Shark Week (2012) User Reviews

The Manos-Hands-of-Fate of SyFy movies.

[Mr. OpEd · 1/10 · 5 August 2012]

To be fair, I only got to see the last 40 minutes, but that was enough to make this one of the absolute WORST movies I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of really stinky movies, mostly by Asylum, but all the classic stinkers too like Manos).

Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler (who seems to have a nervous eye flutter) play a psycho couple who live in a giant mansion but spend most of their time in what appears to be a broom closet decked out with some lap tops and not-so-big video screens. They are forcing some none-too-bright people to make their way through deadly shark encounters which all look like they can be easily be avoided by simply NOT GOING WHERE THE SHARKS ARE.

There's also some land mines on a beach that are easily seen and can be outrun once they start exploding but are handy for carrying with you in case you have to hang onto a stalagmite while fending off a really hideous CG shark.

Calling the acting wooden is an insult to wood. The music is incessantly wrong for the "action" and the direction and editing are hilarious (lots of scenes of people walking and emoting for no apparent reason).

But it is a hoot to make fun of while you're watching it. I hope that all involved get better at what they're doing or find other lines of work.

Even for low budget shark movies this is horrible

[mikee4 · 1/10 · 3 May 2013]

The plot is awful, a rich eccentric drug tycoon wants revenge on 8 individuals so he captures them in order to have them play his game. The sharks in the film are horrible and in no way look real. They aren't even in the same frames as the actors, you either see a shark alone in the water or an actor being attacked or trying to escape. The acting is bad, but on par with other low budget shark movies. The movie drags on, boring you. If you can make it through the whole thing congrats, you just wasted an hour and a half of your life.

I only checked this out because I like shark movies and this was new to netflix instant stream. Don't bother

Saw meets Jaws but with no fun, excitement or sense of terror

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 29 August 2013]

For The Asylum, Shark Week is not their worst or quite awful enough to be one of them. That doesn't stop it though from being a complete failure in every area, and that's even when you know what to expect. Some of the locations are nice and exotic but others also look as though they were shot in a run-down warehouse or basement. That cheap look is made even worse by the choppy editing and terrible special effects. If you've seen the quality of the sharks in other Asylum or SyFy movies that are similar, it's pretty much the same in Shark Week, the sharks are so cheaply rendered and not only don't look real but they don't look natural in their surroundings. They also don't have any personality either, which severely dilutes any terror or tension, the actors don't even look all that terrified when really the situation would be scary for anybody. The music is at a very sluggish tempo especially in the scenes containing action, the scoring of the build-ups to the attacks is predictable. The dialogue has always been one of the weakest aspects of an Asylum movie, and there is no change here as this is very cheesy and stilted scripting. And you don't connect with any of the characters, as with everything else Shark Week doesn't give time to develop them or you the time to properly root for them. The story just doesn't seem to have any life, Shark Week is very poorly paced throughout, the action shows the worst of the editing and lifeless choreography and the shark attacks suffer from a complete lack of tension and visual cheapness, if you're expecting to be afraid of going into seas now you won't get that vibe. It also seemed rather tame, you'd expect a crossover of Saw and Jaws to have a similar impact to those movies but here it feels like Saw but without the harrowing violence and Jaws without the eerie nail-biting suspense. The acting is very bad too, Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler are far too over-the-top and don't make any effort to reign in and give their characters depth or any quality that makes you connect with them. While the acting of victims are wooden with nobody seeming to properly care about whether they lived or died. Overall, dull, cheap and not much fun at all, more avoided than recommended. 1/10 Bethany Cox

One of The Asylum's Best But That's Not Saying Too Much

[Michael_Elliott · 4 August 2012]

Shark Week (2012)

