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Blu-Ray : One to Avoid
Ranking:
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Release Date: January 31st, 2012 Movie Release Year: 2012

2-Headed Shark Attack

Overview -

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.

OVERALL:
One to Avoid
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
BD25 disc
Video Resolution/Codec:
1080p/MPEG-2
Length:
90
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.78:1
Audio Formats:
English Dolby Digital 2.0
Special Features:
Gag Reel
Release Date:
January 31st, 2012

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

When '2-Headed Shark Attack' begins, we see a group of college kids playing around on a boat, with two lovely lasses water-skiing in skimpy bikinis while three probably inebriated guys drive the boat, take pictures, and generally act like douches. Between shots of the girls doing jump tricks, we see under the water, letting us know there's something down there...but what could it be in a film so vaguely titled? Out of nowhere, the creature surfaces and takes out both girls at the same time...one in each of its mouths. The guys aren't quite sure what happened, but soon enough a dorsal fin starts chasing their boat as they look for their accomplices. Flash to their boat being capsized, then random shots of blood-red water, gigantic shark teeth, and screaming.

If the producers and director behind '2-Headed Shark Attack' were smart, the film would have ended right here. There's no way to top what we've already seen, since everyone we've met so far is dead. Sure, the back of the package promises nudity, and this isn't a SyFy channel special with virtually no blood (there's plenty, folks), but the entire film feels like a copy+paste of virtually every other damn mega-creature feature made in the last five years.

Leave it to Professor Charlie O'Connell to turn a class trip on a boat to the middle of nowhere into a death trap. As a group of scantily clad young men and women seek easy course credits aboard their chartered ship, they get stranded near a deserted atoll after a dead shark causes damage to the ship. Little do they know when they hop on their dinghies and head to shore that there's a monster in the water, a mutated shark that kills with twice the efficiency of its non-mutant counterparts, and it's one pissed off sumbitch. Can they fix the ship with such a ruthless predator just waiting for them? Will the atoll offer them safety from being turned into chum, or sign their death warrant?

'2-Headed Shark Attack' isn't a fun ride. It really isn't. It's a very shoddily made, borderline idiotic feature that doesn't give fans of this specialty genre much to root for, and follows all the cliches along the way to make for a less than exciting, predictable "ride." For a moment in the film, you get the feeling that this may finally be the creature feature where the big nasty gets to live, where it will leave no survivors. In other words, there won't be a magical last ditch weapon rigged up that kills it when we're down to the core cast. It really teases us that we may finally see a monster that will outlive its prey, until there's about fifteen minutes left, and the whole thing just falls apart.

There's so much wrong with this film, it's hard to pinpoint the most egregious offenses. We'll start with Brooke Hogan and her dead eyes. She doesn't look despondent due to her predicament, nor her troubled past with sharks. Rather, she just looks soulless, and her acting convinces us that the limitations to her character were created by her and her inability to convey emotion or sell a single line reading. O'Connell is equally painful, with over-the-top line readings that feel like he were aiming for a hammy B-movie while the rest of the cast tries to take the material seriously, creating an odd mismatch that makes every scene with dialogue from the actor feel ten times slower than it really is.

Scene transitions are shoddy, with the shark moments always teased with underwater shots for no reason other than to remind us that it's, in fact, the same shark attacking these doomed maritimers. There's no natural shifts or segues, just clunks and forced changes that don't help our minds link the scenes together in any fashion. The characters are all unlikeable, and pardon the chauvinism, not even the large mammaries flaunted so shamelessly beneath revealing swimsuits (or being fully bared in one prolonged scene) can make us forgive how unbearable each piece of shark fodder is. The tension of being in such a shitty scenario isn't sold, and the general douchiness of a number of characters in such times shows us that very little thought was put into humanizing the characters, outside of making a few even more unlikeable than the others.

