issue with Quint being the focus though is his general demeanour which means that he only cares about himself and generally comes off pretty unlikeable until he warms up to people as we saw in “Jaws”, so it may require an additional crew mate to be written in, just to keep things light or perhaps the film could show Quint perhaps not as bitter with life as when we meet him in “Jaws” either way another shark hunt with Quint is one of the few prospects for the series I would still like to see, even if it isn’t the same monster size as the ones the series has become renown for.

For more Spielberg related fun makes sure you check out French Toast Sunday's "Spielberg In July" for which this article was compiled for.

Top 6 Underated Spielberg Moments

Unquestionably Steven Spielberg is one of a small amount of directors to achieve the status of a master director in his lifetime and to look at his back catalogue it is easy to understand why and over the years his films have featured countless memorable moments. However for every mash potato mountain, surprise shark appearance, boulder dash and bunch of kids managing to elude the FBI on BMX's (geez are they on steroids or something) there have been numerous moments which for one reason of another never seem to get a mention when discussing Spielberg's films.

So as part of French Toast Sunday's "Speilberg In July" I will now try and honour some of these overlooked moments, so please allow me to present you with my top 6 underrated Spielberg moments!


Hook - Captain Hook's Suicide Attempt



A surprising moment sneaked into what is supposed to be a family film, because we all know nothing says family entertainment like a beloved childhood character trying to kill themselves. Still Spielberg rolled the dice with this scene and it works, while unquestionably helped by having two titans like Dustin Hoffman and Bob Hoskins in the scene ensuring that a pretty black humoured joke comes off pitch perfect, while the back and forth banter between Hook and Smeed only further adds to the fun. No doubt because of how well the scene works no one questioned its inclusion unlike the opening of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" which despite also being a family film memorably opened with a hanging.

Jurassic Park - Flea Circus



Unquestionably this film still holds up even now as here Spielberg gives a film unquestionably dripping in spectacle and wonder as well as one whose set pieces are still as exciting to watch even after repeat viewings. However I personally always loved this scene were John Hammond talks about his flea circus and while it might seem like a throwaway scene, it is one that Richard Attenborough truly sells on its pure simplicity. At the same time it serves to highlight the sheer delusion of Hammond who even at this point in the film with the park currently in chaos (as this scene shows) believes that he can control his creation, only for Ellie (Laura Dern) to give him a swift reality check.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Sarah Hits The Glass



True I was going to go with the truly random scene were the raptor is knocked through a window via gymnastics, but instead opted for this scene, just because you genuinely wonder how they will survive this. The key shot here is when the trailer first goes off the cliff and you see the back door fly off leaving a seemingly open void to fall through. Needless to say this shot caught a lot of people out on their original viewing, but on repeat viewing the slowly cracking glass makes it such a great moment and one reminiscent of the glass cracking in "The Abyss".

Jaws - Give Us A Kiss



The film which still today makes me weary about swimming in the sea and host to numerous classic moments, meaning that this scene far too often gets overlooked which is kind of a shame as with the spot on casting of the Brody family, you truly believed that they were a family and none more so during this scene. Honestly though I never appreciated until I had kids of my own and now its easily one of my favourite moments of the film and one which perfectly frames Chief Brody's frame of mind at this point of the film were he is pretty much defeated in his attempts to warn the town of the danger lurking in the waters around Amity.

This is a scene which could have easily been overplayed or drenched in smaltz, but thankfully here it is played straight, allowing the natural playful humour to shine through providing a slight moment of light relief from the bloody carnage the shark is carving through the town.

Schindler's list - Shower Scene



Unquestionably the most powerful of Spielberg's films it unquestionably pulls no punches with it handling of the profile of Oscar Schindler and its portrayal of the holocaust. So powerful and moving is this film that I have only twice managed to sit through it in one sitting, normally requiring a break to calm myself before returning to the second half. At the same time it is a film packed with so many memorable moments including most famously the little girl in the red coat, that it is hardly surprising that this scene is so often forgotten.

Resting on the suggestion that we are watching this group of ladies being prepared for their death in the gas chambers disguised as a shower block, there is an unquestionably sense of dread which runs throughout the scene as Spielberg slowly cranks up the tension to the point that it is the same relief these ladies feel when water comes from the showers that the audience also feel. Here we clearly see a master working at the height of his powers.

