What Lisa Watched Last Night #208: Into The Arms Of Danger (dir by Jeff Hare)

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Into the Arms of Danger!

Why Was I Watching?

The obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime. However, I was also watching because I absolutely loved the title. Into the Arms of Danger is just so wonderfully overdramatic that there was no way I could resist it.

What Was It About?

Basically, it’s a Lifetime version of the classic 1980 grindhouse film, Mother’s Day. Two weird brothers pretend to be EMTs and kidnap young women, forcing them to go home and pretend to be a member of their family. They do it all to keep their crazy mother (Cathy Moriarty) happy.

In this film, their latest victim is Jenny (AlexAnn Hopkins), who is kidnapped after she wrecks her car and makes the mistake of calling 911. (The brothers basically intercept 911 calls, which was kind of weird.) Jenny just wanted to go to college and get away from her overprotective mother, Laura (Laurie Fortier). Instead, she’s now being held prisoner and is forced to wear an explosive ankle bracelet. It kind of sucks.

Laura knows that her daughter has been kidnapped but she can’t get the police to take her seriously. They think that Jenny has either just run away or maybe she’s gotten involved with drugs. Either way, they’re attitude is, “Don’t bother us with their domestic problems.” So, it’s up to Laura to figure out what has happened to her daughter and to rescue her from the …. ARMS OF DANGER!

What Worked?

AlexAnn Hopkins and Laurie Fortier were believable as mother and daughter. You believed that they not only cared about each other but that they also frequently got annoyed with each other. That’s the secret to realistically portraying a mother/daughter relationship on film. You have to capture both the love and the annoyance.

Cathy Moriarty gave a good performance as the demented mother. For film buffs, Moriarty is a bit of a legendary figure. She made her film debut in Raging Bull and received an Oscar nomination. She was incredible in Raging Bull and still is a great actress. Unfortunately, shortly after making her debut, Moriarty was in a serious car accident and spent several years recovering. As a result, when she returned to films, she rarely got the type of huge roles that she undoubtedly deserved. She’s still one of those actresses who, when you see her name in the credits, you know that she’s going to give a good performance.

In fact, the whole crazy family dynamic was well-done. They reminded me a bit of the family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just with less blood and cannibalism.

What Did Not Work?

Usually, I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to Lifetime films. I mean, we don’t watch these films because we’re expecting them to be a 100% realistic. But the whole thing with the brothers pretending to be EMTs was just a bit too much for me to buy.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

More like, “Oh my God! Just like my mom!” moments. As soon as Laura jumped in her car and drove all the way out to a party just to keep Jenny from accepting help from a strange boy, I was like, “Oh my God, I know just how Jenny feels!” Myself, I would always very dramatically roll my eyes and go, “Mom!” whenever stuff like that happened. Looking back, my mom was usually right, though.

Lessons Learned

If you wreck your car, never call 911.

18 Days of Paranoia #2: The Humanity Bureau (dir by Rob W. King)

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the future! It sucks!

The 2017 film, The Humanity Bureau, takes place in a dystopian future where the government is not to be trusted and bureaucracy ruins everyone’s lives. It’s kind of like the present except that it’s taking place in the future and Nicolas Cage works for the government. (Of course, for all I know, Nicolas Cage might work for the government in the real world, as well. I mean, it just kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?)

Anyway, the idea here is that, in the near future, America is out of resources. Some of its due to climate change and some of its due to a war and apparently, there was a plague as well. Because things got so bad, people gave up their personal freedom and basically decided to surrender control of their lives to the government. The government responded by creating The Humanity Bureau. The Humanity Bureau decides whether or not you’re a worthwhile part of society or if you’re just a drain on what little resources the nation has left. If you’re not found to be an “efficient” human being, you’re deported to a city called New Eden where everyone assumes that you learn how to become more efficient or, at the very least, how to not be a burden on society. The truth, of course, is far different.

Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage) is an agent of The Humanity Bureau. His bosses worry that Noah might have too much real humanity to be an efficient agent. After all, he drives an old car and he often talks about his childhood memories of going out to the lake and fishing. Of course, when we first meet Noah, he’s busy gunning down an old alcoholic who refuses to go to New Eden so he seems pretty efficient to us.