** (out of 4)

Everyone's favorite studio, The Asylum, is back with their latest offering. A madman (Patrick Bergin) kidnaps the eight people he blames for his son's death and forces them to play a game. The game is that they must enter various stages where they have to fight a different breed of shark. SHARK WEEK comes from director Christopher Ray who had previously done 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK so he's really putting his name on the genre. As for as films from The Asylum go, this here is probably one of the best from the studio but that's still not saying too much. I think the story here was actually a fairly interesting one, although there's no doubt that the producers were ripping off the SAW franchise and the Bergin character really comes across as a weak Jigsaw replacement. The story works for the most part because it's rather funny seeing humans having to battle sharks and it leads to some of the dumbest moments in any film I've seen this year. Just check out the various ways they try to fight the sharks and it leads to a really crazy final sequence against a Great White. Bergin really hams it up here but this is a good thing because his over-the-top performance at least makes you smile. The eight "players" don't feature Oscar-worthy performances but they're at least what you'd expect from a film like this. There are several problems with the film including the awful special effects. The effects are so bad but this is to be expected in a film like this. I understand they can't afford top-notch special effects but if this is the best you can do then there's no point of making a film because every time the sharks are on screen you really get taken out of the action because of how fake they look. Another problem is that out of the eight characters there's really no one to cheer for so you never really get caught up in their survival. Still, fans of "C" creature features should at least be entertained.

Jaw-Saw

[wes-connors · 2/10 · 24 August 2013]

During the opening credits, a muscular man appears in chains. The key to escape is thrown into a swimming pool by cigar-smoking Patrick Bergin (as Tiburon). Unfortunately, there is also a shark in the pool. Next we see people abducted in Los Angeles, Malibu, Echo Park, Culver City, Venice Beach and Long Beach. The abductor is Mr. Bergin. He has eight victims to throw into his shark-infested swimming pool. If they escape, there is another test. Each test involves more vicious sharks. This is a tame swipe of the mega-violent "Saw" film series. Bergin's criminal partner is mini-skirted Yancy Butler (as Elena). They hold each other up and blink their eyes very slowly, like they've just seen this flicker across the screen.

** Shark Week (8/4/12) Christopher Ray ~ Patrick Bergin, Yancy Butler, Erin Coker, Josh Allen

Lame and pitiful Killer Shark Torture Film

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 5/10 · 14 August 2015]

Awakening to find themselves trapped on an island, a group learns they are to be subjected to a series of encounters with the host's collection of deadly, ravenous sharks to be able to leave the area alive.

Overall this one was an absolutely terrible killer shark film that really has so little going for it that it's almost unwatchable. The biggest issue with this one comes from its idea of utilizing the creatures as obstacles that must be overcome by the group in order to survive to the next trap, effectively rendering them into a state equal to a Torture Film set-up. It's basically turning the film and the creatures into a simple slasher effort only replacing the species as it's sharks instead of a human killer which is so insulting to their existence that it effectively kills whatever fear they might have as the end result robs their specialness in the most ludicrous way possible. This basically keeps the film running along into a singular mode here because every single set-up is the same thing only done in a different cave with different sharks so the results are incredibly underwhelming. Another problem here is that the idea for the madman's scheme for revenge is so laughable that it's impossible to think it's meant to be taken seriously and really makes this one quite a challenge to even get into the concept for the film. Beyond this, another big problem here is the whole affair is mired in a series of sloppy, utterly atrocious CGI effects that are utterly terrible by having such an obstruction of the action with their rampant blurriness and darkness due to being filmed in pitch-black that they're almost impossible to make out and have no lasting impact. These here are the film's flaws which are enough to really lower this one down significantly enough that the positives here are barely even registered. What does seem to work here is the near continuous action present as this one goes about the encounters in a quick enough fashion that there's enough to keep from being bored along the way. There's a few really exciting ambushes in the caves along the way here that do rely on some ingenuity to escape, and these here go get really bloody and brutal as well which get quite exciting. As well, it does have some great pains involved in laying out the mystery and trying to get it going, as this does take a while to get the point of what they're doing rather nicely. Beyond this, there's nothing else in this worthwhile.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Really bad

[SanteeFats · 1/10 · 5 August 2012]

I recorded this movie on the "mighty" scyfy channel. I should have known better. I was done by the first commercial. Stupid plot, the bad ass female girlfriend of the villain is ugly and old. The villain is a moron but I guess rich.Two month old shark pups of any species are NOT flesh eaters except for fish. Almost every shark species that eats prey that are not fish do so after getting to a larger size. The great white doesn't start eating pinnipeds until growing to about ten-twelve feet. It is way too dangerous for the smaller size sharks to attempt taking on such larger size prey. The special effects are not very impressive and the acting is lame.

