'Shark Night' lives up to horror movie stereotype, becomes laughably terrible

Allow me to be up front, if I may. "Shark Night" is a terrible movie. Chances are if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, you already knew this going into the movie theater. The characters are one-dimensional, the effects are horrible, and worst of all, it has the biggest kiss of death that a gore fest horror flick can have: it's PG-13. I don't think anybody with the capacity for critical thinking can go into this movie with the expectation of it being good. So I am here to tell you instead, that "Shark Night" is so bad, that it's almost worth seeing if you can get the right crowd.

Plot wise, this is as basic as horror gets. A bunch of stupid college kids get drunk on a lake vacation home during a shark infestation. The cast contains such memorable figures as, the hard working nerd, the "smooth talking" loser, the nice girl with a troubled history, and of course, no horror movie would be complete, without the black jock and his token Latino girlfriend.

I won't knock it for failing to have a cast of characters beyond stereotypes, but where I have to detract points from "Shark Night" is the time that should be spent on watching this cast of cardboard cutouts get devoured in creative ways is wasted on watching them try to develop their dull back stories with acting on par with a Syfy channel original movie. I understand that there's not a big name actor to be found in the movie, but I wouldn't care about that if the focus was on the kills. I can probably only think of one kill in the movie that actually lived up to its full potential.

 The collection of unsatisfying kills ties back into the lack of an R-rating. The goriest the film ever gets is watching blood gather in the water at the scene of a shark attack after cutting away from the close up viewpoint that you would want to watch the attack from. One would think the movie would take advantage of its female cast in bikinis but even the eye-candy is tamer than a puppy that's been beaten into submission by its master.

"Shark Night" feels of the same ilk as garbage like "Prom Night" or "Sorority Row". Like those movies, it sacrifices the ability to be thrilling or entertaining in favor of aiming for a younger, more massive audience that's willing to jump scared at anything. Unlike those movies however, I can at least compliment "Shark Night" for being (borderline) hilariously terrible.

From the horrible effect work on the sharks to the ludicrous plans of the antagonists revealed in a twist ending, the audience that I went to see this with never stopped laughing for a second. For all the movie's problems, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time. Even the titular 3D was more impressive than I would have thought it to be. When the camera is underwater, it feels like it's underwater. When the sharks are coming at you, you may actually be taken aback for a second, despite how poor they look.

I'll be honest; I did expect more from director David R. Ellis. I would have hoped that the man that created "Snakes on a Plane" would have delivered something a bit more satisfying than what I ultimately had to sit through, but I can't help but shake the feeling that the PG-13 rating is the heart of all of this film's problems.

As a film, "Shark Night 3D" is easily one of the worst movies I've seen this year. Despite this fact, if you have a group of friends with a sense of humor, I simply can't resist marginally recommending it as an experience.