''Dinoshark'' is a 2010
low budget Syfy
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...
horror film. It was shown on Syfy on March 13, 2010.
Background
The film premiered on Syfy on the evening of March 13, 2010
before 2 million viewers. ''Dinoshark'' followed up ''
Dinocroc
''Dinocroc'' is a 2004 American horror film directed by Kevin O'Neill. The film's plot revolves around a genetically engineered '' Suchomimus'' terrorizing the lake-side residents of a small town. The film stars Matthew Borlenghi, Jane Longenecke ...
''; Roger Corman proposed a sequel (''Dinocroc 2'') but Syfy felt that television audiences tended to respond better to new-but-similar ideas more than direct sequels.
April MacIntyre, of
Monsters and Critics
Monsters and Critics is an online entertainment news website focusing on TV, movies and celebrities. It publishes news, reviews, recaps, interviews, feature articles, explainers, blogs and commentary. The website has been owned by Digital Minefi ...
, compared the film to old
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
s.
A sequel titled ''Dinocroc vs. Supergator'' was released on June 26, 2010. Roger Corman said that while the plot is hard to believe, the film can be enjoyed if
belief is suspended and that the film is internally consistent.
The film is a remake of the 1979 film ''
Up from the Depths
''Up From the Depths'' is a 1979 horror film directed by Charles B. Griffith and starring Sam Bottoms, Susanne Reed, Virgil Frye, Kedric Wolfe, and Charles Howerton. The film, along with many other natural horror films at the time of its releas ...
''.
''Dinoshark'' has been described as ''Dinocroc'' with flippers. Before the film was released, Margaret Lyons of ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' said that this, along with ''
Sharktopus
''Sharktopus'' is a 2010 SyFy original horror/science fiction film produced by Roger Corman, directed by Declan O'Brien, and starring Eric Roberts. It is the first film in the ''Sharktopus'' franchise.
Plot
Geneticist Nathan Sands and his daught ...
'', were destined to be classics of the "awesomely awful made-for-TV movie genre".
Plot
The film opens with a baby
pliosaur
Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive tooth ...
swimming away from a broken chunk of Arctic glacier that
calved due to global warming. Three years later, it is a ferocious predatory adult and kills tourists and locals offshore from
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Puerto Vallarta ( or simply Vallarta) is a Mexican beach resort city situated on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
Puerto Vallarta is the second largest urban agglomeration in the state after the Guadalaja ...
. The protagonist, Trace, is first to notice the pliosaur and witnesses his friend get eaten, but has trouble convincing people that a creature of such antiquity is still alive and eating people.
Cast
*
Eric Balfour
Eric Salter Balfour (born April 24, 1977) is an American actor and singer. He is the lead singer of Born as Ghosts, formerly known as Fredalba. He made his film debut in the drama ''Shattered Image'' (1998), followed by roles in ''What Women Want' ...
as Trace McGraw
* Iva Hasperger as Carol Brubaker
*
Aarón Díaz
Aarón Díaz Spencer (born March 7, 1982) is a Mexican-American actor, singer, and model.
Early life
Aarón Díaz Spencer was born in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico to an Irish-American mother (surname Spencer) and a Mexican father (sur ...
as Luis
*
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
as Dr. Reeves
*
Blythe Metz
Blythe Laura Metz (born 1977), also known as Blythe Metz-Mändmets, is an American actress, writer, natural lifestyle expert, and motivational speaker.
Life
Metz was educated at Arizona State University, graduating BA in performing arts in 2000. ...
as Newscaster
* Vela Hammond as Mag
* Blanche Wheeler as Dani
* Shaun Carson as David
* Jenna Manger as Ali
Reception
Critics and reviewers tended to share similar views on the nature of the film, seeing it as a continuation in the tradition of older
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
horror/monster films, with the implausible plots, stock sequences and questionable acting typical of that genre.
Critics were divided between those who felt this made it highly entertaining and those who felt this made the film exceptionally poor in quality and panned it for its lack of redeeming features. In both cases though, critics conceded that it stood a chance of becoming a classic of its kind, if for nothing else than for a level of awfulness that mandated watching. April Macintyre of ''Monsters and critics'' gave it a positive review.
Referring to "fun films, laced with implausible plots, brilliant poster art and laughable dialogue
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
demanded that you show up ready to suspend disbelief, prepare for a scare and always left the audience entertained", she wrote that some aspects are "hilariously over the top. Think Al Pacino's Cuban accent in ''Scarface'' times ten", but concluded that in the context of its genre, "we wouldn't want it any other way".
On the negative side,
Dread Central
Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website f ...
was condemnatory of the "rubbery" monster, "exceptionally chintzy" effects, and "some of the worst acting ever seen in a Syfy original movie", concluding that users who did not regularly watch "schlocky shark flicks" would probably enjoy laughing at "this silly offering in which half the cast sound like they were voiced over by George Lopez". ''Chicago Now'' gave it one star out of 5 as a "low-budget joker" and "cheesy, mindless fun", stating there had to be a "fun drinking game" in it and the best thing about it was the title.
Home video
''Dinoshark'' was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on April 26, 2011.
See also
*
List of killer shark films
Natural horror is a subgenre of horror films that features natural forces, typically in the form of animals or plants, that pose a threat to human characters.
Though killer animals in film have existed since the release of '' The Lost World'' in ...
References
External links
Official website*
*
{{Roger Corman
2010 television films
2010 films
2010 horror films
Syfy original films
American natural horror films
Films about dinosaurs
Films about sharks
Shark attacks in fiction
Films about shark attacks
Films produced by Roger Corman
Films produced by Julie Corman
American monster movies
Giant monster films
2010s monster movies
American horror television films
2010s English-language films
Films set in Mexico
Films directed by Kevin O'Neill (director)
2010s American films