Sh'Zone

Shark Zone (2003)
Directed by Danny Lerner
Screenplay by Sam Parish

The Sh’Zone is like a calzone, only it’s made of shark. And if Shark Zone was about a group of wacky and somewhat demented people who were trying to run a fast-food shark restaurant it would be awful and yet much more rich with possibilities than what Danny Lerner has cooked up in this shark film. I wish I could say that Danny Lerner was the John Ford of shark films, but that does neither of those men due credit for their value. Danny Lerner kept monster movies alive when it looked like they were all but gone, except for the occasional reappearance. But rather than let Deep Blue Sea stand as the last gasp of the shark film, Danny Lerner bellied up to the bar and made some just plain awful films. But without the Shark Attack series and such horrors as Shark Zone, Raging Sharks and Sharks in Venice, we wouldn’t have such gems as Sharktopus and other films made by Danny Lerner’s competitors in the continual game of monster-one-ups-manship.

Andrew Wagner, an ex-SEAL....Alan Austin (Guiding Light, Air Marshal, Maximum Velocity)
Jimmy Wagner, his son....Dean Cochran (The Bold and the Beautiful, Meet the Spartans)
Carrie Wagner, Jimmy’s wife....Brandi Sherwood (Miss Teen USA 1989, Miss USA 1997, The Price Is Right, The Bold and the Beautiful, married to Dean Cochran)
Danny Wagner, their son.....Luke Leavitt
Mayor John Cortell, a California mayor....Alan Austin (Two roles in the same crappy movie? I hope they paid him twice as much.)
Volkoff, the Russian Burl Ives, a shady investor....Velizar Binev (Man with the Screaming Brain, Alien Apocalypse) This is some of Velizar’s best work to date.
Boris, a flunky....Plamen Zahov (Shark Attack 3: Megalodon)
Nikolas, another flunky....Alexander Petrov
Vlad, another flunky....Boiko Boyanov
Ilya...Dimiter Dimitrov
Riley, a scuba tourist....Svilena Vlangova
Billy, a scuba tourist....Yulian Vergov (Shark Hunter, Raging Sharks, Mansquito, S.S. Doomtrooper, The Fourth Kind)
Melissa, a scuba tourist....Vessela Neinski
Harker....Daniel Tzochev (Raging Sharks, Alien Siege, S.S. Doomtrooper)
Tyler....Franklin Vallette (Alien Hunter, Mansquito, Octopus 2: River of Fear, Zarkorr! The Invader)
Nick...Kalin Yavorov
Cesar...Martin Dorcey
Corde....Jonas Talkington (THE Jonas Talkington from Man with the Screaming Brain and Alien Apocalypse)
Jordan, a bartender....Stefan Lysenko (Trasharella)
Tesha....Violeta Markovska (Octopus 2: River of Fear, It’s Alive, Copperhead)

Cinematography by Emil Topuzov (Raging Sharks, Mansquito, Hammerhead, Mega Snake, Cyclops)

You know you’re in trouble when a movie like this starts with a Spanish galleon (flying what looks like a Dutch flag) and a narrator talking about lost treasure. What is the deal with sharks guarding treasure? This is the third shark film I’ve seen directed by Danny Lerner (please, shoot me now) and in all three of them the sharks are guarding something. Guard-sharks? Really?
At least the sharks in this film are not 1) dumped in the water by a nefarious mafioso, 2) the result of genetic research, or 3) mutated by radioactive waste from an alien spacecraft.
Also, at least the treasure of the galleon is just plain treasure and not sort of Raiders of the Davinci Grail crap.
I guess at a certain point you just have to accept the small mercies of bad films.

So, the retired Navy SEAL is taking a bunch of tourists on a dive to find the wreck of the Spanish treasure ship. They dive from what looks like a Bulgarian military helicopter. (Because Bulgaria has been secretly sending its army to Oakland for years now.) When they hit the water they are all able to communicate perfectly despite having breathing apparatus in their mouths. (This is a trademark of many of these aquatic monster films. I can't believe I still haven't gotten used to it.) Then they find the ship. Well, actually they find two wrecks, though it’s never clear if that’s part of the plot or just bad editing. They find a remarkably well-preserved wooden hull (apparently this stretch of California waters has no life forms other than sharks to take apart the wooden vessel. But the tourists are also diving around what is clearly another more modern looking steel hulled vessel. None of this matters because before you can say “kelp” there is a pack of great white sharks feasting on everything. The ex-SEAL manages to get his son Jimbo to swim really fast to escape the shark that eats him. I guess all that special forces training doesn’t mean much when faced with a hungry pack of growling sharks. Oh, yeah. It wouldn’t be a Danny Lerner shark film without the trademark pig grunting and tiger growling of these porkers. I kind of wish Lerner would create an MGM style logo with a roaring shark in the middle.

Anyhow, this prelude sets the scene for what happens a few years later. Jimbo is a little older and he’s in charge of keeping the beaches shark free for the local festival of whatever it is these people are celebrating. Jimmy has earned a reputation as being a bit paranoid about sharks. This is natural since he was the sole survivor of a shark massacre in these same waters. In fact, this film is in many ways about PTSD. Jimmy is suffering from a severe case of shark shock. On two notable occasions he has dream sequences where he imagines shark attacks that kill his wife or child. More about this later. The point is, not only is this a film about a son trying to visit some vengeance upon sharks for killing his father, but it’s also a film about grief, sacrifice and psychological trauma.

