Man Alive, I’m tired after that…
I covered a news piece on this back in December 2011 and what we have here, is yet another fine “mockbuster” creature feature movie brought to us by those good people at The Asylum, purveyors of such quality films as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.
It’s 2-Headed Shark Attack. A shark with 2 heads? Asylum, you have my attention. A simple glance at the tag line “1 body, 2 heads and 6000 teeth” more or less seals the deal. Come on in, son, the water’s fine.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that 2-Headed Shark Attack was directed by Christopher Ray, the son of the bikini lover’s favourite B-movie director, Fred Olen Ray, whose bikini and breast worship films I listed at length in my review of Super Shark. It would appear that the younger of the Rays has been taking many of his cues from Daddy dearest’s body of work. In this instance, the old adage of “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree“, has never been more apt.
Here’s a reminder of the brief synopsis:
When a Semester at Sea ship is sunk by a mutated two-headed shark, the survivors escape to a deserted atoll. But when it starts flooding, the coeds are no longer safe from the double jaws of the monster.
The movie proudly states that it stars Carmen Electra (Baywatch), though I really use the term stars loosely she kind of just features in it. It also stars Brooke Hogan (Sand Sharks), there’s your stamp of quality right there, and Charlie O’Connell, (brother of Stand By Me and Piranha 3D’s Jerry).
The movie opens on a group of 20-something students that take to the sea for some sort of vague science course being taught by the hilariously named Professor Babish (O’Connell) Now, you might think that being a science course at sea, it will be a boat full of nerds, well think again, friend.
This boat is full of bikini-clad babes who want to do nothing more than push out their perfect breasts and catch some rays. The guys? Well they all have body fat scores of zero! Perfect bodies galore and not one among them seems to be doing any learning. What kind of class is this? Why didn’t my science class at school look like this? Anyway this introduction to the plucky group quickly identifies our stereotypical characters and away we go.
Now I said the movie stars Carmen Electra and if you like Ms. Electra, then you are in luck as her contribution in this doesn’t stretch much past allowing us to be treated to some super shots (sometimes in slow-mo) of her sun bathing on the boat and she still looks great.
Predictably, the ship breaks down leading our 2-headed enemy to attack. In the chaos, the hull is damaged and the group on board flee on dinghies to an atoll (a small land mass that doesn’t quite cut it as an island) where the group start being picked off in spectacular fashion.
If you think that being on land is safe, think again! Though I’m sorry to say that there is no Sand Shark action here, this shark is somehow damaging the coral that the island sits on, causing the tiny atoll to sink into the depths where Ol’ Toothy is waiting. Some of our more learned “students” even try to explain how a 2-headed shark would come to be, citing various known cases of other 2-headed creatures that have arisen in nature, explaining them away as mutation, so why not a shark, indeed!
Anyway, the whole thing pretty much left me looking like this.
Why you ask?
Well our female protagonist, played with real depth of character by Brooke Hogan, is terrified of the water having had a shark encounter at the age of 12. Yet she makes the considered decision (Hogan Knows Best, after all) to take a science course, set at sea, somehow managing to overcome her intense fear of water ALMOST INSTANTLY and without years of expensive hypnotherapy and counselling, so that she can tackle the not inconsiderable challenge of diving underwater with welding gear to fix the damaged hull of a boat, while constantly leaping in and out of the water to try and save her friends.
The 2 headed shark itself added to the confusion. What size is this beast? Is there more than one? Sometimes it was as big as the boat yet at other times, just a regular sized shark, but obviously packing the extra head! It all depended on how they were shooting the scene. The shark also roars like a lion. Do sharks even have vocal chords? The one in Jaws: The Revenge also roars, so perhaps.
As threatened, the island sinks, leaving our actors trapped in the water yet we are constantly shown land in the not too distant background. SWIM. Save yourselves.
Apart from all that nonsense, it wasn’t awful at all. It’s actually quite well presented. The effects were OK. The acting and script were as you’d expect and I’d happily question any of the scientific “facts” presented over the duration of the film. The scenes of the shark tearing it’s human prey apart, like two dogs wrestling over a piece of meat, were pretty cool. Without any doubt, my favourite part of the film was the “ménage a trois” scene with some lovely girls, breasts bobbing in the brine, being killed off by a head each! Lovely stuff.
If you love a good shark B-movie then this is for you. If you love to ogle Carmen Electra, then fella, this is also for you.
