Land Shark (2017) User Reviews

Possibly a Misleadingly Nuanced Experiment in Terror

[AnDread_The_Blind · 2/10 · 18 June 2018]

Now, it could be that everyone who sees this movie is completely misunderstanding it. What is seen as terrible, wooden acting, is actually carefully worked-out performance meant to keep the viewer off-kilter. The papier-mâché creature, a shark injected with human DNA that can come on land, rather than being more laughable than a middle school kid's attempt at special fx, challenges our desire for spectacle and for demonizing nature. The generic synth music and stock musical cues, claimed by critics to be less emotionally inspiring than the sound of lint falling out a bellybutton, reimagines terror as a deconstruction of melody and music's immersive illusion.

There are a lot characters without names (with less characterization and screen time than the time it takes to roll your eyes) who die graphic, bloody deaths. This means POV shot with a distortion plugin, actor falls, screaming, shot of fake-looking shark jaws, then shot of ketschup being sprayed on a wall as if it were a hotdog. We see a hot date with dumb young adults literally talking about meeting on Tinder, which I'm sure is a commentary on how ephemeral and unreliable technology has rendered our relationships.

The rest of the movie follows two scientists, Foster and Lucinda, tracking down the Land Sharks and having several epic, nearly mortal battles with them. They work for an evil corporation (made up of one middle-aged woman on Skype) trying to weaponize sharks to fight on land and sea. Yes, it's only a slightly more absurd premise than Vincent D'Onofrio's attempt to weaponize raptors in Jurassic World.

Thankfully, our leads have turns of philosophical rivalry and sexual tension. They get profound dialogue such as this:

Foster: Well, we can't do anymore tonight, so, we'll have to get a motel.

Lucinda: Oh, separate rooms.

Foster: Trust me, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Lucinda: At least we agree on something.

The movie ends with a confrontation between good and evil, man and nature, beauty and beast. We're left hungry for the chum suggestive of a continued saga in Land Shark 2: Land of the Sharks, dumped into the opaque waters of the conclusion.

I don't believe I watched this movie. I could only do it by writing this review most of the time, and looking up occasionally to see what was happening on screen. 2/10. Available on. Amazon Prime for your viewing pleasure.

A lens distortion plugin leaves the ocean to eat people.

[Nuxork · 2/10 · 26 August 2017]

This movie was rough to watch.

*****SPOILERS*****

An (assuming) pharmaceutical company is experimenting on sharks to find cures for cancer and other such maladies. Unfortunately some of the sharks being experimented on develop the ability to leave the ocean and go on land to claim victims and wreak havoc.

The company decides to send it's two scientists who are experimenting on sharks to destroy the land sharks. But, as we find out, there are deeper and darker things afoot.

So Land Shark is a typical Polonia Brothers movie. Take an interesting concept and make it boring with cheap/bad effects and poor acting. Also, add tons of filler material to pad the movie out.

There are a lot of people eaten by the Land Sharks in this movie but, unlike other movies, they are just there to be eaten and not really move the story forward. For example: In Land Shark and Jaws a woman is eaten. In Jaws they find the body later and realize that there may be a killer shark out there. There is a consequence for the dead gal. In Land Shark gal is attacked and we never hear anything about it again. At least not that I noticed. No real impact on the story other than some poor lady got eaten.

Oh, and what a spectacle it is when people are attacked and eaten. The blood looks too transparent and it's apparent that they are using squirt bottles to squirt it on bodies, cars, signs, etc.

The acting is poor so the exposition between attack scenes is a bit...slow and hard to watch. There is a lot of wandering around in the woods with laser weapons and a tracker. This is obviously filler material. Sure, you need shots like this but it happens so much that if you are trying to build tension it's a wasted effort.

I'm amazed at the Land Sharks though. Not because they are anything special but rather that they do have a unique power of changing size. This isn't a good thing. In a lot of the POV shots the camera is clearly below the actors. In other shots the Land Sharks look as large a car or half the size of a house. Apparently continuity wasn't a thing in this flick.