When Noah is assigned to investigate a single mother named Rachel (Sarah Lind) and her son, Lukas (Jakob Davies), it becomes obvious that their case is personal to Noah. Even though he’s supposed to immediately deport them, he allows them to have an extra day of freedom so that Lukas can sing Amazing Grace at a school recital. (The kids perform in front of a gigantic American flag, just in case you’re missing the symbolism.) When another agent (Hugh Dillon) shows up and demands to know what the hold up is, Noah, Rachel, and Lukas go on the run. It turns out that both Noah and Rachel have a secret agenda of their own….

When you hear that a film takes place in a dystopia and that it stars Nicolas Cage, that probably creates a certain set of expectations in your head. Unfortunately, Cage is oddly subdued for the majority of the film so those looking for a full scale Nic Cage freak-out are probably going to be disappointed. While the film’s story has the potential to be interesting, the film never really take full advantage of just how weird things could potentially get. This is one of those films where you know it’s the future because everyone’s in the desert.

That said, the idea of a major crisis leading to people voluntarily giving up their freedom to the state is not a particularly far-fetched one. As I sit here writing this, a lot of people are using the panic over the coronavirus pandemic to promote their own totalitarian political vision and what’s sad is that a lot of frightened citizens are just scared enough to probably more receptive to all of that authoritarian BS than they would be under normal circumstances. The Humanity Bureau takes place in a world where enough people have voluntarily surrendered their free will that the government can basically get away with punishing anyone who dares to think differently. The Humanity Bureau is often an amateurish film but, when it comes to portraying how an authoritarian state could come to power and would that would mean for those who refuse to conform, it gets things exactly right.

Previous entries in the 18 Days Of Paranoia:

The Flight That Disappeared

What Lisa Watched Last Night #207: The Black Widow Killer (dir by Adrian Langley)

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to Lifetime and I watched the latest “premiere,” The Black Widow Killer!

Why Was I Watching It?

I was hoping it would be about Natasha Romanoff and her life before she joined the Avengers. It turned out I was wrong though I’m sure that the possibility of confusion was one reason why Lifetime scheduled this film for last night. You may have noticed that I earlier said that this movie was a “premiere” as opposed to just a premiere. That’s because The Black Widow Killer originally aired in Canada in 2018. It subsequently played on both French and Spanish TV before Lifetime decided to air it here in the States. I’m sure that Lifetime’s decision was influenced by the title and the possibility that people would tune in to see Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh battling the latest addition to the MCU’s gallery of rogues.

That said, the main reason that I watched it was because it was on Lifetime! Seriously, I love that network. Have you noticed?

What’s It About?

Secrets, lies, death, and murder. There’s a killer in town and all of the victims knew each other in high school and were involved in a gruesome car accident back in the day. Is the killer seeking revenge or is there another motive? By the end of the movie, who will still be alive and what will be left of them?

What Worked?

I liked the cinematography. The film took place in one of those small towns where it’s constantly snowing and the film manages to make white ground and frozen breath look really ominous. I was not surprised to discover that the director is also a very experienced cinematographer because the film looked great.

I liked some of the performances. (Some is the word to remember.) Morgan Kohan and Bradley Hamilton did good work as the children of two potential victims. Luigi Saracino was also well-cast as the most obvious suspect. (Of course, you know what they say about obvious suspects….)

What Did Not Work?

So, if you’re going to make a movie about a bunch of people being targeted by a serial killer, it might help if at least some of the potential victims were likable. In this case, though, absolutely none of them were. Even the film’s main character, Judy Dwyer (played by Erin Karpluk), refused to really take any responsibility for her part in covering up the auto accident. When we first meet Judy, she’s whining about her husband not serving her divorce papers in person. Then, about halfway through the film, she starts whining about being targeted by someone whose life she helped ruin. You start to wonder if the other victims are really being murdered or if Judy’s just talking them to death.

This isn’t really the filmmaker’s fault but the description for the film in the guide basically gave away the identity of the murderer. As a result, it’s hard for me to say how suspenseful the film is because I already knew who the murderer was going to be.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I have red hair and so did Judy’s daughter! Sorry, that’s about all I can come up with as far as this movie’s concerned.

Lessons Learned

Take responsibility for your mistakes or you might get in trouble 25 years later.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special David Cronenberg Edition

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we wish a happy birthday to one of the greatest Canadian filmmakers of all time, David Cronenberg! Cronenberg is not only one of the best directors to come out of Canada but he’s also a favorite of those of us here at the Shattered Lens as well. Just check out Arleigh’s review of Eastern Promises, for example.

