SHITTY FLICKS: RAGING SHARKS

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up. 

Shark movies are the cat's pajamas. Whether they're the good ones (Jaws) or the bad ones (all the rest of 'em), there's just something so rockin' about seeing the same stock footage from Discovery Channel being utilized in every single direct-to-video shark movie. Now, this time, we have a real treat: stock footage of Corbin Bernsen, as gnarled as ever, ending every scene he is in with holding onto submarine innards and looking pensive.

The plot: 

Corin Nemec, who is basically Eric Stoltz, but affordable, works on an underwater observational laboratory, the Oshona. He shaves everything on his face except his neck. He is married to Vanessa Angel, who has seen better days.

Nickelodeon presents:

Together, they deal with Alien rocks that fall from space and land in the ocean (after crashing through a ship, of course, for some neat funky explosions). The sharks near the crack become RAGING and attack people near and far, because GOD, alien crack just DOES THAT TO SHARKS.

The cast is filled out with bad American actors and bad Bulgarian actors. Among these characters are several portly gentleman and an annoying blonde chick, who says stupid things in an annoying manner.

Sometimes the sharks are represented by plastic heads, other times by stock footage, but it's always brilliant, even when the stock footage shows the shark swimming just below the water line, despite the fact that the action is supposed to take place several hundred feet under water.

Due to the rage of the sharks, some divers are attacked while doing special neato science things for the lab. The hairy-necked one himself was not present at the time of his attacks, for he had to drive around on L.A. roads, giving him a reason to be away from the lab.

His tired wife calls him and informs him of the eating, and he says, "I'll be right there." Then he just magically shows up in the lab, with the help of Captain Corbin Bernsen's nuclear sub.

From time to time, sharks swim around, just to let you know they're there. Whether it's computer-multiplied shark footage or hilariously fake looking wobble fins covered in shoddy carve nicks, the sharks are there in all of their brilliant and artificial glory.

In a bizarre turn of events, one of the characters announces the revelation that the sharks are in rage-form because they are protecting the gooey alien space ship. Despite this revelation, the sharks up and leave to Bermuda Beach to randomly attack surfers and divers. But then they come back and rage some more. Probably because they love space rocks.

"Hey, Bill Maher! Quit talkin' to your mom and get over here!"

A random smarmy lawyer man shows up and is smarmy, having heard about the shark attack, and gives our Eric Stoltz look-alike grief. Then Eric Stoltz's doppelganger and Vanessa Angel look at the space rocks together.

Vanessa Angel delivers a line twice, in the same exact way, one right after the other. 

"Well, find out what it is, OK?" 

"Well, find out what it is, OK?"

Eric Stoltz's hairy-necked twin calls for Matt, the scientist, who is in an unseen upstairs room, and who is also already in the process of entering the scene as he very flatly says, "Coming Mike."

The two discuss scientific bullshit that they spoon-feed to the audience, because lets face it: if you're watching this movie, you don't really know much about anything.

There are some profound lines delivered throughout the movie, such as:

"The Bermuda Triangle: don't they know how many ships have gone down here?"

"You idiots stumbled across it and triggered a beacon that shot into outer space."

and

Q: "Have you tried saturating it with deuterium?"

A: "Deuterium? No... Deuteriummmm......Of course!!"

During the movie, there is a shark autopsy performed. Inside the mouth of the shark sits an obvious tongue, which sharks do not in any way possess. But, then again, these RAGING sharks rewrite the big book of sharks that these filmmakers obviously failed to read.

"No, Punjab. The sharks will not eat us. We are made of shit."

Smarmy man turns out to be evil smarmy man and chases down our cast of characters, killing them one by one. He rattles off some bullshit about working for the CIA and that his cover up of the aliens was essential to our existence as we know it. Then he is sort of killed by a harpoon gun, which is apparently an essential tool in an underwater sea lab.

The film ends as brilliantly as it begins. ALERT explodes on the lab's computer screens with the same authenticity of a screen saver as explosions begin for no apparent reason.

Said aliens from the movie's intro beam down to the wreckage containing their rocks while the Oshona sits with no power or oxygen, due to said unexplained explosions that have crippled the lab.

Aliens, relishing in their beam of space light, sit and look around, set to a soothing operatic film score that totally does not belong anywhere near this movie.

As the dorky couple, trapped inside the Oshona, take their last breath, the aliens begin glowing so bright that orange light fills the screen. Just when it looks like curtains for our two lame marine biologists, we suddenly see them in full-out scuba gear, swimming away from the Oshona.

How did that happen?

You'll be on the edge of your seat, waiting for the explanation that never comes.

Also swimming away is the evil smarmy man who was clearly killed with a harpoon gun earlier in the film. Despite the giant harpoon in him, and the nearby aliens, and being several hundred feet under water, drowning, and surrounded by raging sharks, he still deems it necessary to attempt to kill the good doctor and his exhausted wife.

But don't worry. Mr. Smarm is instantly shoved in the plastic mouth of a plastic shark, and screams in his weird hoarse-voice.

Does this movie suck?

Yes. It does. A lot.

Did I love it?

Yes. I did. A lot.

And if the movie wasn't stupid enough, the DVD also provides content for you to scratch your head at.

I'd recommend watching the "Behind the Scenes" featurette, because you'll get to see everyone say with a straight face how good the movie is and why the audience will love it. They even go so far as to legitimize their claims with, "I think the audience will respond to the story because we're not just giving them sharks and/or aliens, but we're actually bringing together what has previously been two different and distinct genres."

You'll see one of the actors boast about his background in karate and how he did all his own stunts.

You'll see director Danny Lerner mutter unintelligibly in his unintelligible native dialect.

You'll see what has become of Vanessa Angel when she isn't covered in wholesale stage de-aging make-up.

The official cause of death for Hank was simply "Face Fart."

In the end, everyone has learned a lesson. Aliens have learned to keep their eye on their space goo. 

Eric Stoltz has learned to copyright his face, so every time Corin Nemec makes a movie, he gets a check. 

Corbin Bernsen has learned to not wear a blindfold when he signs his contract. 

And we, the audience, have learned that there has never been a good movie with “shark” in the title. Because really, anyone who willingly watches something called Raging Sharks deserves to be disappointed.