RAIDERS OF THE LOST SHARK (2014)

Raiders of the Lost Shark (2014)
Directed by: Scott Patrick
Written by: Brett Kelly, David A. Lloyd, Trevor Payer
Starring: Dan Desmarais, Kitty Kamieniecki, Peter Whittaker

RAIDERS OF THE LOST SHARK (2014)
Directed by Scott Patrick

Two security guards decide to skive off work and take a dip in the lake with their lady friends on the island they’re meant to patrol. When their colleagues realise they’re missing and find severed limbs in the lake, they report it in to the head honcho. It seems that this isn’t the first attack on the island and concerned it may be a shark on the loose, the boss calls in help from high school teacher and researcher, Professor Carly Reynolds who’s own sister was killed at the very same lake. Can they stop the shark in time before it kills anymore helpless victims?

Budget creature feature movie Raiders of The Lost Shark promises so much with its cheesy title and retro, over-the-top poster art. As a fan of low budget efforts with heart, I couldn’t wait to see what this film had prepared for fans of the genre. I know what you’re thinking… “But you guys are quoted as saying it’s ‘the perfect so-bad-it’s-awesome movie'” on the DVD cover and so we must’ve seen the film already, right? Wrong. Whilst it’s true that our quote is on the cover, we were never approached about the quote and only found out when it went on sale in the UK. The quote was taken from Matt’s news post for the film where he wrote those words based on the look of the trailer, not the film. So now that we’ve got our mitts on it, let me tell you my thoughts on the movie itself…

As expected, everything from the acting right down to the set design is low budget, but instead of being clever, funny and a creation made with passion, we have an extremely weak effort that appears to have had as little thought gone into it as possible. The script is terrible and boring as sin, delivered either in an exaggerated tone or monotonous output without an ounce of credibility to it at all. The set of a supposed ‘Sheriff’s Office’ is basically a room with a desk and very little else and somehow this is meant to be funny. The acting is no better either. The only part I found mildly amusing is the appearance of the shark, who swallows his victims whole, and that of the stock footage used that shows a shark in deep waters yet the lake on the island itself is so obviously too shallow to contain any shark at all. However, even the shark scenes become dull after a while as the same device of “person enters lake, person swallowed by shark” occurs repeatedly with very little variety that once you’ve seen one attack, you’ve pretty much seen them all. As the film progresses, the plot truly flies through the window along with the shark who appears to have more traits in common with a dragon than any sort of marine life.

Can it get any worse than this? I’m sure there are worse films out there but this is definitely one dud to stay away from. Stick to the SyFy or Asylum films if you want the real B-movie “so bad it’s good” creature feature experience because you’ll not get any of the joys and pleasure they can bring from this particular movie.

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