After an iceberg breaks off a glacier in the Arctic, a pliosaur, or "Dinoshark", is freed from its imprisonment inside of the block of ice. Three years later, it has made its way to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where all the activities and festivities are interrupted by the monsters' feeding frenzy. The two characters destined to be the heroes are Trace McGraw (Eric Balfour) and Carol Brubaker (Iva Hasperger), and they will predictably encounter resistance from local dummies on their way to finding the beast and figuring out how to stop it.
After a while, a lot of those modern creature features that go heavy on the digital effects DO tend to blend together, and "Dinoshark" doesn't do anything to stand out from the pack, preferring to stick to a formula. If you're a die hard devotee of monster movies, like this viewer, you may not find it completely worthless, but you'll still likely wish you'd watched something else. The story (co-written by Frances Doel, a longtime associate of producer Roger Corman) is quite routine, and the effects are simply laughable most of the time - not that we expect anything different. The design of the monster is reasonably cool, though. Much of the entertainment value comes from the bungled "thrills" when the monster pops up violently to munch on a cast member.
As per usual for this type of thing, the cast is not particularly interesting, for the most part, although the young people are certainly attractive. Sexy Hasperger has a bit more to work with than hunky Balfour, because she's a capable heroine: reasonably intelligent and tough as well as eye candy, plus, she is somewhat well-rounded, working as a scientist with a sideline as a water polo coach! The movie may be most notable for using Corman (who produced this with his wife Julie) in an extended acting role, as a marine life expert. A master thespian he is NOT, but at least he doesn't embarrass himself.
One good thing about these deliberately cheesy made for TV creature features made by Corman the past decade: if nothing else, they make good travelogues. The setting is simply gorgeous. If only that damned monster didn't turn up to ruin everything...
Five out of 10.
After a while, a lot of those modern creature features that go heavy on the digital effects DO tend to blend together, and "Dinoshark" doesn't do anything to stand out from the pack, preferring to stick to a formula. If you're a die hard devotee of monster movies, like this viewer, you may not find it completely worthless, but you'll still likely wish you'd watched something else. The story (co-written by Frances Doel, a longtime associate of producer Roger Corman) is quite routine, and the effects are simply laughable most of the time - not that we expect anything different. The design of the monster is reasonably cool, though. Much of the entertainment value comes from the bungled "thrills" when the monster pops up violently to munch on a cast member.
As per usual for this type of thing, the cast is not particularly interesting, for the most part, although the young people are certainly attractive. Sexy Hasperger has a bit more to work with than hunky Balfour, because she's a capable heroine: reasonably intelligent and tough as well as eye candy, plus, she is somewhat well-rounded, working as a scientist with a sideline as a water polo coach! The movie may be most notable for using Corman (who produced this with his wife Julie) in an extended acting role, as a marine life expert. A master thespian he is NOT, but at least he doesn't embarrass himself.
One good thing about these deliberately cheesy made for TV creature features made by Corman the past decade: if nothing else, they make good travelogues. The setting is simply gorgeous. If only that damned monster didn't turn up to ruin everything...
Five out of 10.