And then, there's the titular character, the reason anyone watches this flick. Brooke Hogan...no, wait, that's not right. Do you remember those awkward shark shots in 'Jaws' or the other rip-off films that were immediately inspired by it, when a character is shown in a close-up with part of the creature, and it looks so fake that it's hard to be freaked out? This is the first modern creature feature I've seen that has this effect, as there are numerous moments where the most pathetically stupid prop shark are used and act as the film's biggest buzzjoy. Nevermind the inconsistencies with the shark's size, or the depth of water it's swimming in, or its speed. Heck, nevermind the moments where you can see inside the shark's mouth (or, at least, one of them) and see how thin and hollow the CG creature is. The entire effort is all for naught when there's so many prop shark moments that make the creature as sellable as O'Connell in a mainstream film.

'2-Headed Shark Attack' is a "been there, done that" film with very little to offer its audience. No matter how braindead you like your movies, this one will still offend with its pointlessness. While death scenes are bloody enough and strategically placed throughout the film to keep one's bloodlust going, there is nothing that will make this stinker of a direct-to-video joke enjoyable to even the most ardent and forgiving fans of the genre. I know most interested will still be checking it out since I just promised blood, nudity, and a 2-headed fucking shark, but they can't blame me when they realize that they just wasted an hour and a half of their life on a film that feels like it lasts an eternity.

Video Review

Ranking:

Another Asylum Blu-ray, another Asylum Blu-ray with major problems. Nothing new in that regard. '2-Headed Shark Attack' shows plenty of potential, but the chuckleheads who authored this disc (and the employees who did no quality control) are to blame for this MPEG-2 1080p transfer's failure. The picture is regularly very bright and colorful, with solid color saturation, and appreciable skin tones that don't exhibit too much orange. Detail is sound, while depth is appreciable. There's some light artifacting in the sky, but it is mostly masked as your eye isn't drawn in those quarters.

That doesn't sound like a low scoring disc, right? Good details, color, only minor issues. The thing is, at around 58:16, for an entire minute, the picture macroblocks insanely. Sometimes it pulses a few times a second, alternating every few frames, sometimes it's just in the background, sometimes it's the entire picture, but for one minute, this film is virtually unwatchable. It's bad. It's really freaking bad. I don't understand how an error this large could slip right past any company. It takes some serious lack of giving a crap to let a disc go to market with even ten seconds of this garbage, let alone a full minute with tons of cutaways to other characters, making the effect even more noticeable. Sad.

Audio Review

Ranking:

There are two audio options for '2-Headed Shark Attack,' both of which are found in the features tab of the menu: Dolby Digital 5.1 (the default track), or Dolby Digital 2.0. Pick or choose, either way you lose on this one. The 5.1 track is a step up from the 2.0, honestly, as there are some very light, very sparse moments where you can discern a difference. Very, very few. Rears get the most muted, muffled ambience you'll hear on disc, and you'll only hear it if you strain yourself. There's some movement, with shark attacks localizing (usually to the right channels), but it's very clunky and sounds awful. The music in the film has no depth, and when mixed with dialogue, every element drowns out in one big mess. On the bright side, though, the music is so horrendously out of place and ill fitting that you'll be thanking the stars that you aren't hearing it any clearer.

Special Features

Ranking:

There is a tab for assorted Trailers to other Asylum films that are shown in the massive pre-menu trailer roll. There is also a trailer for this film.

  • Making Of (HD, 9 min) - Things I wanted to know having seen the film: how much sunscreen was used? Will we find out why this film thinks topless means skinny dipping? Was there more time spent filming the film than the takes we see here? Is there anything more to costume design on a film like this where costumes don't change aside than just finding one set of clothing? Could O'Connell be any worse?
  • Gag Reel (HD, 1 min) - Oh no, more prop shark!!! More O'Connell failures!!!

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. A horrid, painfully awful cast. A stupid creature. A horrible video anomaly. Boring audio. Crap for extras. This is just a waste of a Blu-ray disc, no matter how you cut it. There's no excuse for this kind of failure in 2012. None. Not even Echo Bridge screws up this royally. Take that as a hint. Avoid this disc, and be thankful you did.