War of The Worlds - Ferry Attack



For years the Spielberg rumour mill was a buzz with talk of his adaption being a true to the source novel including the turn of the century setting, so it was kind of a disappointment when he finally gave us his adaptation that it was like the previous film adaptation set in modern times. Still atleast he did finally give us the tripods (even though the flying ships were equally cool) and managed to hit many of the main plot points missing from the previous version including this scene which originally I thought would see the appearance of the battleship HMS Thunder Child in one of my favourite moments of the book, though sadly it was not to be.

What we do get instead is one of the most surprisingly tense and realistic moments of the film and one Spielberg helped generate fear in his actors by playing the "Jaws" theme underwater and I think its safe to say it worked pretty darn well even if the rest of the film was pretty forgettable.

So there you have my top 6, but what would make your list? Let me know in the comments section below.

Jaws 2

Title: Jaws 2
Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Released: 1978

Staring: Roy Scheider, Mark Gruner, Marc Gilpin, Lorraine Gary

Plot: Four years after the events of "Jaws" Police chief Brody (Scheider) must protect the citizens of Amity once again when a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

Review:  This week I found out something quite shocking while openly declaring my love for this sequel that I realised that there are some people out there who have actually never seen it! I know it’s hard to believe that a movie series which was so firmly part of most our childhood movie watching, let alone responsible for myself still not being overly keen on swimming in the sea all these years later. But as I looked at the glazed expression of my work colleague who clearly had no idea about this movie, I knew that it was time to revisit what is possibly one of the most overlooked and underrated sequels of all time.

True it was always going to be a hard act to follow a legendry movie such as “Jaws” which could easily be considered the definition of a perfect movie, not only in terms of storytelling and pacing, but also with how perfectly Spielberg tweaked each of the films shocks so that even a giant rubber shark could be turned into a creature of childhood scaring terror. Still with the studio having made so much money from the first film, which alongside “Star Wars” helped create the summer blockbuster phenomenon, it would only be a matter of time before they started demanding a sequel, despite the fact that the shark being clearly very much dead by the end of the first film, but such things are quickly glossed over for here is yet another giant shark to terrorise the residents of Amity Island, while the why, were and what the f**k of the situation are left to the audience to figure out themselves as Police Chief Martin Brody  finds himself once again having to deal with another oversized great white shark.

With Spielberg unable to be tempted back to direct the sequel due to a combination of the problems which plagued the production of the first film, which included amongst other things the fact that the shark keep sinking, aswell as the fact that he felt he had already made the “Definitive shark movie”. Spielberg’s decision would lead to a further 18 month period of pre-production, with the original idea for the film to be a prequel based around the sinking of the USS Indianapolis whose story had been so memorably relayed by Quint in the first film; however this would later be scrapped in favour of a more straightforward sequel with the inexperienced John D. Hancock being chosen to helm the film, but with his limited experience in the directors chair, having only helmed three film credits and small scale dramas, he soon found himself feeling the pressure of directing his first epic adventure film, while issues with the shark once again hampering production and with the producers unhappy with his material he was soon replaced by Jeannot Szwarc, who would later direct the equally cult “Supergirl” and “Santa Claus: The Movie”.

Set four years after the events of the first film with Brody having his suspicions that another shark has entered the waters of Amity Island once again dismissed, which is overwhelmingly bizarre seeing how much chaos the original shark caused, you would have expected the residents to be more open to the idea of a giant shark, but alas they’d rather dismiss his fears even major Vaughn who’d you think would have learned better after the events of the first film. Even Brody’s kids seem to have forgotten about the events previously, especially Mike who went into shock after seeing the shark in original, yet here they are more keen than ever to get back on the water, with Mike (Gruner) and Sean (Gilpin) heading out to sea with Mike’s friends and setting up the main meat of the story as they soon find themselves the target of the shark.
Realising that the audiences already knew what the shark looked like from the first film here director Szwarc instead doesn’t try like so many other directors to play on the element of surprise again and as such allows the audience to see a the shark a lot more than the previous film which only hinted at the size of the shark until around two thirds of the way through the film, when the shark was memorably fully revealed. Here he brings a much more brutal and thanks to an early attack sequence (which is also one of the most unintentionally funny scenes ever shot) a heavily scarred shark.

