DIRECTED BY
Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray
STARRING
Carmen Electra - Anne Babish
Charlie O'Connell - Professor Babish
Brooke Hogan - Kate
Geoff Ward - Cole
Mercedes Young - Liza
David Gallegos - Paul
Genre - B-Movie/Horror/Thriller/Sharks
Running Time - 88 Minutes
PLOT
Around the Florida coastline, a ship is sailing on the open water with college students on it for a semester at sea. Typically, these students are more interested in sunbathing and flirting rather than learning. A random fish gets caught in the ship's propeller, stranding the ship at sea. Unfortunately, a huge 2-headed mutant shark is attracted to the vibrations of the propellers, as well as the trapped fish, eating it very quickly. Hungry for more, this shark wants to feast on the college students and the rest of the crew.
The students and most of the crew manage to make it ashore on a deserted island, waiting for the ship to be prepared by the sea captain. However, as she's welding the damage underwater, the shark eats her. There's no way for anyone to radio for help and the island they're stranded on seems to be suffering from quakes and tremors. Since these characters are really stupid, they manage to get eaten by this 2-headed shark. A select few manage to stick together and come up with a way to kill the 2-headed shark before it kills them.
Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray
STARRING
Carmen Electra - Anne Babish
Charlie O'Connell - Professor Babish
Brooke Hogan - Kate
Geoff Ward - Cole
Mercedes Young - Liza
David Gallegos - Paul
Genre - B-Movie/Horror/Thriller/Sharks
Running Time - 88 Minutes
PLOT
Around the Florida coastline, a ship is sailing on the open water with college students on it for a semester at sea. Typically, these students are more interested in sunbathing and flirting rather than learning. A random fish gets caught in the ship's propeller, stranding the ship at sea. Unfortunately, a huge 2-headed mutant shark is attracted to the vibrations of the propellers, as well as the trapped fish, eating it very quickly. Hungry for more, this shark wants to feast on the college students and the rest of the crew.
The students and most of the crew manage to make it ashore on a deserted island, waiting for the ship to be prepared by the sea captain. However, as she's welding the damage underwater, the shark eats her. There's no way for anyone to radio for help and the island they're stranded on seems to be suffering from quakes and tremors. Since these characters are really stupid, they manage to get eaten by this 2-headed shark. A select few manage to stick together and come up with a way to kill the 2-headed shark before it kills them.
Screenplay: 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK is one of The Asylum's recent B-movies - a company that thrives on creating low budget horror B-movies and mockbusters of extremely popular big-budgeted films that are currently in theaters. I tend to like The Asylum more than most viewers out there. Sure, they are a hit-and-miss company and a lot of their films are bad. But they do crank out some really surprising films that are extremely watchable and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK lies in the middle, as it has enough entertainment to make its 88 minutes breeze by. But it also has a ton of flaws and doesn't have much of the charm of other B-movie shark films out there currently.
The main issue, for me, comes from the film's script. You read the plot up there? Well, that's pretty much the deepest this film ever goes. Shark attacks a ship with annoying college students on it. They go to an island with a constant earthquake. Shark eats most of them. Survivors deal with sharks. End of story. I normally don't mind narratives like this, especially for a B-Movie made by The Asylum. But this is okay only if the characters are interesting enough [good or bad] to make you forget that there's barely a story here. And since there are no characters like that here, the narrative can be somewhat of a chore to sit through on paper.
The characters in this film are three things: stupid, annoying, and uninteresting. For much of the film, all they do is argue with each other, bully each other, and do the stupidest things imaginable during a shark attack. Even the adult characters are bland, and don't add anything to the story. Out of twenty characters in the entire film, only three had a drop of depth to them. Cole, the meathead, is a total asshole and douchebag. He leaves his friends to die at certain points to save himself. Plus he enjoys flirting with girls in a way that makes them real uncomfortable. In other words, Cole actually had a personality I could react genuinely to. Paul is the smart one in the group, figuring things out and hatching plans to keep the shark at a distance. He had less personality than Cole, but at least he was different from the others. And Kate, who is the main character, is the tough tomboy of the group. She takes an active role and sort of becomes the leader. She actually has a subplot about being afraid of the water due to a childhood encounter with a shark. This leads to her confronting her fears and trying to save the day. While the narrative doesn't really focus all that much on this arc, at least it's there and remembered before the film is over. But other than that, the other characters are vacant and are nothing but chum for this 2-headed shark.
As for dialogue, it's pretty generic and bland. The only thing that really made me laugh script wise was a "That's what she said" joke. Yep, that's the funniest the film gets word wise. Unless you count Anne Babish yelling "Get out of the water!" like ten times within two minutes humorous - which I did personally.
Direction: 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK was directed by Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray, the son of the legendary B-movie director and producer, Fred Olen Ray. And as far as this portion of the review goes, Ray's direction is the best part about 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK. I will say that Ray uses the 360-degree camera shot way too much here, becoming somewhat annoying. The editing is almost off at times, especially during these 360-degree shots, especially when characters are interacting with someone off-screen. The composition and framing is awkward looking and it's very noticeable. Other than that, I didn't hate the visuals. There is some tension during the shark attack scenes. The CGI, which isn't completely terrible, works for this type of film. The picture itself looks great and clear, really capturing the atmosphere. And Ray focuses a lot on Brooke Hogan's fake boobs and Carmen Electra sunbathing for three straight minutes. How can I hate on that too much?