Of course, you might also say it’s a film about a lifeguard who spends his time watching topless girls on the beach instead of looking out for sharks. The funny thing about the lifeguard is that what he sees are not just inserted scenes, but at least one of these bits is an insert of the topless sunbather from Shark Attack 2. Which means that either the lifeguard’s ogling can break space and time barriers or he is able to break the fourth wall and see other shark films, thus recognizing that he is in a shark film.

So the sharks kill a bunch of people. And this has the business community worried. The mayor needs to find some money to keep his festival afloat. He gets his backing from Volkoff, the Russian Burl Ives. Volkoff’s only stipulation is that he wants Jimmy to help him find the Spanish galleon treasure. This should be easy, because the ship is fully intact next to a kelp bed just off the coast. But Jimmy will have nothing to do with the treasure because that’s where his father died and he won’t go back there. Even though he’s never left the vicinity and is quite willing to ride around in a helicopter just over the same spot every day. And I have to say that despite having dozens of people killed in his town the mayor is one of the most nonchalant relaxed executives I’ve ever seen.
It’s not that human life means nothing to him, but he’s clearly not worried about the scale of the killings. It’s almost like he hasn’t been watching the insert scenes from Shark Attack 2 that show a bunch of people being killed on a beach that is now supposed to be his beach. Or maybe he realizes that the shark attacks are meta-sharks inserted in from another film and thus aren’t really killing anyone at all. As for the populace of his town, if women are still willing to take off their tops and jump off the pier AT NIGHT, then they either aren’t worried or haven’t been keeping up with the news. Of course, people who disappear in a nighttime buffer like that don’t even pop up on the mayor’s radar. Still, after a few dozen more daytime deaths the mayor has to let Jimmy take some action.

So, Jimmy gets together his diving buddies and goes on what has to be the most incompetent raid since Custer went over that ridge at the Little Bighorn. I’m still not sure why Jimmy put his friends into shark cages and then just watched them all get eaten instead of sending them down there with harpoons and other fighting implements. Was he using his friends as bait? Or has he gone insane? So, Jimmy now has to gather a second expedition for even more revenge. Having killed off the rowdiest crew of experience divers in town he finds himself going back to sea with just a bartender to accompany him. Lucky for Jimmy, the bartender isn’t stupid enough to go in the cage and then into the water. Instead he and Jimmy just shoot at the sharks from the boat. Why wasn’t this the original plan to begin with? Granted, they’re still so incompetent that they can only save one of a group of teenagers who are out on the water. But they do manage to shoot a lot of sharks before heading back to town.

And this is where the heist story comes back into play. Because Volkoff wasn’t about to let Jimmy off the hook about the treasure. When Jimmy doesn’t play ball Volkoff kidnaps Jimmy’s son and threatens to dump the kid in the ocean if Jimmy doesn’t show him the treasure. Jimmy rescues his kid and Volkoff and his crew end up getting eaten by sharks. Which raises an important question--how many great whites are in this killer pack of sharks here and why is Jimmy not concerned about this reappearance of his aquatic nemeses?

We’ll never know because Jimmy takes his family on a big cruise ship for a well-earned vacation. And this is where the PTSD sets in again, because just before the ending Jimmy imagines seeing a giant great white rear it’s scary head in the swimming pool of the cruise ship. Jimmy is not well. And that’s where the film leaves us. Jimmy shrugs and laughs it off as he realizes he was just imagining things. Jimmy may have a tumor or be at risk for a massive psychological breakdown.

So, if you’re thinking of snacking on a Sh’Zone and watching this film, keep in mind that while the premise isn’t as visually arresting as Sharks in Venice, the execution here is a little better. (You actually see more shark action here than in that film.) And Shark Zone isn’t as batshit insane as Raging Sharks, unless you count Jimmy’s nightmares.
There’s something to be said for this film. I don’t know what that something is, but I’m sure there’s something to be said for it. Shark Zone, in short is a midlevel third tier shark film. Not as good as Shark Attack 2, better than Raging Sharks and both better and worse than Sharks in Venice.

As for the sh'zone? There are clearly worse ideas than a film about people trying to sell shark wraps and falafel from a pier in Port Aransas.

Bonus
1. Trailer
Even the trailer for this movie can’t really excite me about it. Watching a trailer for Shark Zone after having seen the film is a bonus feature only if you consider yourself cheated if they decided to not include it at all. And yeah, if they'd skimped on that "bonus" I would have felt cheated. I know it's like getting a plate full of southern fried horse crap and complaining if you didn't get the raccoon shit hushpuppies on the side with it, but that's the way it goes.
Previews
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An abandoned gold mine, some greedy young folk with exposed midriffs and Karen Black.
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Home Room
Holland Taylor, Victor Garber, Busy Philipps and Erika Christensen in a creepy school shooting movie. I can only hope there are sharks in that film also.
Wolves of Wall Street
Eric Roberts is the leader of a pack of stockbrokers/werewolves. If they corner the market on silver, they’ll be unstoppable.
Shark Zone
Shark Zone [VHS]