Cranking up the action from the first film, which kept it’s attacks sporadic as Spielberg played peek-a-boo with the shark in the build up to his climatic showdown, here Szwarc instead goes overboard with the shark attacks, while making anything potential game, as logic is pushed to the backseat especially when you consider that the film features the shark memorably attacking a helicopter. Such bizarre moments are rife throughout the film, as plausibility is largely nothing but a passing thought, while for some equally random reason Szwarc chooses to recreate scenes from the original film with a slight twist and hence why we get scenes like the discovery of an orca corpse almost mirroring the discovery of the girls corpse on the beach or the police boat being dragged backwards after it picks up a power cable being shot almost the same as the Quint’s boat being pulled by the shark at the climax of the original “Jaws”. What is most interesting about the scene were they find the body of the orca, that a year earlier the killer whale movie “Orca” was released which featured the orca head butting a shark in a subtle nod to “Jaws” that the orca was infact deadlier than a shark, with this dead orca clearly having been killed by a shark almost being like Szwarc’s fuck you right back! However despite a high body count, there is barely a drop of blood spilt here yet it makes zero difference as the tension is slowly cranked up by Szwarc who manages the near impossible of still managing to make the shark scary, even if the audience knows what to expect and even pulls out more than a few original shocks along the way.

One of the strengths here though is the amount of returning cast members we do get, especially with so many of the characters being so memorable it only makes it better that we get to see them again here, especially in terms of Lorraine Gary who once more returns as Ellen Brody and who shares such great onscreen chemistry with Roy Scheider, that it’s hard to not see them as a real couple and even though Scheider’s return here was only to get out of a contractual obligation he had with the studio, after he quit the role of Steven Pushkov in “The Deer Hunter” two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Still despite this he still brings back his grizzled charm to the role he made so memorable to begin with and despite his reasons for being involved in the film, he doesn’t let it show here, as his performance here is just as memorable as the first, even if it is more action orientated than before, with the scenes of him interacting with his family now nothing but an afterthought, for while the first film might have been as much about people as it was about the shark, this film instead prefers to keep the focus solely on the shark.

Despite having the imposing task of following up on Spielberg’s classic original, I would argue that blow for blow that this film is just as good as the original, while perhaps lacking some of Spielberg’s finesse it still holds its own when compared to the original and even with it’s more bonkers moments it still remains an overlooked classic, overshadowed by the god awful sequels which followed and as a result dragged this film down with them and leaving most people with the misconception that the original was the only film in the series of note and when compared to the shark films which followed in its wake this is a gold star standard shark movie.

Jaws: The Revenge

Title: Jaws: The Revenge
Director: Joseph Sargent
Released: 1987
Staring: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest. Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Karen Young, Judith Barsi, Mitchell Anderson, Roy Scheider

Plot: Ellen Brody (Gary) is still living on Amity, despite her husband Martin (Scheider) being killed from a heart attack brought on by the two sharks he had battled previously. Now living with her son Sean (Anderson) who has since become a deputy sheriff, she is once again forced to face the horror when Sean is killed by a Giant shark. Wanting to take her away from Amity, Michael (Guest) returns from the Bahamas’s, were he has been working as a marine biologist, especially worried that Ellen is now convinced that her family are being targeted by another giant shark. To help her recover from Sean’s death he invites Ellen to come back with him to stay with his wife Carla (Young) and their young daughter Thea (Barsi). However the shark is following them closely behind intent on having its revenge.





Review: Frequently named as being one of the “worst movies of all time”, which is kind of an exaggeration. I mean have these people never seen any of Noel Clarke’s films? Or even “Wrecking Crew” which if I was still rating films here on the blog, it would still be one of the lowest rated films I have reviewed so far, next to “The Human Centipede”. Still it retains it’s 0% rating on rotten tomatoes the complete opposite of the 100% rating held by the classic original.