In honor of a great artists’s birthday, here are….

4 Shots From 4 David Cronenberg Films

The Brood (1979, dir by David Cronenberg)

Scanners (1981, dir by David Cronenberg)

Videodrome (1983, dir by David Cronenberg)

existenz (1999, dir by David Cronenberg)

18 Days of Paranoia #1: The Flight That Disappeared (dir by Reginald Le Borg)

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Way back in the early days of the site, I did a series of reviews called 31 Days of Paranoia, in which I reviewed films about mysteries, cover-ups, and conspiracies. Unfortunately, because I wasn’t all that disciplined about posting during the early days of the Shattered Lens, my 31 Days of Paranoia ended up being something like 24 days. Still, it was a lot of fun and, historically, it was important because it was the very first “themed” series of reviews that I had ever done. Shattered Politics, Embracing the Melodrama, Back to School, Sprin Breakdown, and all the rest started with 31 Days of Paranoia.

So, with this being the 10-year anniversary of the Shattered Lens’s founding and Spring Breakdown wrapping itself up tomorrow, I figured why not return to where it all started. From now til April, please enjoy …. 18 Days of Paranoia!

We begin with:

The 1961 film, The Flight That Disappeared, deals with an airplane that …. wait for it …. disappears!

What’s happened to Trans-Coast Airways Flight 60? When it first took off from Los Angeles, everything seemed fine. It was carrying a small but well-behaved group of middle-aged people to Washington D.C. The pilots all seemed like good professionals. The two flight attendants were busy serving people coffee and having conversations about whether or not one of them would ever get married. She had every right to be concerned, of course, seeing as how she was in her 20s and still unmarried and childless, despite the fact that this film was made in 1961.

It doesn’t take too long for something strange to happen. The plane suddenly starts to climb upward, eventually going up over 10 miles high in the sky. The pilots can’t do anything to get the plane to come back down. Due to the lack of oxygen, some of the passengers start to pass out. One passenger panics and opens a door, out of which he promptly falls. Oddly, this doesn’t create the whole vacuum effects that we always see in other movies where a window or a door is opened while a plane is in the air. Stranger still, no one thinks to close the door afterwards. Was this intentional or was it just crappy filmmaking? It’s hard to say.

Why is the plane being lifted up into the air? Could it have something to do with the three atomic scientists who are all on the plane? One of them, Dr. Morris (Dayton Lummis), is wearing glasses and has a van dyke beard so you know he’s smart! It turns out that Dr. Morris has been working on the Beta Bomb, which is apparently the most powerful atomic bomb ever built. I kept waiting for someone to ask Dr. Morris why it was called the Beta Bomb and not the Alpha Bomb or the Omega Bomb or the Big Scary Bomb or the …. well, seriously, anything would be better than Beta Bomb! Everyone in the movie says, “Beta Bomb,” in a tone that’s meant to communicate reverence but it just sounds too much like “Beta Male” for me to really take it seriously.

But, again, who is responsible for the flight climbing? Is it the Russians? Is it aliens? Is it some enemy of the American way? While everyone else on the plane is passed out, the three scientists find themselves awake. Their watches are no longer running and, despite the fact that they appear to be alive, their hearts are no longer beating. Are they dead? Or have they been transported to the future where they will now be put on trial for the crime of developing the Beta Bomb?

Of course, the thing with being put on trial in the future is that it provides the perfect defense for making weapons in the present. “Hey,” a smart defense attorney would say, “you’re still alive in the future and you’ve got time travel technology so what are you bitching about?” But the jurors explain that they’re actually the ghosts of the people who would have been born in the future if not for the Beta Bomb which …. what? So, is the plane in the future or is it in the afterlife? The film itself doesn’t seem to be sure.

I’m probably making it sound like this is a more intriguing film than it actually is. This movie is about 72 minutes long and all the stuff with the people in the future takes place during the final 10 minutes. That means that the film is essentially just 60 minutes of people saying, “We’re still climbing.” From a historical point of view, it’s an interesting example of people being paranoid about the arms race. (If the film were made today, the future the ghostly jurors would be the souls of people who were not born in the future due to climate change.) From an entertainment point of view, it’s a forgettable dud.

Spring Breakdown: Jurassic Shark (dir by Brett Kelly)

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to Spring Break, there’s nothing worse than having all of your plans ruined by a prehistoric shark.