Story wise the the movie is a predictable b-movie affair. You find your self asking "why" more than anything. For example: why did this major corporation just send out it's two scientists to take out the Land Shark rather than bring in some guns for hire.

Also, with the antagonists, there is a bit too much mustache twirling "I'm evil" going on. It hits you right in the face with it.

When the scientists are hunting the sharks they are given exceptionally powerful "laser blasters" but like many other things in this movie their ability changes. I would have loved for their to have been a line somewhere that said, "these laser blasters are powerful and will take down these house size sharks but each gun only has three charges. After that you are out of luck." Instead the guns are either used like a Star Wars gun (pew pew pew pew) non-stop firing. Or, they are not used at all, even when the shark is right next to them.

The ending of the movie was predictable and could be seen coming a mile away.

The thing that I did admire about the movie, and the reason why I gave it two stars, is the model effects and makeup effects. They are not outstanding. As a matter of fact they are quite poor. But, I admire the DIY effort to make these things and composite them in the film in some of these shots. I do appreciate that effort.

All in all though this movie is a bit of a slog to get through. At least for me it was.

...No, just... NO!

[neosildrake · 1/10 · 12 November 2017]

Acting: What acting??? Plot: A greedy company experiments on sharks, who then mutate and gain to ability to kill people on land.

Special Effects: cheap DIY homemade Halloween costume "quality" This makes Sharknado look like an Oscar contender, because, at least, Sharknado was kinda fun to watch.

So my advise: If you want to be entertained, stay away! If you want to watch a really really bad shark movie, this is one! ... Why did I watch this and others like it? Because I still hope to find another fun-to-watch shark related B-movie.

Watchable. Barely.

[jd-creativeguy · 2/10 · 1 August 2017]

Barely watchable. As far as B- disaster movies go, this one is a minor disaster. Like all the rest, the acting is straight horrible. The story is ridiculous, and the effects are barely passable. Other than that it's OK.

------SPOILER-------

How is it that a "helicopter ride just south of town" (when they're in Alaska) is going to save their life, but at the end their flying over the Golden Gate Bridge in S.F. and it's frozen solid?

So bad it wasn't even funny bad!

[erius21 · 1/10 · 17 October 2021]

HATED THIS MOVIE. TERRIBLE. Wad cringing the entire time, had to stomp out of the room because it was ATROCIOUSLY unwatchable, left my mom and brother to finish watching it by themselves because if I had continued watching I don't know if I'd stay awake, nor sane. Save yourself and the argument of who hated it more, don't watch.

Really?

[iansputnik · 1/10 · 10 September 2022]

I didn't realise it was possible to make a movie this bad. Seriously. If I have a couple of school kids a video camera and a $10 budget, I expect more. Forget the 10 star reviews which were left with people trying to be witty, this is the pits. Pretty sure no actors were involved in it, just family and friends and passers by. It's not even so bad it's good, it's just so bad that it's bad. I couldn't find one redeeming feature in the whole film. How did anyone offer to distribute this shark turd. At least it was cheap to make and probably only took two or three hours to shoot.

As for shooting, pass my gun, I want to track down everyone involved in this and terminate their film careers with prejudice.

For "Z-grade" film fans only

[lara-milvain · 2/10 · 5 November 2021]

Land Shark borders on "so bad it's funny", but sadly takes itself just a fraction too seriously to get there. The story is absurd, the writing preposterous, the acting could be beaten out by a decent number of high school productions, and the special effects ... aren't.

The film's highlight is the singular shot of the land shark moving up/across the one bit of beach they got a permit to shoot on, and the lowlight the infuriating beep of the tracker that runs in the foreground sound channel for a good 30% of the film, or more. The land shark's collection of semi-feline growls & roars are just mystifying.

Don't hold your breath to see the full shark model - it doesn't show up until around 46 minutes in; and when it does, leaves more questions than it resolves. You'll understand more if you can make it to that point of the film.

The only - and I'm pretty sure about this - saving grace of the film is that the lead - Sarah French - acts rings around the rest of the cast. She's the only person on screen who doesn't sound like her lines were being delivered by a bicycle courier with a flat tyre & sore legs. Although, the derro - who I'm reasonably suspicious was meant to be a running gag - comes in a strong second, on the strength of his death scene.