Even if you survive, you are not a winner...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 25 April 2017]

Well before you sit down to watch "Shark Week", you already know exactly what kind of movie you will be in for, and you know exactly what to (and what not to) expect from a movie such as this.

And on that account "Shark Week" delivers. You know what you are getting here. And the package is complete with a ridiculous story, poor CGI, rigid acting and stereotypical character gallery. So no surprises on that account.

First of all let's look at the story. A group of people have been captured by a rich mad man for some reason which actually never comes to see the light of day. And they are to compete in his demented contests that include sharks and people dying one by one, if they are to survive and make it off the Island. Wow, really? Oh my, what originality and what creativity. Oscar worthy? Hardly so...

Then we have the CGI and special effects. Well, let's just say that it didn't even look like the people hired to do the effects were trying all that hard. Either that, or they didn't have enough money, training to do it better or the equipment to do it right with. I am guessing it was a lack of funding. The effects in "Shark Week" were atrocious actually, and at no point do you really buy into the effects. But of course, you already know what you went into here with a movie such as this.

Don't count on seeing anyone familiar or famous in this movie. And those people who were on the cast list, weren't exactly standing in line to harvest awards for this movie, let's just leave it at that.

The characters in the movie were one-dimensional and showed about as much personality as wet cardboard. So you never really rooted for anyone of the characters, nor did you care when one of them died in a most laughable way of questionable effects.

I do enjoy shark movies, and creature features in general, but the shark genre tend to be ridden with movies that are of questionable value and either lacks proper effects or just use actual footage of sharks in the ocean and then reverse pan the angle to differentiate on using the same shot over and over. "Shark Week" is hardly a noteworthy addition to the shark genre.

So why do we keep watching these movies? Well, on the off chance that they actually turn out to be a surprise and a hidden gem in a vast ocean of otherwise questionable movies. Or because there is just something amusing and perverse in sitting down to watch these laughable movies. Sometimes they are so bad that they actually are fun. "Shark Week" wasn't one of those times...

The worst ever movie I have ever watched in my life

[miro-911-292076 · 1/10 · 1 April 2015]

What a shame for the actors to play a movie as bad as this. 2012? as if it was made in Charlie Chaplin era. I swear it was the worst movie I have ever seen. Worst acting worst Director worst special effects worst music . I have no idea how was this movie released . We should be able to sue them for waisting our time & money on a movie as bad as this. I would give not 1 but -10 for this movie. I don't understand how come the producers put money on films as bas as this movie. Where do they go and learn directing or producing a movie as bad as this one. I swear if I watch an arabic movie made back in the 60's it would have been much better then this. It is really the worst ever movie I have watched in my life. Even in cartoons they make better special effects then this movie.

Worst movie ever

[tiphainebrewer · 1/10 · 20 August 2019]

That's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Terrible acting, terrible graphics, terrible plot. I've seen better entertainment at a preschool talent show.

I was underwhelmed

[robynjanesheppard · 1/10 · 30 March 2016]

I don't mind seeing a man torn apart by sharks, but it strains my credulity when the sharks ROAR while they do it. The 8 kidnapped victims all have their hands locked in chains, but the chains are so loosely wrapped it shouldn't take them more than two minutes to get loose.

And that's the biggest problem with this movie, and why I stopped watching it after 15 minutes: whoever thought this movie was worth the cost of making it wasn't too tightly wrapped, either.

This review system requires me to write at least ten lines of text; sadly, the movie isn't even worth that much of a review.

Horrible movie ... I liked it so much!

[batty-14680 · 10/10 · 13 May 2021]

No real acting, bad cgi, no story ... but so much fun to watch. I've never seen a guy running around with a landmine under his arm, there is a first time for everything I guess 😂😂😂

I've watched it twice now

[brandonbray-35698 · 6/10 · 12 October 2020]

Horrible movie but still fun and cheesy. Guilty pleasure for sure. I enjoy B movies lmao.

