DAVID R. ELLIS DIRECTS SARA PAXTON & CHRIS CARMACK IN SHARK NIGHT 3D

year: 2011

rating: **1/2

Anyone seeking the inevitable JAWS comparison – with the exception of the fin rising above the water, a slight variation of the Duh-Dun music, and some underwater Shark perspectives – should look more at PIRANHA 3D, which this resembles in both style and substance...

Well there’s not much of either, but was the shallowness intentional? Since it's made by SNAKES ON A PLANE director David R. Ellis, the answer is probably... yes.

And so, seeming like a bad movie on purpose, this has all the exploitation elements: a group of college students going to a small town lake, and most of them will probably die since sharks inhabit the water… after all, it’s a salt-water lake. But the real antagonists aren’t killer fish but two rednecks that brought them to the lake for their own brand of... reality television.

Before this device is revealed, and the film turns into a Great White version of DELIVERANCE, the student’s deaths are silly and fun and yet, even for this kind of movie, unrealistic – the sharks looking straight out of A SHARK'S TALE or FINDING NEMO: leaping from the water like torpedoes.

A few scenes build suspense decently: will he or she reach the shore or boat as the dorsal fin nears? And our heroine, played by a beautifully passive Sara Paxton, has decent anti-chemistry with handsome devil Chris Carmack, a local scarred for life and wanting revenge.

So as far as completely illogical stupidity goes, this works just fine. And be sure to stick around after the credits for the real torture.

RIP Director David R. Ellis (here acting in the movie HEROES in 1977)