It's a train wreck of a film, but get yourself as sauced up as the eyewitness interviewed just before the two fishermen, and you might make it through. I give it 2/10 because it's following the same story at the end as it did at the start (and maybe that's part of the problem), but it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not - a fabulously bad film about sharks on land.

"We just killed a pile of rocks!"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 2/10 · 10 July 2021]

A group of sharks take to the land and kill people gorily. They are pursued by two scientists. One scientist turns into a shark-man. I quite liked the rubbery sharks with their roguish smiles, but apart from that pleasure this is a lacklustre movie. The main leads are wooden and the script is predictable. Also there is an annoying beep from one of the scientist's tracking devices that goes on and on... and on. No wonder the sharks were upset. If you are looking for a film for a bad movie night this one fits the bill ideally.

Terrible, but Glorious, Watch With Friends.

[icocleric · 5/10 · 20 March 2022]

As a lover of terrible films, especially terrible shark films, this film was absolutely glorious! I'm sure the primary school children who made the sharks had a blast too. Go in with low expectations, and you'll be entertained.

It's a great terrible shark film to watch with friends, you'll laugh, you'll wonder what the hell you have just seen. Good times! Especially when you have scenes like a homeless guy peeing on the shark, to only get his penis eaten. Then the rest of his lower half devoured. The effects are terrible, honestly the worst, but you are here for it.

This film also had the worst actor I have ever seen. There's a boss who contacts the main characters over video calls. Her voice acting has the stiffness of a robot, whist her face is the most over dramatic acting you have ever seen. At the same time.

If terrible shark films are for you, enjoy.

ZZzzzz

[sarahlouiserescue · 1/10 · 7 April 2022]

After only 15 minutes I could bare anymore. Terrible graphic and don't even get me started on the acting skills.... its not often I ever switch off a film but this was awful. I'd hoped it would be similar to the 2 part film ' creature ' which is a hybrid shark that can walk on land and has both lungs and gills - a really enjoyed that and went out and tracked down the dvd I loved it so much, but this.... christ almighty no idea if it gets better but I'm not wasting my time finding out.

Stop what you are doing and WATCH THIS!!!

[tpsutter · 10/10 · 31 October 2021]

An instant classic. Can't believe it didn't win best picture. Great for the blind! Great movie to take a nap to. My dog enjoyed it the most. I hope no shark trainer was harmed in the making of this film.

The Film Spielberg Wish He Would Have Made

[mikeledo · 6/10 · 1 July 2017]

DNA experiments create a shark that can move and breath on land by wiggling its body. It can also growl.

This is a Polonia Brothers plus Camp Motion Pictures production which means it has a camp quality to it by design and shot in the Middle Atlantic states...oh wait! Mark made it out to California for a change up. From the shark we get a "fish eye" lens. Mark expertly edits in stock footage of sharks in with the big fake rubber looking shark, something only taught at the Ed Wood Academy of "B-" Art.

There are basically two people in the film (other than the guy moving the shark). Foster (Peter Baldo) is running the experiment and Lucinda (Sarah French) is his clueless assistant. She is one of my favorite B- actresses. Her stealth darting moves are comical. Not to give too much away, but eventually the pair hunt down the sharks with plastic molded guns that shoot laser bullets as California has different gun laws than Pennsylvania about hunting land sharks.

Please note this has nothing to do with the SNL skits about a "Land Shark." Guide: Infrequent F-word. No sex or nudity. 3 stars for the camp and keeping the rubber mask people in business. I consider this to be a Polonia Brothers classic, for what it's worth.

The worst ever

[cujorocky · 1/10 · 10 September 2021]

Starts out with some homely fat woman... Probably the directors daughter. Underwater sharks growling. They CAN'T growl, but here they do. It just gets worse and worse. The absolute worst acting of all time Junior high school plays are like Oscar winners compared to this garbage the actors must be friends and family if the director. They are HORRENDOUS.. Bottom of the barrel. Bottom.

what

[superpotato-34844 · 1/10 · 29 June 2023]

I really love a good bad movie, this was just a bad, bad movie. Half of it was spent with them walking around with their stinking Lazer blasters with a BEEP every five seconds. I could feel my brain melting and my eyes were like minutes away from bleeding. So boring and just not good.