Acting: The acting in 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK ranges from awful-to-tolerable. The three characters with the most personality had the best acting by default. Geoff Ward played a convincing asshole as Cole. I wanted this guy dead for all the right reasons, which is more than I say for the other 90 percent of the characters here. I'm sure some of the ladies and men will enjoy watching his abs and muscles as well. David Gallegos was decent as the nerdy Paul. And Brooke Hogan, as the main character Kate, is wooden but at least she tries. I wouldn't want to see her in another film, but she wasn't the worst actor here and doesn't look that bad in a bikini.
The main issue, for me, comes from the film's script. You read the plot up there? Well, that's pretty much the deepest this film ever goes. Shark attacks a ship with annoying college students on it. They go to an island with a constant earthquake. Shark eats most of them. Survivors deal with sharks. End of story. I normally don't mind narratives like this, especially for a B-Movie made by The Asylum. But this is okay only if the characters are interesting enough [good or bad] to make you forget that there's barely a story here. And since there are no characters like that here, the narrative can be somewhat of a chore to sit through on paper.
The characters in this film are three things: stupid, annoying, and uninteresting. For much of the film, all they do is argue with each other, bully each other, and do the stupidest things imaginable during a shark attack. Even the adult characters are bland, and don't add anything to the story. Out of twenty characters in the entire film, only three had a drop of depth to them. Cole, the meathead, is a total asshole and douchebag. He leaves his friends to die at certain points to save himself. Plus he enjoys flirting with girls in a way that makes them real uncomfortable. In other words, Cole actually had a personality I could react genuinely to. Paul is the smart one in the group, figuring things out and hatching plans to keep the shark at a distance. He had less personality than Cole, but at least he was different from the others. And Kate, who is the main character, is the tough tomboy of the group. She takes an active role and sort of becomes the leader. She actually has a subplot about being afraid of the water due to a childhood encounter with a shark. This leads to her confronting her fears and trying to save the day. While the narrative doesn't really focus all that much on this arc, at least it's there and remembered before the film is over. But other than that, the other characters are vacant and are nothing but chum for this 2-headed shark.
As for dialogue, it's pretty generic and bland. The only thing that really made me laugh script wise was a "That's what she said" joke. Yep, that's the funniest the film gets word wise. Unless you count Anne Babish yelling "Get out of the water!" like ten times within two minutes humorous - which I did personally.
Direction: 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK was directed by Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray, the son of the legendary B-movie director and producer, Fred Olen Ray. And as far as this portion of the review goes, Ray's direction is the best part about 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK. I will say that Ray uses the 360-degree camera shot way too much here, becoming somewhat annoying. The editing is almost off at times, especially during these 360-degree shots, especially when characters are interacting with someone off-screen. The composition and framing is awkward looking and it's very noticeable. Other than that, I didn't hate the visuals. There is some tension during the shark attack scenes. The CGI, which isn't completely terrible, works for this type of film. The picture itself looks great and clear, really capturing the atmosphere. And Ray focuses a lot on Brooke Hogan's fake boobs and Carmen Electra sunbathing for three straight minutes. How can I hate on that too much?
Acting: The acting in 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK ranges from awful-to-tolerable. The three characters with the most personality had the best acting by default. Geoff Ward played a convincing asshole as Cole. I wanted this guy dead for all the right reasons, which is more than I say for the other 90 percent of the characters here. I'm sure some of the ladies and men will enjoy watching his abs and muscles as well. David Gallegos was decent as the nerdy Paul. And Brooke Hogan, as the main character Kate, is wooden but at least she tries. I wouldn't want to see her in another film, but she wasn't the worst actor here and doesn't look that bad in a bikini.
The other actors vary in their performances, but none of them really stand out for any good reason. Good looking cast but not much else.
The shark also takes a beating within the last 15-minutes of the film, involving a couple of explosions [isn't that how they always take out these killer sharks?]. It kind of sucked that most of the carnage was CGI, but hey - I enjoyed it and I'll take what I can get out of this flick.
You'd think a film called 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK would be cheesy as hell, due to its title. But honestly, it takes itself more seriously than I would have liked. While we do get some overacting at times, a CGI 2-headed shark killing people in different ways, and Brooke Hogan trying to act, there's not much really cheesy about this film. Then again, it does have Charlie O'Connell and Carmen Electra playing college professors. That raises the rating on its own.
Total Rating - 18/40 = 1.8/4
THE FINAL HOWL
2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK was better than I was expecting it, but I still found myself underwhelmed by it. The direction and the shark carnage are the most positive things I can really say about this one, besides a few performances that didn't annoy me. I aldo thought the design of the shark itself was awesome [Cleve Hall - the Monster Man himself - did a great job in redesigning the shark]. Plus it did have boobs and some lesbianism, so it does score some B-movie points there. However, 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK should have been cheesier than it actually was, as taking itself too seriously really hurt this one. Plus you're not going to care about many of the characters here, as the story is barely there. Not the best shark film out there, but certainly not the worst. 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK does have its moments and is worth a look if you're a fan of The Asylum or killer shark films like this one. Otherwise, it's not worth getting a double headache over.
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