The plot from the start is completely insane, especially as last time I checked, sharks don’t usually take the death of other sharks that personally, so for one to suddenly develop an understandable grudge against the Brody’s is certainly an interesting take on the term “Creative freedom” as you generally get the idea that director Sargent doesn’t watch a lot of shark documentaries, especially as the shark even roars and while the first three films were hardly factually accurate either, they at least didn’t push things to the same levels of randomness we get here.

Despite being offered a cameo in the film Scheider declined to reprise the sheriff brody, perhaps being down to the fact it would have seen him being eaten by the shark in the opening, a fate which now falls to his son Sean and leaving Ellen to pick up the shark killing mantle, which is an interesting decision, especially seeing how she was more the provider of emotional support, with the shark killing being previous left to her husband and son’s, not that their success in “Jaws 3D” is noted atoll, especially with the film supposedly set in a timeline were those events never even happened, which really is such a minor problem compared to some of the films flaws it’s almost unnoticeable.

Still Gary makes for a surprisingly strong and believable lead for what would be her final role to date and it really sells her paranoia, without feeling the need to overact and it’s a funny turn of events which see her working with Sargent again after they first worked together on the TV movie “The Marcus-Nelson Murders” which Spielberg citing it as the motivation for him casting her originally for the role of Ellen, which of course also had nothing to do with the fact that she was also the wife of the studio’s chief executive at the time.

The main meat of the plot, outside of the crazy shark stalker, it's essentially just a rerun of the plots of the first three films, with the shark showing up and killing off a few disposable cast members, while our leads try to convince the rest of the cast about the shark being there, before the inevitable final showdown and once again the only thing which has changed is the setting as we now get the warmer setting of the Bahamas, which despite Michael stating that Great Whites don’t like the warmer waters, it would certainly seem that this shark doesn’t have too much of a qualm in the change of location either.

What has changed here though is the violence of the Shark Attacks which had always been largely gore free, outside of the occasional detached limb. Here the shark attacks are bloody and visceral, with Sean getting his arm torn off in the first 10 mins, while the few attacks we get are frequently shot in slow motion as the victims writhe in the sharks’ mouth, spraying crimson like a burst water pipe. The strangest thing though is the despatch method for the shark, which depending on which version you are watching differs greatly with the US release having the shark explode, while the European release has the shark impaled on the bow of the boat (something I questioned further in one of my “Random Film Moments” posts) which lack either of the impact of the previous films finale, though the European release does atleast get to show off the sheer size of the shark, while seeming slightly more plausible than the sloppy editing job used for the US death scene.

The Shark effects vary greatly throughout, with the pole moving the shark being clearly visible on more than one occasion and while it’s clearly just a giant rubbery looking shark, it still has more presence than any of the cheap CGI monstrosities currently showing up in creature features, though Sargent never seems to manage to make it as scary as Spielberg did, with the best shocks he can achieve usually being from the jump scares rather than any of the prolonged attacks.

Frustratingly this film also has the lowest body count of the series and while the original “Jaws” might have also have had a low body count, the action between attacks was enough to keep the audience interested, were as here we get a lot of boring interaction as Sargent seems to struggle to find anything interesting for the cast to be doing, leading to him ripping off the dinner table imitation scene between Brody and his son from the original film, while also tacking on a questionable romantic angle between Ellen and the carefree airplane pilot Hoagie (Caine) who would have been a much more clumsy and irritating character had it played by anyone other than Caine, who manages to charm his way through the film, machine gunning off tall tales and bizarre life philosophies, meanwhile the most irritating character award goes to Jake (Van Peebles) who I can’t help but believe that they originally expected to be a much more humorous character than he is, but here Van Peebles is one of the few established actors and as such manages to do a decent job on damage limitation caused by this character, while his father the legendry blaxploitation Melvin Van Peebles puts in a cameo appearance as the local mayor and proving that there really is no limit for what some people will appear in to get a free holiday.

While it might be light years from perfect, there is still something likable about this last official entry in the series which effectively killed the franchise, even though rumours still circulate regarding a prequel “Jaws: Deadly Seas” telling the story of Quinn on the USS Indianapolis and we also still have “Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws” courtesy of the Italian Maestro of the cash in Bruno Mattei (the same man who also gave the world his own take on “Terminator 2”) aswell as more recently “Jaws In Japan”. Still the meantime we still can get our giant shark fix with Steve Alten’s “Meg” series the first book of which still remains stuck in development hell, despite frequent positive articles regarding the production moving forward, but currently outside of the barmy giant creature antics of the “The Asylum” it could still help bring the creature feature back to the mainstream were it is still sorely missed.

