Shark In Venice

Way back when DVDs first arrived on the scene they were prohibitively expensive, but as time rocked on they dropped and dropped in price to the point where some movies can be had for as little as £2 brand new. Most of theses titles, if not heavily discounted by chain-stores will end up being the sort of bargain basement, filler type fare. Think of the old B-movies of the 50's and you'll be about there.

I rented this gem from Gillingham library based purely on the title and subject matter. It actually made me laugh out loud when I read it. After all, how pissed must the makers have been when they put this one forward. We open with a dive team hunting for treasure hunting below the floating city of Venice. They get munched on by a shark and then, all of a sudden, we switch to a University lecturer being told his father has gone missing. He heads off to Venice to find out what happened and along the way he and his betrothed fall afoul of some mafia types and the titular sharks.

If that alone doesn't make you fall in love with this movie then you have no soul. There are moments in this film where one almost has to shout at the telly in disbelief, like the moment when a large shark (incidentally they Sharks are Great Whites) leaps out of the water and bites a gondola clean in half. Or there the but where the villain launches into exposition mode and tells our hero's that he introduced the sharks to the canals. No explanation of where they came from or how he feeds them or why they don't just swim away.

There are also scenes that just seem to be repeated for no apparent reason and Stephen Baldwin? Let's just say that his running style when being chased makes him look like he rides to work on the Sunshine Bus! The lines delivered here are done almost wince-inducingly badly and there plot holes and logic leaps of such monumental stupidity you wonder how it is that this film ever managed to get released. You would think that adding all of this up would mean that this is a movie to be avoided but you would be wrong, so very very wrong. In fact, this is a movie wort hunting down purely because of how bad it is. It's not quite at the level of shark based lunacy of say, Shark Attack 3 but it does come a fairly close second.