Review of Shark Night 3D (2011) by Benji B — 24 Jul 2014

For six college bound teens a getaway is exactly what they need. So when Sara invites her mates to her island beach-house for a sun soaked weekend they go without question, but once they arrive they find out that the lake surrounding Sara's idyllic beach-house is infested with sharks, huge sharks, but who put them there? The story is your typical teen schlock-fest slasher with no suspense, tacky gore and basic run of the mill characterse: A sexy slutty type, cocky arrogant guy, cool black dude, his hot girlfriend and a nerdy guy, but two of the characters aren't bland and they are played by Sara Paxton and Dustin Milligan as Sara and Nick, the former being a young girl with a past she'd like to forget and the latter a devoted college student desperate to pass his course, and these two alone drive the movie away from most of the generic parts and are actually enjoyable to watch.

Paxton is severely underrated, she was incredible in The Innkeepers and Last House On The Left and she is the saviour of Shark Night. The direction is lousy, David R. Ellis throws in fast forward montages accompanied by cheap guitar riffs and the result cheapens the film giving it a TV movie feel, the movie lacks tension, even considering that this is one of the gore-fests there should at least be palpable air of suspense, like Final Destination but instead we get sharks that fly out the water which in turn delivers unintentional laughs, I enjoyed myself at parts but never thrilled.