I mean, let’s just ask the characters at the center of the 2012 film, Jurassic Shark. Jill (Emannuelle Carriere), Tia (Christine Emes), Kristen (Celine Filion), and Mike (Kyle Martellacci) were planning to spend their Spring Break taking a boat across the least impressive lake in Canada. They thought it would be a good time but then the giant shark showed up, ate Mike, and left Jill, Tia, and Kristen stranded on a tiny island….

“Wait?” you’re saying, There’s a shark in a lake?”

Yes.

“Sharks can’t live in lakes.”

This one can.

“Why?”

Because it’s prehistoric and shit. Hence, the name of the film.

“But if it’s prehistoric, what’s it doing alive in the 21st Century?”

Well, y’see, the shark was frozen in a glacier but than a big evil oil company did some big evil things and, as a result, the glacier either melted or it fell apart or maybe there was an earthquake or something and now, as a result, there’s a big prehistoric shark swimming around the lake.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s a Spring Break shark movie. Now, if I may continue my review….

Anyway, Jill, Tia, and Kristen are stranded on an island but it turns out that they’re not alone! Not only is there a random oil company scientist guy but there’s also three suspicious-looking people who are dressed in all black and are carrying guns! It turns out that the people dressed in all-black are art thieves. They were attacked by the shark while trying to make a getaway with a stolen painting. Now, the painting is at the bottom of the lake and no one can retrieve it because of the prehistoric shark. However, once everyone gets together, surely they can figure out a way to escape with a minimal loss of life….

Nope! Not going to happen! Unfortunately, no one on the island is smart enough for the audience to really root for. Instead of working together, they just point guns and debate who is going to distract the shark while someone else gets the painting. This is a movie that will have you cheering for the shark all the way, which is probably the way it was meant to be. Out of everyone in the film, the shark’s got the most personality and it’s always easy to understand his motivations. He wants to eat. It’s as simple as that.

The main reason I watched Jurassic Shark is because it’s got a 1.5 rating on the imdb and was, for a little while, the lowest rated film on the entire site. Whenever I discover that a film is disliked by that many people, I simply have to watch. As is often the case, I think the imdb voters are being a bit overly critical with Jurassic Shark. Yes, the film is pretty bad and the shark spends way too much time offscreen. There’s way too many scenes of people slowly walking from one end of the island to the other. There are some major continuity errors and the CGI is really bad and there’s a scene that’s supposed to be set at night but the day for night lighting is so ineptly handled that it’s almost to follow what’s going on.

But — and here’s the thing — there’s absolutely nothing about this film that indicates that it was meant to be taken seriously. I think for a film to be truly terrible, it has to lack self-awareness. It has to be clueless as to how bad or silly or pretentious it is. For better or worse, Jurassic Shark seems to realize that it’s a low-budget Z-grade horror film and that sets it apart from a serious relationship drama like The Room or an environmentalist statement like Birdemic. I mean, as easy as it is to criticize almost every aspect of Jurassic Shark, this is a film that features a slow-motion shot of giant shark flying over someone’s head. It’s a scene that is just ludicrous and silly enough to work.

Jurassic Shark may not be good but it’s not really pretentious enough to be terrible. If nothing else, it teaches the viewers an important lesson about how easily Spring Break can go wrong, especially when you’re celebrating in Canada. For the most part, it’s a forgettable film but it has just enough lunacy to occasionally be memorable.

Spring Breakdown: 7 Deadly Sins (dir by Glenn Plummer)

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I really get started on this review, I think I should make clear two things:

First off, this film can be found, for free, on Amazon Prime under the title 7 Deadly Sins. That’s also the title under which it’s listed on the imdb. However, all of the poster art that I’ve found for this film indicates that this film was originally entitled Charlie Charlie. It makes sense, as the whole point of the film is that 7 idiots play a game called “Charlie Charlie,” where the point is to talk to some dead guy who never went to church and was therefore never cleansed of his sins. Apparently, playing Charlie Charlie gets you killed. Who would have guessed contacting an evil spirit would have such dire consequences.

Secondly, I tend to be forgiving of low budget horror films. Some of my favorite films are low-budget horror films. I respect any director who can create a frightening scene or maintain an ominous atmosphere on a low budget. If you can make the paranormal seem real even when you can’t afford CGI, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your filmmaking skills. My point is that when I tell you that this is not a good film and that it’s actually one of the worst horror films that I’ve seen in while, I’m not just saying that because of the low budget. I’m saying it because the movie freaking sucks.

