Review By: Rob Sibley
“Snow Shark”... were should I
begin? Let's start off by saying I love two things more then life
itself. Coffee & cigarettes... whoops I mean shark movies and no
budget films. Well Snow Shark is a shark movie and it definitely was
shot for no money.
For me the lower the budget of a film
is the more I like it. I can appreciate C-grade acting, shoddy
editing, dim photography, zero production design and low grade
digital cinema. Snow shark possesses all of those qualities and then
some.
Let's get this out of the way the film
was written, directed, produced, shot by Sam Qualiana. I have a deep
respect for people who are a one man crew. He has my sympathy because
it's not fun, having done the same with my own short films and even a
failed feature film “Execution Date”. So he gets some points for
trying hard... also yes I just plugged myself. Deal with it.
This film originally started out as a
short film then was later turned into a feature film. The film
actually went into production with the filmmakers assuming they were
going to make another Snow Shark short film but a day or two into
shooting they decided to turn the short into a feature. Problem is
they didn't have a full script so they were writing as they went
along and started production immediately. Which explains the stilted
dialog and now and then awkward performances.
It was shot over weekends for a small
budget of 7K. So major props for that... but well I'm trying to sugar
coat this review as you can but here ya go. Snow Shark is a piece of
shit. It tries... it tries really fucking hard but it just didn't
work out.
What did the filmmakers suspect? I mean
your working on a 7K budget with a high concept... a fun concept a
SNOW SHARK. A proper creature fabrication for a decent looking shark
should have cost about 10K... for half a fake shark. Well... I guess
the money was spent on the cardboard looking fin that glides through
the ice and some really bad CGI... really bad.
Also I must note, on the commentary
track for the DVD. The producer of the film decides to bash bloggers
in defense of the film by saying “There are going to be all these
drunk bloggers and say they are clearly walking in 4 feet of snow.
How can that whole shark be under the ground?” Well dude, I don't
really care. I assume it was like a Graboid from Tremors. But I find
it a stupid move to bash the people who are going to help you sell
your movie.
Are you still interested in the film?
Not so much, yeah I thought so. Here's the plot, a snow shark
terrorizes some people in Upstate NY. The governor gathers together
some people to hunt it down, said people get bumped off, roll ending
credits. Bingo bango.
Now I LOVE bad shark movies. I'll watch
every Syfy channel original movie if it has a shark in it. The
problem with this film is it takes itself so seriously. I mean we
don't even get a wink or a nod. What's fun about films like
Sharktopus & Dinoshark is that they acknowledge how silly the
films are, the actors know it, the crew know it and that's what makes
them fun.
I'm against remakes usually but get
Roger Corman and Syfy channel to buy the rights to the title “Snow
Shark” should be cheap... a sixer of near beer should do it. Use
the title, give it a million dollar budget, cast someone from the
80's who had a name and BAM! You got yourself a SYFY channel original
movie that would be much better then this turkey. SKIP IT.
The DVD on the
other hand is pretty decent. Shot on a Sony Handycam HDR-FX7, the
film looks pretty good. It's a low end digital camera but it gets the
job done. I've used the camera before and you can get great images...
if you light the scenes properly. Sadly they decided to shoot this
film mainly with natural light and a 1K watt light here and there so
what you get is a flat lifeless image.
The sound is actually okay, you can
understand what people are saying. I'm not saying that's a good thing
but hey no snack, crackle or pop so props on the clear audio. My
guess is the boom mic cost more then the camera.
Extras. We get the already mentioned
commentary track... its rather dull. No one seems that excited to
recording it. They should be high fiving till the sun goes down since
someone actually is distributing this film on DVD.
We also get some short films, outtakes
and a behind the scenes featurette. Bad movie, Good DVD.
What can I say? This film is dreadful,
SKIP IT.
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