If it were not for the abysmally banality of the shark attack sequences, which are some of the worst I have ever seen, and for the ridiculous explanation at the denouement of the picture and all that leads up to it, "Spring Break Shark Attack" might have ended up being a merely passable made-for-television creature feature. Heck, it might have even ended up at being flat-out mediocre instead of a dead bore as it is. But it must be given more credit than the norm of this genre. It is much more ambitious than over creature features; they're at least trying at some point in the picture. It's rather amusing. In most movies like this, when we're away from the monster, we feel as lifeless as a piece of driftwood. When the creature arrives, we're still bored, but usually amused by the awful special effects and poor directing. Well, here, it's a little of the opposite. When there are no sharks, the movie is amusing and when there are sharks, it's as dull as dishwater.
They were at least attempting to build a good human story here. Our protagonist is played by Shannon Lucio (in a good performance) as a normally obedient high school graduate who decides to become a rebel and go to Florida on spring break against her father's will. She joins up with friends, ogles at the local beach stud (Riley Smith), tries to avoid a lascivious, sex-starved rival (Justin Baldoni), and then...well, you guessed it, evades man-eating sharks. Yes, around this time, a group of sharks begin to attack the beach on spring break.
I may be crucified by some, but I cannot deny that there were some parts of this movie that I did enjoy. None of them had to do with the sharks, however. They had to do with Shannon Lucio, who is quite good in the movie, and her character and what she goes through. Her relationship to her romantic interest is banal and boring, but there are some good elements such as her attempt to bury the hatchet with her brother, who is studying at a seaside university, and oddly enough the scenes with her and Justin Baldoni almost work. These scenes don't always work, but you can feel the refreshing air where the filmmakers were at least attempting to make a good story. Unlike a great many "Jaws" rip-offs, where you get the sense even the makers of the movie couldn't have cared less.
So when the movie's out of the water, on the beach, it's not good, but not too bad either. At these moments, it might have had a 5/10 going for it. But then there's the shark attacks, which are so abysmally bad, and there are so many of them in the last half of the movie, that they pull everything under along with their screaming victims. The cardboard and rubber fins painted gray are utterly awful and the phony screaming and thrashing of their victims so cheesy that one cannot even laugh at them. Honestly, nobody expected a real scare from a movie called "Spring Break Shark Attack" but at least a good laugh here and there. Here, no laughs. The open time I opened my mouth at the sharks was to yawn. We also question why the sharks are congregating on this particular beach at this particular time and when we do find out why, the explanation the movie gives is so harebrained and boneheaded and deprived of logic (even on the standards of this genre) that it produces nothing more than an exhausted yawn.
Perhaps this film would have fared better had it been a beach story with no sharks or shark attack back-stories. Shannon Lucio is pretty and quite good in her role and there are some fine supporting performances, including two by great actors Kathy Baker and Byron Brown, but ultimately the movie is just too banal, too clichéd, and too dull to recommend even without the sharks. Coupled with them, it sinks lower on the scale. Ambitious as it is, "Spring Break Shark Attack" is nevertheless an unfortunate failure.