7 Deadly Sins takes place at a Spring Break house party being thrown by the least likable teenagers on the planet. Most of them are celebrating because it’s their last Spring Break before college. Jamal (Steph Santana), on the other hand, is celebrating because it’s his last weekend before he starts a five year prison sentence. At the start of Spring Break, Jamal was pulled over by a cop who discovered a huge amount of weed in the trunk of his car. Apparently, in the world of 7 Deadly Sins, the justice system moves a lot quicker than it does in the real world because it only takes Jamal a few days to be found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Jamal’s girlfriend, Kim (Tori Vild), was in the car as well. However, because she’s rich and she’s white, she’s only sentenced to a few months of house arrest. She has to wear an ankle bracelet and listen to her racist mom and her pervy stepfather complain about her boyfriend. Kim swears to Jamal that she’ll wait for him to get out of prison. Jamal suggests a threesome to help him prepare for life behind bars. Kim kicks him out of her room. It’s that type of party.

Sara (Gladys Bautista) has been hired, by Kim’s stepfather, to keep an eye on Kim for the weekend. Kim is upset because Sara is Mexican and they’re both the same age. Sara is upset because everyone screwed up the Charlie Charlie game. “You have to play the game,” she repeats, “You have to repent your sins.”

“Shit’s fucked up,” Jamal says at one point and he’s probably right.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is one of those films that tries to be both a horror film and a comedy but it doesn’t work as either, largely because the characters aren’t sympathetic enough to care about and none of the actors are particularly comedic. You don’t care when they die and it’s hard to be amused when someone says that Sara should be selling oranges along the freeway.

7 Deadly Sins does feature two semi-celebrity cameos. Tom Sizemore plays a dude in an mental hospital while Eric Roberts plays the judge who sentences Jamal and Kim. Eric Roberts has a lot of fun with his role, railing about how much he hates drug dealers and marijuana. Unfortunately, Roberts only gets one scene and then he’s out of the film.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is pretty dumb. It takes forever to get to the “Charlie Charlie” game and it doesn’t do anything particularly creative with any of the sins. (At one point, we see written in blood: “Envy is a sin.” Well, no shit.) As far as Spring Break horror films go, you could just go down to Galveston and shoot your own and the end results would probably be superior to this one.

Film Review: Spenser Confidential (dir by Peter Berg)

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Spenser Confidential, which is currently streaming on Netflix, is the latest Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg collaboration.

It’s a crime film and it’s set in Boston and it will probably remind you every other Boston-set crime film that you’ve ever seen. It’s got all the usual ingredients. People sing Sweet Caroline. A fat gangster wears a tracksuit. We get a long overhead shot of the streets of Southie and there’s a scene set in an Irish bar. One of the film’s big scenes takes place at what appears to be a deserted racing track. (I’ve never been to Boston but, just from the movies, I know that the city is basically made up of Harvard, Southie, and hundreds of deserted race tracks.) The Red Sox get a shout-out. And, of course, the movie stars Mr. Boston himself, Mark Wahlberg. Seriously, if your Boston movie doesn’t feature Mark Wahlberg or an Affleck brother, it might as well just be a St. Louis movie.

In this one, Mark Wahlberg plays Spenser. Spenser was a cop until a gangster in a tracksuit murdered someone from the neighborhood and the head of homicide tried to bury the case. This led to an angry Spenser beating the man up in front of his own house. Spenser was sent to prison, where he served five years as an ex-cop in the general population. That’s right! He wasn’t even put in protective custody but somehow, he survived. Right before Spenser is released from prison, he’s attacked by a Neo-Nazi who is played by Post Malone. It’s not really that relevant to the overall plot but it does give viewers a chance to say, “Wait a minute …. is that Post Malone?”

Anyway, once he gets out of prison, Spenser moves in with his mentor and former boxing coach, Henry Cimoli (Alan Arkin). He also gets a new roommate, an aspiring MMA fighter named Hawk (Winston Duke). After Captain Boylan, the head of homicide — yes, the same guy that Spenser beat up five years ago, is decapitated by 20 sword-carrying assailants, Spenser is the number one suspect. Fortunately, for Spenser, another cop commits suicide and it’s quickly announced that the cop who killed himself also killed Boylan. It’s a murder/suicide! So, Spenser’s off the hook and I guess the movie’s over, right?