Really, I could make this movie with a snapchat filter and ketchup.

ALSO the plot literally goes no where, we were just sitting around watching them hunt a horribly done shark I feel like there had to of been a better way to do it.

Uhm the boss lady, what the freak is up with her eyebrows bro, like giiirrlllll what are you doing.

Landshark more like Lameshark 🦈

[sarahcollinsrowe · 1/10 · 3 February 2023]

If you have a spare Friday night, a weekend to relax with a high budget film then skip this Papier-mâché abomination!

Do your taxes, scrape your dead skin off your feet, hell talk to that friend of yours from 8th grade that you ditched because they spoke to your crush, anything is better than this!

Don't even skim through the movie, you will just destroy your movie algorithm for the rest of your life and nothing but similar trash with appear.

Run, run away from this movie, run better than the landsharks please. I mean it wouldn't be hard, they honestly just plain suck.

Please, I am saving you. God Bless.

Hilarious but sooooo bad

[jackow48 · 3/10 · 1 April 2022]

Well I guessed it would be a silly film by the name of it and I was right about they!! It didn't disappoint. It was soooooo bad I found it hilarious. I had to keep watching to see how bad it would get. The shark doing 90 along the beach. Must have grown wheels, the light reddy pink blood, the acting, that woman on the phone had eyebrows that had a life of their own as for the extras. OMG so funny. The shark man at the end. I was crying. If you want to embrace the ridiculous and cheer yourself up, go for it 😂 .

Top notch tv

[emilymoore-87683 · 10/10 · 30 July 2021]

I have never watched something so good in my entire life. The graphics were something else entirely and I applaud them profusely. The plot twists were drastic and unexpected and certainly kept me on my toes. I just couldn't wait to find out what happened next. The sharks were really scary and the use of photoshop was hard to spot. The acting was convincing enough to let me engage with the plot. I will be recommending this to all my friends.

Enjoyably cheesy killer shark film

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 16 August 2020]

Working on a top-secret research project, a scientist discovers the original purpose of the experiment was outfighting sharks with the ability to live on land for a military operation, but once the shark escapes she's forced to team up with a fellow doctor to stop it before it gets loose.

Overall, this is a pretty solid and enjoyable cheesy shark film. That this one manages to highlight this feat from the opening attack is quite impressive as there's no doubt the campy nature of this one is obvious from the start. The use of the practical shark puppet, the constant changing into the distorted fish-eye lens to showcase the creatures' point-of-view stalking his victims and the indie-style blood spurting all over the place become obvious early on here with the type of attacks present throughout here. That includes the various attacks here of the ambush on the fishermen out on their boat, the janitor of the facility or the photoshoot getting interrupted out in the desert which are all quite silly and cheesy. With a finale featuring a battle at the desert tunnel that's over-the-top and inherently goofy, the film's got plenty of silly shark fun to enjoy. As well, this sense of goofiness and cheese extends to the ludicrous storyline here that manages to set up these wild attack scenes. Focusing on the somewhat cliched notion of the scientists working on top-secret formulas for classified research on sharks and the outcome of which turns them into ravenous killers capable of living on land and hunting people, there's a fine familiarity that develops here through this process enabling the outlandish idea of a shark living out of the water to seem somewhat believable. Going above and beyond the traditional research into military-grade weapons research to adapting them to live on land and forcing the issue with capturing the escaped sharks on their own, this comes off incredibly well with the cheesy action making it come off rather enjoyable and giving this a lot to like. There aren't a whole lot of issues to be had with this one. Most of the film's problematic areas are centered around the low-budget padding that comes about with numerous scenes added here simply to pad out the running time. The numerous conference calls over video-chat to the supervisor or their debates about the ethics and morality of the experiments are just part of the overlong padding here, much like the constant switching to shark-vision for the stalking scenes or showing them wandering through areas with monitors trying to track the creature. Much like the practical puppet, it's all quite obvious about the low-budget on display which can be somewhat of a detrimental to some. Aside from this, the film's cheesiness and inherent goofiness come into play as those might not be appealing for viewers, making up this one's few issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Worth the watch

