The Shark Film Office

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy  (2005) Director: Michael Oblowitz TC4P Rating: 3/9  Appearance: Mutant shark. As described in the film, a great hammerhead crossed with a human being that, incidentally, used to bang Hunter Tylo's character (the human being, not the shark. Don't be a sicko...) I kept hoping a bucket would appear out of nowhere in  Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy . Not to catch the vomit that any discerning viewer would spew without pause upon attempting to watch this execrable exercise in shark terror. And not to catch any of the massive doses of arterial spray that douse the screen frequently within the film’s labored attempt to update  The Most Dangerous Game  by making the hunter a screamingly mad scientist whose weapon of choice is a mutant giant hammerhead shark-human being hybrid.  No, the bucket is not for either of those reasons. The bucket is only for water. I wanted a bucket with water to appear to see if the characters would react to it ...

Below the Sea (1933) Director: Albert S. Rogell TC4P: 5/9 Appearance: Giant Octopus (of a species which doesn't occur naturally where this film takes place). We get so used to modern special effects and buying the b.s. as to their effectiveness in filmmaking – when it really could not be further from the truth in most cases – that we tend to dismiss everything that came before. Modern audiences also like to scoff at what they consider “primitive” techniques. I would argue that those primitive techniques, however moldy they may seem to us, were often far more efficient at helping the director tell his story than many of the slicker, more recent attempts where the effects overtake the story itself. Overriding effects can make the films nothing more than mere spectacle, sapping any true feeling away from the proceedings (crappy studio-driven scripting, where the concern is more on pleasing focus group rather than let a storyteller spin his yarn, can also contribute in a ma...