Ghost Shark
3.6 /10 1 Votes
Director Griff Furst Genre Horror Language English | 3.4/10 IMDb Duration Country United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date August 22, 2013 Writer Eric Forsberg (story), Griff Furst (story), Paul A. Birkett (screenplay) Cast Mackenzie Rosman (Ava), Shawn C. Phillips (Mick), Richard Moll (Finch), Robert Aberdeen (Museum Curator), Jayme Bohn (Alisyn), Eliot Brasseaux (Nerd)Similar movies Griff Furst directed Ghost Shark and Swamp Shark, Avalanche Sharks (2013), Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012), Sand Sharks (2011), Malibu Shark Attack (2009) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ghost Shark is a 2013 supernatural horror film directed for the Syfy television network by Griff Furst. With Furst joined by Paul A. Birkett and Eric Forsberg for screenwriting, the film premiered on Syfy on August 22, 2013.
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Despite being panned critically, the movie had some success attracting attention from social media due to its fantastical premise, with websites such as Vulture.com commenting on moments from the film. A supposed sequel, Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws, was released on 1 July 2015, but the two movies are unrelated in terms of narrative other than both being films featuring killer sharks.
Plot
When a great white shark eats the potential catch of a sport fisherman, the man and his daughter violently retaliates by sadistically torturing and killing the shark, whose corpse then sinks to the bottom of an underwater cave and is subsequently resurrected as a ghost shark due to the cave's mysterious paranormal properties. Now hungry for revenge, the ghost shark eats his redneck killers along with the captain of their boat, eventually setting its sights on the rest of the local community in the seaside town of Harmony. Due to the great white's new spectral form, it can attack and kill anyone as long as there is even the smallest amount of water nearby, including coming out of a swimming pool, a bathtub, a bucket, a metal pipe, and even a drinking cup, killing many people in several locations.
Though the terror is seemingly out of control, a group of young people trying to find answers end up having their pleas ignored. With the local mayor in the midst of his re-election campaign and other authorities unwilling to believe in such a state of events, teenager Ava Conte (Mackenzie Rosman), who vows to put an end to the specter after it devours her father and several friends, teams up with a local lighthouse keeper named Finch (Richard Moll), a drunken figure who claims to know the secrets to the shark's new-found form. After having being arrested, harassed, threatened, and otherwise impeded in their struggles, the group then finally manages to lay the creature to rest once and for all.
Cast
Reception
Critical reception for Ghost Shark has been predominantly negative. The film holds a rating of 29% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on seven reviews. For example, critic Jim Vorel wrote for Paste blasting the film as "a mind-numbing movie" featuring severe problems "[f]rom its performances to its horrendous execution in the editing room". He concluded, "the film violates the most crucial rule of trashy filmmaking— you can be stupid, but don’t be boring." Vorel particularly criticized the fact that the character of Cicily, played by Sloane Coe, is filmed in a sexually suggestive manner in several scenes despite the fact that she's identified as being too young to have a driver’s license (and is presumably under the age of consent).
One of the rare mixed to positive reviews for Ghost Shark came from Horrornews.net, with the film given a five out of ten score and labeled as featuring both "[s]pecial effects that would make a film student cringe" but also a "well experienced cast mixed with fresh faced and eager newcomers." The film was compared, both positively and negatively, to an episode of one of the Scooby-Doo cartoons. As well, in spite of being panned critically, the movie had some success attracting social media attention, with websites such as Vulture.com commenting on moments from the film.