Random Film Moments #3 - Jaws The Revenge

Often regarded as the weakest entry of the franchise, especially seeing how by this point they'd given up on trying to disguse how fake the shark was, with one notable scene clearly showing the pole, which is moving the shark!
Still for some reason it has not only one but three intresting choices for ending, two of which I knew about for ages and the third I only recently discovered, but they probely do rank as some of the most original and yet extremily random ways of dispatching of a giant beastie ever. So first up is the ending I originally remembered, the first time I saw it.



What is funnier about this ending is that this was actually how you killed "Jaws" in the original NES game, which like any game associated with the film is pretty much awful though not as bad as this film.
Ok on to ending two which you can watch by clicking on the link, but seriously the shark explodes, like a balloon after being rammed with the front of the boat, which from what I can gather was the original US Theatrical ending. Still I suppose this is better than a version that I caught on TV last year, which just used the ending from the first film, so that Mike presses the button on the box and the shark explodes, only using the explosion from Jaws. Sadly I havn't been able to find this, to share with you all, so here instead is the trailer for "Up from the depths" (1979) which is yet another giant sea creature movie, but you know I'm just a sucker for these movies. Now if I could just find a version without so jackass Trader boosting the price of thier copy!

MEG & My Killer Shark Obsessions

Isn't it funny, how more and more books are being advertised like films. I mean I can't count the amount of times, I've been watching TV when a trailer for, what I assume to be a film to suddenly pop up, totally grabbing my attention, to the point that I'm probably willing to sacrifice my first born in order to see it, only for it suddenly turn out to be an advert for a book, which isn't a bad thing, it's just you can't help but feel slightly cheated by this. James Patterson in particular has become notorious for this especially, but recently I found a trailer for the latest book in Steve Alten's cult giant shark series "MEG", which for this release of the forth book in the series "MEG: Hell's Aquarium", has also been given the fake movie trailer treatment.



The film adaptation of the first book "MEG" is currently still buried deep in pre production, with the last reports still having Jan de Bont (Speed 2) attached to direct and Nick Nunziata (he of CHUD.com) attached as a producer. However a recent article in the "LA Times" also named veteran Hollywood producers Lawrence Gordon ("Die Hard") and Lloyd Levin ("Boogie Nights"), as being attached to the project, which can be seen as highly positive for the long delayed adaptation, seeing how they are responsible for "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" and "The Watchmen" finally making it to the screen, after both suffering numourus delays and setbacks, so fingers crossed they can do the same for "MEG" which so far has only produced so fantastic Promo art and little else outside, of some extremely random draft scripts, one of which having the giant shark having wings!! Not sure how that would have worked out, especially seeing how the idea of flying killer fish, barely worked with "Piranha 2: The Spawning" (1981), so how it would have worked to have a flying 70-foot Megalodon shark, I'm not overly sure.

Still in the meantime Asylum films are set to release "Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus" next week, which for those of you already associated with Asylum films and their DTV style of film making, you should know what to expect already........ but here's the trailer anyway.



And finally to wrap up this killer shark obsessed piece of blogging, I found this trailer for one of the numerous "Jaws" (1975) cash in's which appeared after the release of the first movie, which in it's wake spawned a whole heap of killer shark knock off's, which continue to this day, but this trailer actually has made me want to hunt this one down.



Still I guess this goes to prove once again, that even though I know the majority of shark movies outside of "Jaws" will suck, I will for some strange reason still find myself obsessing over them while hoping that one day we might see a "MEG" movie. Still in the meantime Steve Alten is running a competition, where the winner can get thier name, in the fifth book "MEG: Night Stalkers", which could lead to a random claim to fame, of having your character killed off by a giant shark...who knows?

