“Shark Exorcist”
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A Nun, accused of murdering several children is on the run and is attacked by a woman on the shore of a lake in Paris, Tennessee. The nun kills the woman and while doing so, she calls forth a demon, who comes in the form of a shark, who then inhabits the lake. A year and many shark attacks later, a group of friends go to the lake, one of them is bitten by the shark, she survives but becomes possessed by it. When a priest’s brother is also killed by the demon shark, the priest comes to investigate.
Sounds like it makes sense, yeah? But wait, there’s more! There’s a ghost chaser filming her TV or web show (it wasn’t quite clear) who invites the shark demon to possess her and a rival ghost debunker who denies that there is any demon involved in the shark attacks at all. I could continue to list all the attempted story arcs and sub-plots, but none of them made much sense. It seems as though certain aspects of the stories were happening in the back ground, or assumed, in any case they were too subtle. Plus, the audience gets 3 endings, sort of. Since I wasn’t exactly clear which story arc the endings belonged with, it was hard to tell what was actually happening.
I think if some of the sub-plots were trimmed away and more focus was given to the main plot it would have been a more cohesive story. Also, a more directly grind house style and not using the … sigh… CGI shark, might have made this a truly enjoyable movie. Some parts of the film (specifically the carnival scene) were actually filmed quite well, with a strong 1970’s grind house style and feel that worked with the story arc they were addressing in that scene, I would have enjoyed more of that. The CGI and make-up “effects” (with the exception of the creepy pointy teeth, those were nifty) felt like a minimal effort and lacked imagination. As it is, it was challenging to see where the budget, small though it was, was used.
Usually in movies like this I look at how much fun the cast seems to be having, however, this cast seems to be working a little too hard at being serious. Most concerning, though, I’m not entirely certain there was an actual story here.
I gave this 1 1/2 beers. I’d been looking forward to seeing this, and I liked parts of it. I even watched it twice thinking I was too harsh on it the first time. I wouldn’t really recommend it though.
1/2
