GHOST SHARK - REVIEW

Now I know what you're thinking.

Ghost sharks don't exist!

Well, I'm here to tell you you're wrong.

So wrong.

Case and point: Ghost Shark.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, sharks started coming back from the dead! At least, that's what we're meant to get from this movie which translates the idea of a ghost shark by showing us neon blue glowing sharks (thank you Final Cut Pro's worst ever effect) and some confusingly magical cave. This is intercut with the usual shark movie schtick: annoying characters, mostly girls in bikinis, trying to deal with the problem, most of whom die in silly ways as the movie sharks along. Produced by the Syfy channel, this could have either been just plain stupid, like The Asylum's Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus for example, or self-knowingly ridiculous and funny-bad, closer to something like Sharktopus. Luckily, they went down the latter route. Ghost Shark is, I can confirm, thankfully just as absurd as the title suggests. Now, don't go in expecting a haunted house movie with sharks in it, this is still very much a beach-set clichéd Jaws rip-off, like most other shark flicks, but it goes cartoonish places that even Sharktopus didn't dare venture into. See, the good thing about a ghost shark, despite the fact that it's virtually un-killable, is that they appear just about anywhere. And I mean: ANYWHERE. Anywhere you might find a body of water or even just a little bit of it, there's a good chance you might bump into a ghost shark or, more likely, it might bump into you. This makes for some of the silliest deaths I've seen in a shark movie and that's saying much seeing as there are (we're gonna need a bigger) boat-fulls of shark films out there. The fact that the movie's sense of humour is rather dark and pretty brutal certainly helps make those kills stand out.

One particularly memorable kill involves a man in an office drinking water from a little paper cup at the watercooler when he realises that something's wrong. Very wrong. He starts making goofy faces, his mouth starts bleeding and he just goes ape shit seconds before a ghost shark exits his body from within, slicing him in half in the process. I'd like to express some kind of scientific or even supernatural theory as to how or why this happened but I simply can't: it's THAT genius. Throughout the film you also get kids randomly sliced in half, sharks coming out of sprinklers... it's, in a word, bananas. Just... completely insane. Which is exactly the way a film with this nonsense of a premise should be! Now, unfortunately the cast is instantly forgettable and the plot could be written all the way through in great detail under someone's pinky toe, plus the performances are universally awful but whenever someone gets "sharked", which is very often, it all becomes worth it. This was released the same year as Sharknado and it definitely would make a brilliant double feature, or a triple feature if you include the slightly less but still decently enjoyable Sharktopus. It's a fun, dumb movie that knows exactly what it needs to be and which never pretends to be anything other than an idiotic yet entertaining cartoon. Now whether the sequel Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws is any good, that remains to be seen...

Overall, for a cheap-ass, thick-as-bricks shark movie, you could do far worse than Ghost Shark. In fact, this is one of the most fun Syfy efforts I've seen thusfar so if you're in the mood for that kind of low-budget goofball trash then I do recommend it. Otherwise, if you're thinking this might be an artistically solid movie at all, something to rival the original Jaws, then I'd say...

Read the title again.

Theeeeeere it is.