It’s the last week of Shark Month on the blog, and I’m both sad and relieved. No one is meant to endure as many consecutive shark movies as Christa and I have this month.
The Film:
Ghost Shark
Where to Watch:
This one is actually somewhat difficult to find! I can’t find evidence of it ever getting a US release on DVD.
The Premise:
The titular ghost shark materializes along the beach of a coastal town. It’s a good thing sharks are confined to the ocean…right?
The Uncondensed Version:
You know how you can plan a trip down to the last detail, but at a certain point you are inevitably going to get tired of your playlist/audiobook/video selections? And from there you will just go off in a completely different direction that won’t be fun no matter how hard you try?
Yes. This movie.
Like almost every other shark movie this month, we can thank an incredibly insensitive fishing crew for unleashing the shark’s wrath upon humanity.
Two crew members, angry at having lost a contest, use guns, crossbows, and finally a grenade to kill a great white shark. Just because they’re angry?!!?! These people have to be rage addicts because that is not a reasonable reaction to being angry. Definitely on the shark’s side in all of this.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand who are the shark’s next victims? Teens partying on the beach, of course. And the old voyeuristic lighthouse keeper who watches them.
One of the first people to go is the girl playing the role of stereotypical teen bitch, aka the one floating on an inflatable pool raft in the OCEAN. Is that a thing people do??? Ghost shark seems to favor jumping out of nowhere and biting people in half.
Don’t worry—the police are on this, trying to explain the translucent shark as being a trick of sunlight reflecting on it(?). As the crazy old lighthouse keeper warns, the shark has been sent to make everyone pay for their sins.
Priorities, though: one of our main teens is nervous that now no one will come to his pool party. Inevitably, this is not the case, and the pool is so full of teenagers that you know (even before learning some of the screwy rules of being a ghost shark) that a certain trick of the light phantom with many teeth will crash the party.
Other highly improbable victims of the ghost shark: a plumber working on the pipes under a kitchen sink, a child on a shark slip ‘n slide, and a teen girl at a car wash. Yeah.
The teens decide to team up with the old lighthouse keeper for reasons that make increasingly less sense until…
Halfway through this movie it’s revealed that there’s all of this mythology surrounding the shark. Like basically Roanoke happened but with a ghost shark. And of course exorcising the shark requires some kind of dark magic-type book which has conveniently disappeared.
The law also gets involved, uttering classics like “Get your gear. Goin’ fishin’,” and “I don’t want revenge; I want justice.” FROM A FUCKING GHOST SHARK. What does it even mean to get justice where a shark is concerned??? That’s a concept a shark just isn’t going to get.
Honorary Emmy for overacting goes to the lighthouse keeper, who just really commits to repeatedly losing his shit throughout the course of this film.
The Rating:
2/5 Pink Panther Heads
In contrast to the previous shark month selection, this is pretty bloody. Which is perhaps the only shark movie box this one manages to check.
I got bored with this because the plot was so choppy, I didn’t care about any of the characters, and there was absolutely no logic to the existence or attacks of the ghost shark. The shark was a ghost but required water to materialize? But not a large body of water since even setting off sprinklers could allow it to begin a murderous rampage… And what even created the ghost shark—nature’s thirst for vengeance?
I have so many questions that are destined to remain unanswered.
On a side note, the way this movie was shot makes it seem like it’s going to become a porno at any moment. Just me?
Bonus: Check out this Vulture article, which also features much higher quality screen caps than this post. What can I say, the copy I found wasn’t the greatest quality ever.
The Pink Panther Snipes Again 