House Shark

House Shark

2017

Director- Ron Bonk

Cast- Trey Harrison, Wes Reid, Samantha Varga, Michael Merchant, Wayne W. Johnson, Melissa LaMartina, Nathan Bonk, Stacy M. Underwood

            

     Frank (Harrison) is a divorced, single father, former cop trying to raise his son and re-enter the dating game. His quest for normalcy is destroyed by a hidden menace stalking his home; a house shark. This formerly aquatic predator sneaks through the  house, hiding behind corners, disappearing into cabinets, and coming up through the plumbing to devour the unsuspecting. How is this possible? Well, as with all unexplainable movie monsters, this one is a mutant, a mutated product of science gone wrong to be exact.

            

     The film starts off really strong. Betsy the babysitter (played by the exceedingly cute Samantha Varga) strips down for some full frontal nudity before taking a pee (because why not ?) only to have the house shark come up through the toilet and grab her. Frank, hearing the screams, runs in just in time to see her meet a sexy, gruesome end.

            

     Despite this awesome start, nothing else in the rest of the movie lives up to that beginning. This film is obviously not meant to be taken seriously and is entirely a comedy. Most of the humor could best be described as frat-boy worthy and is either ironically clever or stupid and offensive, depending on your point of view. The film doesn’t try to hide its low budget and at times seems intent on reminding you of it. Despite all of these shortcomings, I think there is an audience for this film.

            

     House Shark is an unashamed homage to Jaws. There are references to Jaws in almost every scene. Some scenes are parody recreations of the scenes from the Speilberg masterpiece. For people like me who’ve seen Jaws a thousand times (well at least a hundred) there is a lot of entertainment. If you haven’t seen Jaws a thousand times (or at least maybe 20) I think the humor will be lost on you. I was reminded a lot of the old 70s Saturday Night Live Jaws skit with the obviously fake shark popping up out of nowhere and grabbing people.

           

      But I should also say, the shark doesn’t look horrible. I mean, it looks obviously fake, but funny and gruesome at the same time. It’s about on par with one of the props you’d see at a GWAR concert, if you know what that means.

            

      So if you aren’t a fan of Jaws and don’t like stupid humor, save your time and money and just move on to something else. If don’t know Jaws that well, but you like Beavis and Butthead, this will probably serve at least as a pleasant distraction. But if you enjoy stupid humor AND you’re a fan of Jaws, then this movie is worth your time.