THE 3RD HALL OF INFAMY: Infamy Rises Again

This will be my first Neil Breen.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Same.


I will wait until everyone has caught up before watching.


PS I found it on the Internet Archive also if that works better for anybody

Sorry I'm behind but I'll try to play catch up!

I'm starting to doubt your dedication to this project. You seem to believe your students are more important than Jurassic Shark.

I think we should all wait till after Labor Day weekend to review the film out of spite for Captain Terror.

I am sure Keyser has already seen Double Down and is preparing his review as we speak.

Would you believe that under the different codes you can use to take paid time off (sick leave, personal leave, professional development, etc), a Hall of Infamy isn't in there?! Shocking!

Couldn't you screen it in class as part of a science lecture?

I'm more excited than a kid on Christmas Eve to introduce all of you to the world of Neil Breen.

I'll warn you that you'll see more of the guy than you would like to.

We're in the middle of a social studies unit!

Also, my classroom has a pretty great book about Megalodons, and the creature in Jurassic Shark is way too small, especially the mouth size.

*GASP*

Sir, this is a Hall of Infamy, and this is the ULTIMATE insult!

Haha, I always feel like I should add a rebuttal to my writeups. It's probably unnecessary here.
At least I didn't do that for the Nazi one.

I've seen quite a bit of Neil Breen over the years, but I've never actually sat and watched one of his movies either. I'm expecting things to get pretty weird.

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Jurassic Shark

The first twenty five minutes or so I was actually entertained and found the movie to be pretty comical. But then it just takes a turn into ultra stupidness and the already bad acting just turns into non existent acting. There are so many preposterous things with this movie it's impossible to list but the fact of how this shark operates in this itty bitty lake is enough to make one roll it's eyes continuously. It's a good nomination because you can point to almost anything in the film which at least gives merit to it being among the worst ever made. The first twenty five minutes though saves it from that status, but just barely. And the fact those credits are so damn long is probably the funniest part of the film.

Jurassic Shark: Sorey, Not Sari

I watch these movies in increments. After watching the first 35 minutes, I was eager to return to it the next day. Dr. Grant’s fist pump, the explosion, the henchman saying “cool” in response to the other henchmen being eaten by the shark and the shark itself were all hilarious. And here’s the kicker, it was intentional. An actual comic sensibility is at work here.
But without the laughs, the crappiness of the filmmaking becomes tiresome. The lack of continuity, the terrible sound, the missed opportunity of the criminal ringleader’s death by shark, (I mean where is the shot where we see directly into the shark’s maw) are all symptoms of the whole thing running out of steam. Maybe the beginning was a sizzle reel and the rest is tacked on in a quick and dirty manner after the producer gets paid. I wonder what the economics of making a movie in Canada are. This doesn’t seem vanity fueled so money is being made somehow.
Shout out to Hogsbreath Brewing and John Singleton Copley!

Jurassic Shark (2012) -

It's a pretty clear bad film, but I'd rank it more as a trashy B-movie as opposed to "worst film of all time" material. Though yes, its flaws are blatantly obvious. The shark effects look godawful, the acting is terrible to the point it didn't seem like anyone was even trying, the dialogue is laughably corny at times, and the opening credits were clearly done with the default text option in Windows Movie Maker (I've used Movie Maker many times, so it took me about two seconds to identify this). It's clear that barely any effort was put into this film and I can't tell if the short running time is a positive or a further sign of laziness (since the credits lasted over 10 minutes, I'd say it's the latter). That said, while the story is nothing to write home about, I'd say it's at least decently competent for a bad film. They did at least some work with the characters and their morals to make them somewhat colorful, down to the oil driller who acts as the middle ground between both factions considering his regret over his illegal activity. Even the good and bad characters are given a bit of levity here and there considering the sibling relationships from both parties. I also found a couple scenes like the activist pretending to be asleep and her ensuing conversation with the art thief decently well-written. Or, at least, written with more effort than one may expect to find in other films of this ilk. While these strengths don't save the film, they at least count for a couple points here and there. As for other bad shark films I've watched over the years, I'd say The Last Shark and Tintorera were far more dreadful to get through. I'd also put this about on the same level as some Syfy shark films I've seen (2-Headed Shark Attack, Sharktopus, Super Shark, Sand Sharks, etc), in spite of the effects being much worse in this film. Again, this is bad. Just not THAT bad.