Shark Swarm

Title: Shark Swarm
Director: James A. Contner
Released: 2008
Staring: Daryl Hannah, John Schneider, F. Murray Abraham
Rating: 2 / 5

Plot: A greedy real estate developer has been dumping illegal toxins into the sea around Full Moon Bay in an attempt to kill off the fishing trade and force people to sell up to him. However the toxins do have another effect on the marine life as they make the sharks more aggressive and hungrier. With the sea almost devoid of fish, the sharks turn their attention to human prey.

Review: Ever since Steven Spielberg made "Jaws" the majority of people have had an everlasting (and slightly misguided) fear of sharks aswell as setting foot in the ocean, while the movie exec's have also since then constantly attempted to recreate the formula, which made Jaws such an insanely popular movie

Ie: Giant Shark + Gruesome deaths + Decent shocks = Box Office Gold

Sadly enough all this so far has resulted in a whole heap of clones, none of which managing to capture the spirit of that original movie and while it's true some movies like it's imaginatively titled sequel "Jaws 2" and Joe Dante's "Piranha" which was more a cash in by producer Roger Corman and is already set for a 3D remake this year with "Switchblade Romance" director Alexandre Aja at the helm, but as you've probably guessed by now "Shark Swarm" is not one of these select few.Originally released as a Mini series by Hallmark, it has since been edited into a full length feature, much like fellow creature feature "The Beast" which was penned by Jaws author Peter Benchley, who ironically became a Conservationist after Jaws saw it's initial big screen release and upon seeing the public mass hysteria, choose to dedicate the rest of his life to protecting sharks, which he'd manage to demonise. "Shark Swarm" however chooses to concentrate on the usual general opinion of sharks, though atleast bothers taking a more unusual tact by having the sharks swarming, rather than turn into supersized predators which are the usual outcomes when animals come into contact with chemicals, if I've learned anything from the movies it's that much. Sadly though this is were the originality ends for the script, which after an initial bloody attack, as we bare witness to a shark tearing lumps out of another shark, the movie then quickly spirals downhill.The cast it's obvious from the get go are mainly were the budget has been spent, as well as some slightly repetitive footage of the CGI sharks, which look decent enough and aren't so shoddy that they detract from the film, unlike many low budget entries in the creature feature genre, which you can't say for Daryl Hannah who spends a lot of the film looking, as if she's has the emotion botox'd out of her face, as she struggles to perform even the simplest of emotions and no also providing us with the scariest moments of the film, when we are forced to endure a close up of her face, leaving it up to Smallville's John Scheider to hold everything together, as the hero fisherman of the piece, whose currently refusing to sell his property and the one thing standing in the way of the evil real estate developer played by Armand Assante, who for some strange reason towards the end, turns into more of a second rate bond villain, even choosing to despatch of Scheider's and Hannah's characters by lowering them slowly into shark infested water. all of which means that the actual sharks are shunted way into the background, to a point were they are fairly non existentent outside of numerous filler scenes of bloodless shark attacks, which are after all the main selling point of the feature, but when you have nothing but a bunch of death scenes, that are dryer than a kitty litter tray, with the camera often cutting away at the last second, you can't help but feel slightly cheated and not really giving much of a toss about what's happening elsewhere. The other main downside to the shark attacks being that, despite the fact that there are numerous shark attacks, nearly all the characters have only just been introduced before they are suddenly being killed off, none of which are missed much by the small town population, who don't even seem to realise that they are missing, even when it's characters like the cranky fisherman or the swimming teacher. Jaws might have only had a handful of attacks but each one added to and furthered the plot, while in "Shark Swarm" they are nothing but filler and seeing how around thirty people get eaten, that amounts to a lot of filler and just another way of reminding you that you are watching a movie with killer sharks and not some made for TV Thriller.Meanwhile I guess we must continue to wait for "Meg" to finally surface, which based on the cult series of books by Steve Alten has been stuck in production hell since 2007 with a release date for 2010, so until then we must continue to tease ourselves with the promotional artwork, which currently only tantalises us further, while the fans of his books have a slightly shorter wait for the forth book in the series "Hell's Aquarium" which currently is set to be released on May 19th this year, but no matter how desperate you are for your shark attack fix, why not try "Piranha" as although it's budget only really streched to a few plastic fish and some bubbling red water, it was alot more effective than this wash out.

Promo art from the long delayed "MEG"