31 Days of Horror: ‘Ghost Shark’ Review
Stars: Richard Moll, Mackenzie Rasman, Dave Randolph-Mayhem Davis, Shawn C. Philips, Jaren Mitchell, Robert Aberdeen, Sloane Coe, Jayme Bohn, Amy Brassette, Lucky Johnson | Written by Eric Forsberg, Griff Furst, Paul A. Birkett | Directed by Griff Furst
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… Scratch that. Just when you thought it was safe to go anywhere NEAR water, along comes Ghost Shark!
Taking the shark flick to it’s illogical conclusion, Ghost Shark sees the titular shark haunting the beachside town of Smallport after being harpooned, shot and almost blown up by a couple of shark hunters. You see Smallport has a mysterious cave that dates back to the early settlement days, a cave that was the location for a number of deaths and a cave that is the subject of a local legend which foretells that any man, woman, and in this case shark, that dies in the cave of a violent death will return from the grave seeking vengeance. And in this case vengeance means leaping out from any source of water in the town any chomping on the locals!
Yet another production for the Syfy channel, Ghost Shark got unfairly lost in the online furore that surrounded the debut of The Asylum’s Sharknado. Or did it? Maybe the concept of a ghost shark was just too crazy? After all sand sharks we can believe, two-headed sharks in Malibu are fine, hell even a mega shark fighting a giant octopus was seemingly a-OK. But a ghost shark? Who could believe that, right?
I jest.
We all know these low-budget, high-concept monster movies are a staple of the US Syfy channel, it would seem that some just capture the audiences imagination more than others. Although I have to say that I enjoyed Ghost Shark a little bit more that Syfy’s social media behemoth – although this film is right up there with Sharknado at the top of the list of completely bonkers yet completely fun killer-fish flicks. I think it was the more inventive, more off-the-wall deaths that did it for me and for the gore lovers out there, the film features completely ridiculous deaths – including people getting torn in two left right and centre, the titular shark literally tearing a man in half head-to-toe as he bursts out of his body and one character even getting mangled up as he’s sucked, nay chewed, arse-first down into a toilet!
If I can say anything about Ghost Shark it’s that it’s a hell of a lot more memorable than Sharknado. Whereas that film had a handful of key scenes that still stick in my mind, Ghost Shark is literally jam-packed with memorable moments – in fact almost every death scene is so crazy and over-the-top that you’d be hard-pressed to forget them!
Ghost Shark also wins points for its cast. It’s a delight to see Richard Moll ham it up once again onscreen – I haven’t seen Moll’s brand of insanity in a movie or TV show since his appearance in Smallville over a decade ago, so it was absolutely brilliant to see him in such a key role. What was strange however, was seeing yet another YouTube “celebrity” in a feature film – this time out it was Shawn C. Philips, who made his name as a movie reviewer, taking a turn in a movie he be typically reviewing. He, like most of the cast save for its two leads (and the leads sister), bites the big one at the mouth of the titular ghost shark in spectacular style.
On a side-note, it seems Griff Furst is quickly becoming one of my favourite monster-movie directors… First it was Lake Placid 3 in 2010, then Swamp Shark in 2011, he then followed that up with the ridiculously brilliant Arachnoquake in 2012 and now in 2013 it’s Ghost Shark. That’s four fantastically cheesy and fantastically fun monster movies in four years – that’s a perfect score in my book!
If you like a cheesy monster movie (like me) then you’ll get a kick out of Ghost Shark. The film is released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 28th, courtesy of Signature Entertainment.
