A PG-13 rating makes for more Finding Nemo, less Jaws ...

Shark Night is a strange beast of a film. Calling it a good movie would, of course, be ridiculous, but it’s not exactly bad in any way you could measure it. Hell, it’s barely a movie in any way you could measure it. The set-up is familiar enough - a group of college kids go to a lake, and are slowly picked off by sharks - but the devil is most certainly in the details with this one.

For starters, this is a PG-13 film, which is unimaginable in so many ways. For starters, there’s still an awful lot of (very digital-looking) blood in the film, and you do see a guy’s bloody stump of an arm at one point. So maybe the PG-13 is getting pretty lenient these days - truth be told, I so rarely pay attention to a film’s rating that I tend not to notice - but whatever the case, if you’re looking for the sheer R-rated boobs-and-blood insanity of 2010’s Piranha 3D, you’d be best advised to just watch that again.

However, Shark Night is not slight on the narrative insanity that one wouldn’t be wrong in expecting. I’d hate to spoil the whole scene for you, but let’s just say that the inquiry as to what sharks are doing in a lake isn’t just a means of fending off scientifically-geared questions. The answer is by far the most interesting part of the film (apart from that scene where a shark leaps out of the water to eat a guy off a jet-ski, because, you know, there’s that), and takes the whole thing into the gonzo territory in which you’d wished it’d existed all along. This is a short, short movie, with a listed 90-minute running time that is actually closer to 80 when you remove the credits, and - surprise! - a music video from the equation, and the first forty-five are dreadfully dull. College kids want to have sex with one another, and just might if it weren’t for those pesky sharks. Once an important secret is revealed, however, the film kicks into high gear and it’s all mayhem from there.

Your appreciation of the film will hinge on your willingness to hang with the bad times to get to the good, and just how “extreme” you require your entertainment to get. While the blood-and-guts may push the limits of PG-13, this being the MPAA, the sexual content certainly does not, in spite of its many teases to the contrary. Does it all add up to much? Not really, but after all, it is called Shark Night.

Looks

20th Century Fox released this on Blu-ray, albeit not in any 3D edition, and the results are less than satisfactory. As one might expect from its title, a good deal of Shark Night takes place after sunset, and those scenes are a little on the muddy side. Daytime scenes fare very well - nice and bright and crisp and all that good stuff - but it’s the indoor scenes that are real trouble. “Soft” is the key word here, with blacks looking more like grays and whites looking a little yellowish. As this was a digital shoot top-to-bottom, I suspect it’s as much with the source as the transfer, but either way, this isn’t a terribly compelling presentation.

Audio

Dialogue is nice and clear, as is the film’s score, but one would have difficulty remembering much else from the audio presentation. As with the video, it’s easy to guess that this is a problem with the source, and they’re presenting what they have on hand, but there aren’t a lot of dynamic moments at any rate.

Extras

“Shark Attack! Kill Machine!” strings together the death scenes in the film into one tidy little package running under six minutes. It’s nice enough, but I doubt I’m the only one who would be fine with just the shark eating the jet-ski guy over and over again.

“Shark Night’s Survival Guide” is another excuse to doll out the kill reel, this time with some voiceover illustrating the precautions one might take to avoid such a fate.

“Fake Sharks - Real Scares” is the closest one gets to a genuine behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, focusing on the blend of practical fake sharks with computer-generated ones. The practical sharks actually look pretty decent in the film, while the low budget shows a little bit with the CGI stuff. At any rate, this runs about five-and-a-half minutes, and is pretty decent at that.

“Ellis’ Island” is a straight EPK piece on director David R. Ellis (of Snakes on a Plane fame), most centering around the cast talking about how awesome he is. I don’t disbelieve them, but there’s very little to be garnered here for most viewers.

You also get the film’s theatrical trailer, and a digital copy of the film.

Final Thoughts

Y’know, it’s Shark Night. What are you going to do? It doesn’t do for its genre what either Jaws or Piranha 3D did, but it’s not devoid of fun either. It seems like it’d be a real blast in 3D, but as we only have the 2D edition to contend with, it’s a little more wishy-washy. The technical presentation leaves a lot to be desired, as do the extra features, but, you know...it’s Shark Night.

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