PSYCHO SHARK (2009)
"Underwater Terror!"
RATED: UR
RUNNING TIME: 70 Min.
DIRECTOR: Hijiro John
CAST: Nonami Takizawa, Airi Nakajima, Mika InagakiSUMMARY: Beautiful girls are in danger. At Sunny Beach, a huge shark is waiting for his prey. College students Miki and Mai arrive on a private beach on a tropical island. They can't find the hotel where they booked their reservations, and have gotten hopelessly lost, until a handsome young man shows up, offering to take them to his lodge. But something is not right about the place. The owner's fingernails are tainted with blood and Miki feels something sinister lurking nearby. (from CineEpoch.Com)
FILM: What would you expect from a DVD whose artwork features an impossibly large shark swallowing a woman whole? You might say "There's a Region 1 release of GREAT WHITE (1981)?" which was a film infamously pulled from theatres after Universal Pictures won a lawsuit against it's producers for being too derivative of JAWS. Furthermore, I tell you the original title was JAWS IN JAPAN and that to avoid legal confrontation with Universal Pictures the title was changed shortly before it's release here in the States? Well, I expected some blood-soaked shark carnage exploitation. What we get is a bikini exploitation bonanza with very little shark.
Two very attractive young women named Miki and Mai are vacationing on a gorgeous island when they befriend a handsome young man who turns out to be a serial killer. What ensues is a confusing tale to say the least. Maybe perhaps because I found it difficult to concentrate on the subtitles while these bikini-clad women frolicked on the beach and in the shower I may have missed out on the subtle nuances of the storyline, but I doubt it. In reality this is a serial killer flick and the shark played very little into the storyline. If you make it through to the end of the film you'll be treated to the most heinous looking CGI shark ever created. It's an absurd thing of beauty and you'll be asking yourself WTF!
DVD: Psycho Shark is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen in Japanese with an English subtitle option. Special features include an18 minute Making Of featurette (in Japanese with no English subtitles), a Stills Gallery and several trailers for titles available from Cinema Epoch.
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| PSYCHO SHARK aka JAWS IN JAPAN (2009) Vs. GREAT WHITE (1981) |
VERDICT: Massive disappointment. Don't promise me a bloody shark-sploitation film and hand be a contrived serial killer flick with a hackneyed found footage element, this I cannot abide. PSYCHO SHARK is set to be released on October 12th through Cinema Epoch. Next up from Cinema Epoch is THE DARK LURKING (2009) which I must say I enjoyed quite a bit. *1/2(1.5 Out of Five Stars)
- McBASTARD