Sucked.

[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 1/10 · 4 September 2016]

That's my entire review, although I am required to type more, or they won't post my review.

After watching a series of really good movies lately (Cafe Society, Don't Breathe, Hell Or High Water, among a few others) I apparently felt compelled to torture myself, and watched this, one of the worst films I've seen this year. This is nearly unwatchable, a poor combination/ ripoff of shark attack flicks, and torture flicks.

The opening title sequence is rushed through in less than 30 seconds, before we are taken on a lengthy, choppy tour of the greater LA area, as a number of people are kidnapped, and taken to some fruitcake's home. They are on a remote island, and they must fight their way through a variety of shark-related traps if they wish to live. They must also realise the chains they are bound in are obviously so loose they are almost falling off.

It turns out this group is responsible for their captor's son's death, and, one by one he kills them, in retaliation. Spoiler alert, I guess.

There are so many logic loopholes in the derivative screenplay, that the entire ordeal makes little sense, the effects never even rise to the levels of "so bad it's good", this film is so awful that I can barely even compose my thoughts right now.

skip it

[trashgang · 3/10 · 5 November 2014]

Another entry by The Asylum so you all know what that means, trash. But I gave it a go due the director (Christopher Ray) being the son of Fred Olen Ray. Maybe that should ring a bell too, Fred's flicks aren't that great too but it has it followers. Still, you know that the Asylum do uses a lot of CGI and not the kind that will win an Oscar.

The story itself doesn't make any sense and the acting is far below zero. Just look at the opening sequence. A shark in a swimming pool, really, the pool isn't that big at all but still the shark looks big. From there on it's a bit of a Saw story. try to survive a battle with all kind of sharks. All CGI and sometimes it's okay but most of it all it looks ridiculous.

There's no blood to mention. Oh sure, the sharks do bite but the fight between humans and sharks isn't believable at all. A lot of clichés all over the flick, but no suspense at all or even horror. Clocking in at 90 minutes it surely felt like a week, a shark week;

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Coledy 0/5

starsSHARKS SHOULD BE WORSHIPED AS GODS

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 15 May 2018]

Made for TV Asylum production. Do I need to continue?

A wealthy cartel owner (Patrick Bergin) kidnaps a half dozen or so people to play a shark survival game. About 30 minutes into the film they figure out they were all somehow involved in his son's death. The shark footage look very different from the rest of the film, i.e. Ed Wood inserting stock footage into a film.

Acting was sad as well as the dialogue.

Getting even with Shark Week

[Chase_Witherspoon · 2/10 · 5 February 2024]

Novel idea features an eccentric worry-bead clutching millionaire who subjects a group of people to a perverted game in which they're hunted down by sharks to atone for the death of his son. Irish former leading man Bergin unfortunately has little to do but look intermittently distant or crazed, as he monitors the group's movements via CCTV. How he knows where to position the cameras - and the fact that they appear to move - is but one of the many questions this film prompts you to consider. Apart from Bergin, the only faces I recognised was Coker (who appears in other films by The Asylum), and Butler playing Bergin's highly aggressive girlfriend.

Abysmal CGI effects although there does appear to be at least one rubber shark if that makes any difference, most of the action occurs between the characters as the emerging friction causes tension and poor decision making leading to inevitable results. The poor sap in the Gucci flip flops who hands his fellow castaways shark teeth with which to make spears they'll use to defend themselves against the sharks is both a touching gesture, and a predictably feeble one as we soon discover.

Some of the situations imagined for Bergin's 'obstacle course' are vaguely interesting, but most are just hackneyed and repetitive taking place in a darkened cave. Puerile dialogue and continuity/ editing issues (note the constantly changing footwear worn by some of the cast, or the overhead power lines on the supposedly remote island) even if you're a shark attack movie devotee, 'Shark Week' is comically bad and one to avoid.

The worst movie ever

[coflorida · 1/10 · 10 July 2020]

Who ever did the editing needs to never work again.... I thought something was wrong with my TV until I played it twice... @ 29:30 to 29:53...the group walking down path jumped BACK ...5 TIMES LOL