FILM REVIEW: Shark Night 3D

Shark Night 3D.

I didn't need to read reviews of Shark Night 3D to know that it was going to be a bad movie but I decided to watch it anyway. I'm a fan of these shark-attack films such as Jaws and Pirhanna so I thought I'd give Shark Night a shot purely because there are not that many films of this genre available. To make matters worse, I didn't even watch this in 3D, though I suppose you could say that's a good thing because I doubt the effects would've been that good anyway and it would've cost me twice the amount.

Shark Night 3D is about a group of friends who visit the family lakehouse of Sara for the weekend. Expecting it to be a weekend filled with relaxation and fun, their weekend quickly turns into a nightmare as their friend Malik stumbles out of the lake with his arm torn off. Assuming this is a freak accident caused by water-boarding the friends rush to their boat in order to sail across the lake to dry land where they can get Malik help. However, they soon realise that the lake is in fact filled with flesh-eating sharks. What's even worse is that they were put there on purpose. The friends try desperately to make it to dry land without being eaten alive but not all of them will survive and some will meet a grisly fate in the dark waters of the lake.


Shark Night 3D is a teen horror movie where all the main characters are college students so of course, the acting standard is pretty poor. The cast comprises of actors who have been in many other teen-related movies or television serials, but apparently they all dropped what little talent they had just as quickly as the characters they played ditched clothes for swimsuits. Granted, it is quite difficult to pull off a convincing act when the story line is ridiculous (at least, I sincerely hope it is), but I was hoping for something a little better. Sara Paxton plays the protagonist Sara Palski alongside Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack and Joel David Moore. For most of the movie, I found the characters incredibly irritating as they clearly lacked sense and reason when it came to dealing with emergency situations. There's a lot of screaming and squealing from the girls (and guys) and not a lot of thinking - so really, it's no wonder most of them die.

The plot line isn't actually that predictable as there is a certain plot twist that will shock the viewers - at least I wasn't expecting it, but I could've fallen asleep by that point. There isn't a lot of depth to the story, it's very one dimensional and there clearly wasn't a lot of thought put into it. The CGI effects weren't particularly great at convincing me that there were in fact real sharks in the lake. In addition, I thought there was quite poor use of lighting and camera as the screen was dark for a lot of the time, made worse by the fact that a lot of the story took place at night). It was a little gory at times, but in a silly way, as it was not realistic enough for it to be frightening.

I wouldn't recommend Shark Night 3D, even if, like me, you're a fan of these hungry fish tales. It lacks plot, direction and good acting and doesn't have much going for it really.