Nope, it doesn’t work like that. It turns out that Spenser has his doubts about the whole story and he wants to investigate because he has “a strong moral code.” Unfortunately, as a convicted felon, Spenser is not allowed to become a private investigator. So, Spenser and Hawk conduct an unofficial investigation, which largely amounts to talking to Spenser’s former partner, Driscoll (Bokeem Woodbine) and getting into a brawl while Sweet Caroline plays in the background.

It’s a Boston thing.

The mystery are the heart of the film pretty much leads exactly where you think it’s going to lead. For a 2-hour crime thriller, there aren’t exactly a lot of twists and turns to be found in Spenser Confidential, which is a problem. The mystery’s solution is so obvious that it’s hard not to resent the fact that Spenser is apparently too stupid to figure it out on his own. There’s an extended scene where he gets attacked by a dog and you know what? That would have never happened to any other movie detective because every other detective would have figured out who the murderer was long before getting attacked by that dog.

On the plus side, Peter Berg knows how to stage a fight scene and he also knows how to make the best use of Wahlberg’s mix of sensitivity and working class arrogance. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is let down by a script that doesn’t give them much to do. Winston Duke is physically imposing as Hawk but he spends too much of the film standing around and waiting for Spenser to take the lead. Alan Arkin appears to be having fun in the role of Henry but again, his character is underwritten. About the only person, other than Wahlberg, who gets to make much of an impression is Iliza Shlesinger, who is cast as Spenser’s ex-girlfriend. Shlesinger may be playing a stereotype (she’s loud, crude, and has a thick Boston accent) but she fully embraces the character and makes her seem like the only person in the film who actually has a life beyond what’s happening onscreen at any given moment.

Anyway, Spenser Confidential isn’t terrible as much as it’s just forgettable. It’s a generic Boston crime film and you can probably safely watch it if you’re not looking for something to which you would actually have to pay attention. Some of the action scenes are well-shot. If you liked Mark Wahlberg in other films, you’ll probably like him in this. Whether you enjoy it or not, you’ll probably forget about this film about an hour after watching it.

Spring Breakdown: Sand Sharks (dir by Mark Atkins)

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“There ain’t no party like a Sandman party!” Jimmy Green (played by Corin Nemec) announces in the 2012 film, Sand Sharks, and he’s right.

Jimmy is infamous for throwing (or, at least, attempting to throw) big parties and organizing wild festivals. This movie was made before the Fyre Festival but watching Jimmy as he runs around and assures everyone that he’s about to put together the greatest music festival that the world has ever seen, it’s hard not to be reminded of the determined and incompetent people who were behind that legendary disaster. Then again, no one was eaten by a shark during the Fyre Festival. Jimmy can’t make the same claim about his parties.

In fact, when we first meet Jimmy, he’s trying to rebuild his reputation after his previous party ended in tragedy. Apparently, 15 people died at that party and, though we don’t get all the details, it’s insinuated that they were eaten by sharks. Jimmy isn’t one to let shark-related tragedy get him down, however. Instead, he’s doing to put on another Sandman Festival and this time, he’ll keep everyone on the beach and out of the water! Fortunately, for Jimmy, his father just happens to be the mayor of a beachside community.

Unfortunately, it turns out that sharks aren’t just in the ocean. There’s also on the beach, swimming underneath the sand. They’re sand hharks! Now, the movie does provide an explanation for why all of those sharks are moving around underneath the sand but it’s really not important. The important thing is that they’re out and they’re eating just about everyone that they meet. That’s going to be a problem as far as the Sandman Festival is concerned. Fortunately, Jimmy and the authorities are able to kill one sand shark. However, when Jimmy discovers that there’s more than one sand shark, he keeps that news to himself. The show must go on!

You can probably guess what happens next….

The sand sharks are a lot of fun and this SyFy film provides plenty of spring break mayhem as festival goers are yanked under the sand but, for me, the main attraction of this film is seeing Corin Nemec just unleashed like a force of nature. Nemec starts the film going at about 100 miles per hour and he doesn’t slow down for a single second. As played by Nemec, Jimmy never stop talking and he never stops hustling and he’s so committed to putting on the greatest festival ever that it’s impossible not to like him, even if his actions do end up getting a lot of people killed. Nemec seems to be having a lot of fun with the role of Jimmy and it’s just as much fun to watch him.