[jadeacurran-74860 · 10/10 · 29 August 2022]

Funniest film. Graphics are trash. Acting is trash. Story line is trash. But the Land Shark is the funniest thing I've seen. It growls at random intervals and the acting is very sarcastic.

My partner and I are quite desensitised to horror and started laughing after we were jump scared from one specific scene toward the end of the film.

If you're bored and looking to laugh at the aesthetics of a film, Land Shark is a must see.

When the girl hit the Shark, it sounded like smacking plastic. When the shark tore into a person and blood went everywhere, it looked like watery liquid ketchup being squirted about.

This movie is so bad that it's good

[nnelson-51329 · 10/10 · 27 August 2017]

This movie is bad in every way possible. The plot includes every single horror movie stereotype, the special effects suck (the shark looks like a paper mache rhinoceros and the blood looks like red food coloring mixed with water), and the acting is terrible. That being said, it is a great choice for watching with some friends if you want to watch a really bad horror movie. With the premise of a shark that can go on land, you know that it cannot be great already, but this movie just takes that cheesy idea and capitalizes on it. Over half of the scenes are awkward and completely unrelated to the plot but they are really funny. The end is terrible and completely predictable but it just fits the movie really well. Overall, if you are looking for a good movie to watch, this is not the movie! But, if you want to watch a really bad movie, then this one is highly recommended! It made me laugh out loud more often than most comedies do. So, as long as you know what you're in for, this movie should be highly enjoyable!

Low expectations led to a fantastic night

[tkenealy-10675 · 10/10 · 23 August 2020]

Some friends and I decided this was the movie we needed to watch while waiting for other friends to show up. The movie had a simple plot line that was easy to pick up no matter when people jumped in, along with enough humor that it was enjoyable for everyone to keep watching. I will definitely never watch it again unless I absolutely have to but for my expectations it was better than I expected.

Absolutely astounding!

[serenjstar · 10/10 · 23 August 2022]

You want a good film? Watch this, because the graphics, characters, plot and music is on point! Never seen such a good film ever, the jump scares really left me crippled. I couldn't sleep for weeks! Genuinely top notch, perfect for romantic dates with your significant other. The romance really just added to the films original amazing script. The plot is oscar worthy, this movie needs to be seen by young audiences! It will motivate the younger generation to continue with these amazing films!

The Perfect Blend of Realism and Fiction

[kaydensawyer · 10/10 · 30 January 2024]

So we all know sharks are the most terrifying creatures on the planet (besides alpacas). The only relief I have is that I am able to be safe in my own home and on solid ground. Land Shark challenges this idea of sanctity in our own home by answering the question of, What if sharks were LAND SHARKS. With a realistic blending of the greed of humanity with the subtle sci-fi twist of land sharks. This movie constantly delivers hit after hit of fast paced action, as well as undertones of suspense and horror. If you have a night to yourself or a movie to show to your friends, Land Sharks always delivers.

Best movie ever

[huender-14739 · 10/10 · 25 November 2023]

Best movie I've seen ever. This movie is super scary. The entire thing was very well done . I absolutely loved the special effects. The guns were the best part and truly brought the movie together. And don't even get me started on the tracker . I have never seen I move with such high quality tech. The shark could have been better but that only added to the science aspect of it. Would have preferred if they had made the movie longer I don't believe that we got the full essence of the shark and other characters in that short amount of time. I truly believe this is an amazing piece of art but should not be shown to kids under 5 as it may break their brains.

A great movie to just kill a bit of time

[jlynch-68708 · 10/10 · 7 June 2022]

Loved everything from the shark to the acting and those laser pistols. A great movie that is anything but serious. Recommended to watch when you don't know what to watch.