Let’s Talk About Dead In The Water (dir by Sheldon Wilson)

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the great things about October is that, along with Shark Week, it’s one of the few times during the year that the SyFy channel still shows original horror films. Unfortunately, I ended up getting a little bit swamped with stuff this month so I didn’t get a chance to review this year’s collection of movies when they originally aired. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make up for that today and tomorrow.

Dead In The Water, which aired on October 27th, is a nautical horror story that will probably remind you of a few other horror films. (Of course, if you’ve watched enough SyFy films, you know that’s not necessarily a complaint.) Like The Descent, it features an almost entirely female cast. Like Ghost Ship, it takes place within the claustrophobic confines of a boat floating on the ocean and there’s literally no escape to escape to be found. Like an Alien film, it’s essentially a siege film in which we watch the film’s cast attempts to survive an attack from a relentless enemy that keeps coming and coming. And finally, much like John Carpenter’s The Thing, the enemy is an alien who jumps from victim to victim. You’re never quite sure who might be real and who might be possessed. It’s all about the paranoia.

Dead in the Water follows the crew of a boat that gets lost in a thick bank of fog. When they come across a man floating in the ocean, they pull him out and start to examine him. He’s still alive, though barely. He implores them to kill him and then kill themselves. He says that the only way to “end this.” After they oblige the first half of his request, the crew members speculate that may have had a virus but a video on his phone reveals a far different story. Apparently, the man was the last survivor of a group of scientists who came across an alien life form in the Arctic sea. With an alien life form now running around the boat, the crew must attempt to survive while a terrible storms rages outside.

Both thematically and visually, Dead In The Water is one of those films where everything is really, really dark. In fact, the film was so dark that it was sometimes difficult to see just what exactly was happening on the screen. At times, this was effective. After all, fear of the dark is one of the big phobias and the darkness made it easier for the alien to do its thing. That said, I would someday like to see a horror film that takes place in an adequately lit room. We’re so used to horror in the dark that I think horror in the daylight would probably be an interesting change of pace.

The best thing that Dead In The Water had going for it was its cast. I liked the fact that not only did this horror film feature an all female cast but that they were all portrayed as being competent professionals. No one was there just to scream and be a victim, which is something that I always appreciate. Though the nature of the alien isn’t a huge shock, it’s still an effective little monster. Director Sheldon Wilson does a good job of keeping the action moving and capturing the desperation of being stranded out in the middle of nowhere. All in all, Dead In The Water was an effective October offering.

Let’s Talk About 6-Headed Shark Attack (dir by Mark Atkins)

Posted on August 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, we’re in the middle of SyFy’s Sharknado week. On Sunday night, SyFy will premiering what they say is going to be The Last Sharknado. In the days leading up to that moment, they’ve been reshowing all of their classic shark films and premiering a new shark film each night!

Saturday night’s premiere was 6-Headed Shark Attack!

“Oh, Hell yeah!” I shouted when I first saw the title of this movie. So much attention has been paid to The Asylum’s Sharknado franchise that people tend to overlook that the Asylum has another equally entertaining franchise, the multi-headed shark franchise.

Starting with 2-Headed Shark Attack in 2012, the Asylum has steadily been increasing the number of heads on its sharks. Indeed, one of the pleasures of these multi-headed shark films has been trying to guess just how exactly all of those shark heads would fit on just one shark body. With last year’s 5-Headed Shark Attack, we ended up with a shark who had four heads at the front and, rather awkwardly, one head on its tail. The shark in 6-Headed Shark Attack is shaped by like a starfish and is perhaps the most impressive multi-headed shark yet.

What was it that made the 6-headed shark so impressive? Well, have you ever seen a shark crawl out of the ocean and chase someone across a beach? Watch 6-Headed Shark Attack and you will! By using two of its heads as legs, the shark could move pretty quickly across sand. As a result, the timeless advice of “Don’t go in the water” isn’t going to help you out when it comes to the 6-headed shark!