Of course, Jimmy isn’t the only character in the film. Brooke Hogan plays Dr. Sandy Powers, who is a shark expert. At one point, Sandy looks out at the beach and tells Sheriff John Stone (Eric Scott Woods) that “We’re stuck between a rock and a shark place,” and if you don’t cheer for that line, I worry about you and your sense of humor. As that line indicates, Sand Sharks is a film that cheerfully embraces the ludicrousness of it’s storyline. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. This is the type of film where people often snap, “Bite me!” right before a shark leaps out of the sand and does just that. This is pure entertainment and, if you’re a fan of SyFy shark films, Sand Sharks is a lot of fun. Between the sand sharks and Corin Nemec playing the hipster-from-Hell, what more could you want?

Spring Breakdown: The Spring Break Murders (a.k.a. To.Get.Her) (dir by Erica Dunton)

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“It’s a weekend of no consequences.”

That’s a phrase that is uttered many times over the course of the 2011 film, The Spring Break Murders (which is also known as To.Get.Her.) In fact, it’s a phrase that’s uttered so many times that I actually started to get sick of hearing it. Initially, I thought that it was evidence of lazy writing and that the film’s director and screenwriter, Erica Dunton, was so oddly proud of the phrase that she was determined to push it on us whether it actually meant anything or not.

By the end of the film, my opinion had changed. There’s a big twist in The Spring Break Murders, one that took me totally by surprise and which I’m still thinking about as I write up this review. Needless to say, I can’t reveal the twist here in this review. But I can say that it’s a good one and it’s worth the wait and, by the end of it, you’ll understand why the characters were so fixated on that phrase. By the end of the film, “It’s a weekend of no consequences” goes from being a cliche to a truly brilliant piece of dialogue.

The Spring Break Murders tells the story of five friends and one eventful weekend. At the start of the movie, a voice-over informs us that, by the end of the weekend, only one of the friends will still be alive and the four others will be dead at the hands of one man. The five friends have flown in from all over so that they can spend the weekend at a beach house owned by the mother of Ana Frost (Jazzy de Liser). Ana is apparently a bit of a problem child. Haunted by her father’s suicide, she hates her mother’s fiancee, Robert (Ed Wagenseller), and is secretly paying for the entire weekend with his credit card. (She even bought everyone’s plane tickets.) Robert is supposed to be staying at the beach house with Ana while Ana’s mother has a weekend to herself but Ana sharply informs him that he will be spending the weekend at a hotel. Though angered, Robert agrees. At first, it’s tempting to assume that Ana is just a spoiled brat but, as with everything in this movie, there’s more to it than that and nothing is what it first seems.

All five of the friends have their own issues that they’re dealing with. One of them has just discovered that she won’t be attending Oxford. Another one blames herself for death of her sister. The token religious girl is scared to come out to her parents while the pregnant girl has been dumped by her boyfriend and has been overly medicated by her family. And, at first, it’s easy to roll your eyes at the fact that everyone has at least one dramatic problem. As I watched these five friends acting miserable in a nightclub, I found myself wondering if I really wanted to watch a movie about the type of depressing and overly dramatic people who I usually mute on twitter. But I kept watching because I suspected there was more to the story than was immediately apparent.

And it turned out that I was right. There’s a lot more to the story. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is without spoiling the film. What I can tell you is that this is a film that worth sticking with. During the film’s first half (which can seem unfocused before you learn the film’s twist), you may be tempted to stop watching but stick with it because almost everything that initially seems self-indulgent pays off in the end. Though both of this film’s titles — To.Get.Her and The Spring Break Murders — might make it sound like a generic horror film, it’s actually an intriguing mystery with a clever twist. It’s a movie that sicks with you. I imagine that I’ll be thinking about it for days to come.

That said, it’s not a perfect film. There’s a subplot about Ana’s mother cheating on Robert that never really makes much sense and the pace lags whenever the attention is taken away from the friends and given to any of the film’s other characters. There are also a few flashbacks that, occasionally, feel a bit awkward, as if they’ve been forced into the action. As one might expect from a low-budget independent film, some of the actors are better than others. Jazzy de Lisser is a stand-out and she gets good support from Chelsea Logan, who plays the pregnant friend. The rest of the cast is a bit more uneven. In the end, though, this is an effectively clever little film and one that will reward repeat viewings.