So there are your classic shark movies… Jaws for example. Then there are… the other kind. So I’m curious; what is the absolute CHEESIEST shark movie you’ve ever seen? I’m talking the worst effects, the stupidest story, something that utterly ignores the laws of physics.
Or, you can just look at my list and marvel at just how many bad shark movies I’ve seen. Buckle up, buttercups; this list is gonna get LONG. I’ll list franchises on one line just to keep this semi-shorter.
The entire Sharknado franchise
The entire MegaShark franchise
Sharktopus
Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (There’s a third Sharktopus movie I have yet to see or this’d be on the third line)
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
The entire Multi-headed Shark Attack franchise (we got your two, three, five and six headed sharks here!)
Dinoshark
Ghost Shark
Roboshark
Jersey Shore Shark Attack
Malibu Shark Attack
Nightmare Shark
Toxic Shark
Zombie Shark
Sand Sharks
Super Shark
Swamp Shark
Santa Jaws
Atomic Shark
The Meg (it may have been released in theaters rather than on TV, but by GOD this counts)
Jaws: The Revenge
So, counting every movie in a franchise, that’s a total of…32 absolutely horrible shark movies.
But I can’t hate on Jaws: The Revenge. It was the basis for Jaws: The Video Game, which means the seaplane dropping bombs on jellyfish is flown by Michael Caine!
I personally am waiting for the now-seemingly inevitable day someone makes a movie about genetically fusing a shark with Vieux-Boulogne. The tagline: “It’ll be the last thing you ever smell…”
RiffTrax did The Last Shark, which is one of my favorite VODs. The music over the opening credits is worth the price of admission to me, and it gets better from there. It’s a low-budget Italian Jaws knock-off.
I will watch Jaws whenever I come across it. (I spend a lot of time watching Jaws)
The first time I caught part of Jaws: The Revenge, I thought it was the greatest shark movie of all time. It was showing in a bar on a beach in Thailand. Without that setting as part of the viewing experience, I’ve reassessed and withdrawn that initial, rash praise.
Yeah, I’d go with Jaws 3D myself. Just because of how many times I can watch the real Jaws and enjoy it, particularly every year on independence day in the US … I just can’t even talk about how low the franchise got.
Yeah, The Last Shark, all that Sharknado fecal matter dripping out of various cloacas…I can’t really even find the energy to comment.
Do Alligator movies next! Hint! There is a really good alligator movie! (Alligator with Robert Forster and Frank Pentangeli, i.e., Michael V. Gazzo, a champion of the fine school of yell acting). I’m betting the rest are chewed hot dogs made of actual dog.
I was actually rather impressed with The Meg. Besides the doubling of the megalodons size, I think they did a fairly good job with the biology. They gave it 8 gill slits. Generally the more gill slits a shark species has, the more ancient the species. Modern sharks like the great white have 5. My friend and I went to see it on the theater fully intending to tear it apart. She’s a biologist and I’m a zoologist. We didn’t even know Jason Statham was in it until it started. The worst part was the acting from the female lead. They tried to have chemistry between Statham and her, and while he delivered on his side, she did not. Anyway, overall much better than expected, but still not a really good movie.
Ice sharks
All three Deep Blue Sea movies
47 meters down
47 meters down: uncaged (albino cave sharks)
The Last Shark
The reef
Lake sharks
All of the Shark Attack movies
Plus more that I can’t remember off the top of my head. I may add a post with the additional later, once I’ve gotten some sleep.
Oh I don’t disagree that Jason Statham is nearly always worth a watch; he’s the main reason I bothered to see that movie. But the actual movie is… yeah. Valid science aside, the whole movie was just bonkers.
I think of the ones on my list, the absolute worst of the bunch has to be Santa Jaws. Or maybe Roboshark, but I put Santa Jaws as the worst more or less because Roboshark was mean to be a tongue in cheek spoof of social media, in some weird way that I don’t quite understand (being former military, I was just annoyed as all get out over how every time the military was on screen they were going “hut hut hut hut hut hut hut!” with every step they took). But Santa Jaws is just flippin’ WEIRD. It’s a Christmas-themed SHARK. At various points the shark literally develops powers or appendages that are holiday-themed (like a horn made out of a sharpened candy cane, for instance). And its sole purpose is to kill the protagonist’s family because he made a wish that he’d be alone for Christmas after he was grounded for a satirical picture of his principal that he shared on social media.