Another great thing about the 6-headed shark is that it had super healing powers! For instance, if it lost one head, another head would eventually pop up in its place. In perhaps one of the greatest scenes ever to be found in an Asylum shark film, the 6-headed shark actually ripped off one of its own heads and threw it at someone! Not even Jaws could do that!

Whereas previous multi-headed shark films pretty much ignored the question of just how a shark ended up with multiple heads, 6-Headed Shark Attack actually does provide a bit of an origin for its title character. It was created as the result of a military research lab that was located on a remote island. The lab has long since been abandoned but the 6-headed shark is still out there. Unfortunately, the island is currently being used for couples therapy, which is being led by Will (Brandon Auret). Even once the 6-headed shark shows up, Will remains determined to bring everyone together and help them achieve their full potential. There’s something oddly touching about Will’s effort to do his job, even when there’s a shark throwing one of its heads at his clients.

I liked 6-Headed Shark Attack. This is one of those films that works because it delivers exactly what it promised. The title declares that we’re going to get a 6-Headed Shark Attack and that’s what we get! If you can’t enjoy the sight of a shark with 6 heads chasing people across the beach, I worry about you.

Let’s Talk About Planet of the Sharks

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I watched the latest SyFy shark movie premiere — Planet of the Sharks!

As if there was any doubt, Planet of the Sharks is an Asylum movie. And let’s give the Asylum some credit. They know how to title their movies. When I saw that this movie was called Planet of the Sharks, I immediately thought of Planet of the Apes. I went into this movie expecting that it would feature speaking sharks and maybe a stranded astronaut shouting out, “Take your damn fins off of me, you damn dirty sharks!”

Well, needless to say, that doesn’t happen in Planet of the Sharks. The sharks don’t speak, though they have apparently figured out how to leap out of the water and fly through the air. And though there are a few stranded people, none of them are astronauts. In fact, the only thing that Planet of the Sharks has in common with Planet of the Apes is a shot of the Statue of the Liberty.

But that’s okay! What’s important is that seeing a title like Planet of the Sharks got me excited. I was really looking forward to watching the movie and that enthusiasm carried me over some potentially rough moments. It’s a brilliant title and The Asylum deserves all the credit in the world for coming up with it.

As for the film itself, it takes place in the future. Apparently, humanity never did anything about all of that climate chance because the entire world has been flooded. The Statue of Liberty is now underwater! The few humans that are still alive live in crude floating cities, places that have names like Junk City and Sanctuary.

Speaking of Junk City, when the film begins, it’s in the process of being destroyed by a group of sharks. That’s right — in a world where there’s too much water, the entire world becomes a shark feeding ground. Add to that, it appears that all the plankton have died off. The sharks have no choice but to eat human beings.

(And, quite frankly, it’s hard to blame the sharks. When the people of Sanctuary gather to slaughter a group of sharks, they do it with so much savagery that you can’t help but sympathize with the sharks. Importantly, it should be noted that this seemed to be what the movie was going for.)

Fortunately, there is hope! A group of scientists think that if they can power up a transmitter and send a rocket into space, they’ll be able to change weather patterns. (Or something like that. To be honest, I had a hard time following their plan but what’s important is that it’s what they need to do to lower the sea levels and save the world.) But in order to launch the rocket and power up the transmitter and do everything else, they’re going to have to avoid being eaten by rampaging sharks…

Planet of the Sharks was a little bit talky for an Asylum film. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The film deserves some credit for trying to explain the science behind what was going on and for attempting to give the characters some sort of motivation beyond “Let’s blow up a bunch of sharks.” Those looking for nonstop action may be a little bit disappointed.

But, no matter! I liked Planet of the Sharks. I appreciated the fact that it tried to make its dystopian future plausible and you could tell that the filmmakers had actually given some thought to the story. It was actually kind of interesting to see the savage and sometimes odd culture that had risen up to replace the old world. (The floating town of Sanctuary was especially memorable and disturbing.)

So, no, Planet of the Sharks did not feature talking sharks. But it was still an enjoyable SyFy film.