Jurassic Shark, 2012

College student Jill (Emanuelle Carriere) arrives on an island with a handful of classmates, on a mission to expose the environmentally damaging practices of an oil-drilling company that owns the island. Unfortunately, at the same time a crew of thieves led by Barb (Angela Parent) arrive on the island with a precious painting they’ve just stolen. And VERY unfortunately, reckless behavior from the oil-drilling company has released an ancient water pocket into the lake around the island, and that ancient water just happens to contain a very hungry megalodon.

Blessed with just the right amount of seriousness, this is a classic so-bad-it’s-good movie.

This is not my first shark rodeo with this film. I watched this one a few years back as part of a film challenge, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed getting to revisit it and, yes, discovering that it was as bad as I remembered.

One thing that frustrates me about this film is that I wish it had picked a lane. At times, it seems like it’s actually trying to be a good movie, while other times it feels like it’s aiming for that intentionally bad horror subgenre. If it was aiming to be good, then it might have been a good idea to actually have the actors rehearse their dialogue. And if they were trying to be silly, then it needed to push a lot of the elements a lot further.

Still, despite feeling like the movie couldn’t commit either way---perhaps because it’s trying to be good but then gets insecure and tries to wink like it’s all a joke?---there’s still plenty to enjoy ironically. Let’s start with a conversation at the oil drilling facility, where a pair of scientists have a conversation on what is apparently an infinite stairwell, lol. They talk, the man walks away, and then the woman runs down and blocks his way. Over and over. (Now, to be intentionally funny I wish this had gone on for maybe two more flights of stairs). We then cut to two young women hanging out by the water before stripping down to bikinis and engaging in the most forced, unconvincing splash fight I’ve ever seen. It’s like no one who wrote or acted in this scene has any concept of how two human women would interact with each other in a body of water. After the most tepid splash fight ever, one of the girls goes from standing knee deep in the water to swimming without actually moving further from the shore. As she swims, you can’t help but think, “Maybe just stand up?”

From there, the movie settles into a maddening loop of the same scenario played out over and over. The thieves want their painting back, and so the whole rest of the movie is people being forced into the water and then being eaten by the shark. One has to wonder why Barb seems to think that maybe THIS time it’ll be different, but a medley of the thieves, the college girls, and one unfortunate scientist all fail to retrieve the painting from the bottom of the lake. (Even after Barb helpfully gestures at the whole lake and notes “it’s about 300 feet out.”)
The movie is riddled with classic so-bad-it’s-good plot holes and nonsense. In one scene the whole group rushes when they hear a scream . . . only for us to realize that the person screaming has also only just arrived. So who screamed the first time? I have so many notes about these types of moments. At one point, a woman is eaten by the shark in broad daylight, and then Barb says that they’ll have to camp overnight because “We can’t see anything until daytime,” when it is clearly still the middle of the day and very sunny. (An industrious crew member does eventually slap a day-for-night filter over the lens). After a time-padding conversation between Barb and Jill, the girls wake up . . . except that we clearly saw them go to sleep against a tree and they are suddenly now by the lake again? This warped sense of geography pops up again later when one of the college girls notes that they’ll never be safe from the shark because no matter what “we’re so close to the shoreline!”. Girl! There are deep woods on this island! You literally just slept in them!

I have nothing but love for a moment in which the shark is menacing the group, and one of the bad guys goes to get them by inexplicably running into the water. Not only because, you know, SHARK. But it’s also visibly a less efficient way to close the distance between himself and the girls. I also suspect that they filmed the in-the-water scenes at the same time, because even if a character has literally just emerged from the water, they are somehow always bone dry.

One bright spot in the film, relatively speaking, is that Carriere is actually decent in her role, albeit hampered by some pretty bad writing. This does, though, have a bit of a boomerang effect because her competent acting mainly serves to highlight how bad everyone else fares, some of them sounding like they learned their lines phonetically. I’ll also say that I appreciated that while the film alludes very briefly to a character wanting to assault the girls, it doesn’t go further than a brief leer. (I’m trying to think of which bad shark movie I watched around the same time as this one that had a totally unnecessary sexual assault sequence that served zero purpose.) I also chuckled at “FIN” at the end. What can I say?

To me, this is 90% a great-bad movie. Who says sharks can’t fly!

"Now I'm a covert agent". I mean, fair. Because if I saw a man in mom jeans stumble-running down a hill, the last thing I'd think is "that man must be a military specialist!".

Aaah!!!! Eyeball stuff!!

Trigger warning if you do not like stuff with eyes!