Thursday , March 28 2024
Even dumber than you could possibly imagine.

Blu-ray Review: Jersey Shore Shark Attack

Prior to the news that the actual Jersey Shore was to finally be canceled for its crimes against humanity, the only hope one might have seen on the horizon when it came to beach-faring douchebags was the wildly inept SyFy spoof, Jersey Shore Shark Attack — which, coincidentally, aired less than three months prior to the news the degrading MTV reality show was to be canned by network execs. Here, parodies of the real Jersey Shore cast band together to stop a shiver of hungry albino bull sharks when underwater drilling releases them from the deep.

As you can well imagine, Jersey Shore Shark Attack is a really dumb made-for-TV flick: one that, sadly, doesn’t depict said caricatures of America’s least-favorite guido and guidettes being eaten. Instead, they are the heroes of the tale — something that causes one to wonder if the any of the four (!) writers involved in this cheesefest knew what the public really wanted to see. The story — an amalgamation of the recent remake of Piranha and ever-timeless Jaws — is littered with some truly bottom-of-the-barrel CGI FX, and some less-than-notable performances by its mostly un-furbished cast.

As far as polished actors go, Jersey Shore Shark Attack stars Jack Scalia as the police chief father of a guido, and features small roles by a desperate William Atherton, an out-of-work Tony Sirico, and an embarrassed and/or overly bored Paul Sorvino — the latter of whom has a whopping five minutes of screen time, and who actually looks at the crew behind the camera as he walks out of frame in the first of his two scenes with a classic look of “Don’t you dare ask me to do that again!” Needless to say, that’s about all this no-budget horror/comedy has going for it — but that’s hardly enough to recommend it to anyone.

And, mind you, this is a film that shows both Joey Fatone and actual Jersey Shore cast member Vinny Guadagnino being eaten by sharks.

Awful or not, Jersey Shore Shark Attack gets a grand High-Def transfer on Blu-ray courtesy the folks at Anchor Bay. The horrible phony bronze tans the film’s major characters pop out at you in this stunning transfer, wherein the fake blood is as vivid as can be, and the detail is so clear that the terrible CGI sharks look all the more fake. An equally-lively 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack accompanies the video presentation — and brings out every annoying sound the movie’s performers squeak out of their jaws. The only special feature to be found here is a five-minute promo piece for the film (most likely shot for SyFy’s slots of emptiness).

In short: Jersey Shore Shark Attack is hardly prime sharksploitation fodder. Sure, one should definitely expect oodles of stupidity from a title of this magnitude, but this is even dumber than you could possibly imagine it being. Which is really saying something, I’m sure.

Skip it.

About Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the alter-ego of a feller who loves an eclectic variety of classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) film and television. He currently lives in Northern California with four cats named Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Margaret. Seriously.

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