Stephanie Shemanski | Through the Shattered Lens

There are bad movies, there are worse movies, and then there are the worst possible movies. 90210 SHARK ATTACK just may be the worst of the worst.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the plot, but it revolves around a group of horny college students who are spending the weekend in a beautiful mansion in Beverly Hills. They’re there for an Oceanic Anthropology class, where they’ll be working on special projects under the supervision of their scheming professor, Pamela Vantzen (Donna Wilkes). Unknown to the rest of the students, Alyssa (Stephanie Shemanski) is in possession of a cursed shark tooth necklace, and when she gets excited, bad things tend to happen.

I knew I was in trouble when the movie opened on a Beverly Hills trolley car with Christmas decorations on it, signs like “Deck the Hills” and various artwork of Christmas presents. The movie is set during the summer. I also kept wondering how they would encounter sharks since the mansion they’re staying in is “miles away from the ocean,” but it turns out that the filmmakers didn’t care about this issue, so I soon stopped worrying about it myself. What this movie does have is a loop of stock footage that includes Beverly Hills, CGI sharks, a beach, and an aquarium that it cuts back to time after time. Between the extensive credit sequences and the stock footage, I would guess the actual actors are not on the screen more than 45 minutes of the entire 75-minute runtime.

It doesn’t get much better when the actors are on the screen. I watched this because Donna Wilkes is in it. I had recently watched her in JAWS 2, and I remember her back in the ‘80’s in the enjoyable, low-budget exploitation film ANGEL (“High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood Hooker by Night”). She doesn’t have anything to work with here, and neither do the other actors. The characters and dialogue are as ridiculous as you would expect, but in a boring way, not a fun way. So much time is spent watching them walk from room to room, or across the yard, or taking a shower, or gallivanting in the pool. I couldn’t even enjoy the shower scenes, because they only focused on the men!

When it’s all said and done, there’s very little time left for the sharks. And based on our movie, that’s not a big issue. Our CGI shark gets less than 30 seconds for the entire film. This part is sad, because the one thing that I did find ridiculously fun in a “wtf” kind of way is when the demonic ghost-shark first appears at about the 47-minute mark.

At the end of the day, I blame director David DeCoteau for this mess. I’ve been watching some of his “Wrong” series of Lifetime TV movies with the #MondayMania live tweet group. Those movies aren’t high art, but they are fun, campy thrillers, so I know he can make an enjoyable film. At the end of the day, I didn’t expect something great, but I did expect him to try to entertain us. Apparently, that was too much to ask!

2013’s Bonnie and Clyde: Justified opens with a long-haired Eric Roberts introducing himself as legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. Speaking straight to the camera, Roberts-as-Hamer warns us against idolizing the notorious Depression-era outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. They were murderers!, Hamer tells us with all the fervor of a tent revival preacher.

We then flashback to Bonnie (Ashley Hayes) and Clyde (Jim Poole) driving down a country road. Clyde is behind the wheel. Bonnie, a redhead like me!, reads aloud her latest poem about what it’s like to be a notorious outlaw. Suddenly, Hamer and his men appear on the roadside and open fire.

We then start yet another flashback. 15 year-old Bonnie marries good-for-nothing Roy (Julian Brand) while Clyde and his brother Buck (Hagen Mills) steal a truck full of turkeys. Jump forward to 1929 and Bonnie is unhappily married and working in a diner that we’re told is in Dallas, Texas. Oddly enough, there’s a lot of mountains in the background. I live in North Texas and I can assure you that, as much as things have changed here over the past few years, one thing has always remained the same. There are no mountains in Dallas County.

Eventually, Bonnie meets Clyde, they fall in love, and they rob banks. At least, that’s what we’re told. The majority of the film is told through sepia-toned still shots and newspaper headlines. Clyde attempts to escape from prison but we don’t actually see him do it. Instead, we just see a headline. Bonnie and Clyde rob banks but, again, we don’t really see it as much as we hear about it. Even when people die during the robberies, we don’t really learn the exact circumstances that led to Clyde opening fire. Ashley Hayes actually gives a good performance as Bonnie and her scrappy interpretation of the character is probably closer to the truth than Faye Dunaway’s. As for Jim Poole, he’s much better-looking than the real Clyde Barrow and that’s a good thing. Who wants to watch an ugly bank robber? There’s a reason why my distant-relation Pretty Boy Floyd remains a legend. As for the title, you may be wondering what exactly was justified about Bonnie and Clyde. You can argue that they were justified in doing what they had to do in order to survive during the Great Depression. Or you can argue that Frank Hamer was justified in ambushing them. Or you can assume the film was trying to appeal to (or perhaps just tricks) fans of the Justified television series. Or you can just not worry about it.

This is the story of Bonnie and Clyde on a budget. It came out in 2013, presumably to coincide with a 4-hour Bonnie and Clyde miniseries that was airing on A&E at the time. To be honest, you have to respect the nerve of a film about Bonnie and Clyde that doesn’t actually feature much of them doing what they were famous for. Cheers to director David DeCoteau for sticking with it and giving Eric Roberts top-billing for a cameo appearance. And cheers to Eric Roberts for just being Eric Roberts.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: