Review: Sand Sharks

The DVD Pile

Syfylis strikes again with another cheap deliberately cheesy film that seems to have been based on the output of a brainstorming session with a group of 8-year-old boys. The problem with shark films is that sharks live in the sea and that’s been done. What if the sharks could swim through sand? Yeah just like those worms in Tremors but with sharks. Because we all know sand is just like water and there really is thing called the sand shark

The film is set on a quiet island which is big enough to not just have beach but a desert. Two dirt-bikers are killed by the shark which flashes by in blur of CGI when it attacks, probably to avoid anyone getting a good look at the thing. The local sheriff’s department is confused by the deaths since Deputy Carly (Christina Corigliano) insists the deaths look like a shark attack but her brother Sherriff John Stone (Eric Scott Woods) points to the evidence that the deaths happened on the beach not in the water. He decides call in a shark expert to help them, however the expert he wanted is dead but his daughter Sandy Powers (Brooke Hogan) is also a shark scientist so she agrees to come along instead.Also arriving on the island is Jimmy Greene (Corin Nemec) a greedy selfish idiot who is also the son of the island’s Mayor Greenburg (Edgar Allan Poe IV – very cool name by the way). He wants to organise a large party on the island’s beach based on the same idea the Sundance or Wickerman festivals of ripping off a bunch of stupid dirty hippies and ravers. He sells the idea to his father as a great way to bring money to the island but he’s mostly interested lining his own pocket and paying off his investors (more likely his moneylenders).

The film then does a shameless rip-off one of the key scenes in Jaws. At a town meeting Sherriff Stone tells them that he thinks it would be a good idea to shut the beaches until they find out what’s causing the deaths and stop it. This certainly does not go down very well with Greene who already has tens of people on their way to island for the party. It could end up costing him a couple of hundred dollars. Then a crotchety old nutcase called Angus (Robert Pike Daniel) appears and tells them than they are facing sharks that swim in the sand and he can get rid of them for a price. It seems to be very common in horror films that the ramblings of the least stable and most insane people turn out to be true.

Dr Sandy examines the remains and discovers a very large tooth in one of the bodies. She tells Sherriff Stone that she’s never seen anything like it but she has also worked out that it’s from a baby whatever it is. No-one grasps the implications of this until she has to spell it out later in the film that babies mean mommies that are usually much bigger.

This film tries too hard be funny but I got more laughs at the pathetically small group of about 50 extras that were supposed be a party of thousands. The continuous use of Jaws references only served to remind me of what it would be like to watch a decent shark film. The acting is okay but the poor direction during the party scenes and the shark attack was cringe-inducing. I don’t think I can really recommend this film. It’s not completely unwatchable but it really isn’t as funny as it thinks it is and it is rubbish.

Rating 4/10

Related Articles

• Sand Sharks (2011) (atthemovieswithsilver.wordpress.com)
• IMDb
• Amazon