Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

I know my man Griff isn’t going to let me down. I mean Griff Furst is a renaissance man like few others. When he’s not showing up in small parts in Mega Busters like ‘Green Lantern’ he’s thespianing in minor busters such as ‘Monsterwolf’ or ‘Quantum Apocalypse’. I made up that word ‘thespianing’. Then when he’s not doing all of that or editing a movie, or being a cinematographer on a movie he’s directing a movie such as ‘Lake Placid 3’ or ‘I Am Omega’ or ‘Wolvesbayne’, all three movies, of the many he’s directed but the only ones I have seen, which didn’t make me want to kill myself. That’s good stuff and the man’s not even thirty yet. So with Griff sitting behind the camera with this Sci-Fi original ‘Swamp Shark’, with Kristy Swanson, D.B. Sweeney and Robert Davi in front of the camera… I knew Griff wouldn’t let me down. Damn… Griff let me down. A little bit. Okay, not much because how far can one drop when watching a Sci-Fi Channel Original?

For reasons I’m not sure were ever explained, a tanker with a big ass shark in it is being delivered to this Louisiana town’s evil sheriff (Robert Davi). This shark is nuts however and starts bucking against the tanker, punching holes in it, which causes the tanker operators to try and secure this thing with some rope. Rope. That doesn’t work. The tanker rolls down a hill and into the swamp and now this swamp has a shark in it.

Now say hello to the Crawfish Diner and its owner operator Rachel Broussard (Kristy Swanson). Just so you know, fifteen or twenty years ago, Ms. Swanson was built for speed like a sleek, finely tuned Porsche. Today, after a couple of kids and well into her forties, the bountiful Ms. Swanson is built more for comfort, like a supple, luxurious Town Car. But guess what? It’s all good for Kristy, either way. Back on point, Rachel runs this business with her super large brother Jason (Jeff Chase), her super irritating little sister Krystal (Sophie Sinise), and her super whiney asshole Gap model boyfriend Tyler (Richard Tanne) where they serve great food, great music and provide live alligator shows. Until the Swamp Shark eats the gators.

A Shark in the Freshwater Swamp? No way. But Rachel knows what she saw and now it’s time to go hunting. Also along for the ride is the mysterious Mister Charlie (Sweeney) who is handy with a harpoon, and is a little sweet on Rachel for fairly obvious reasons, as they go looking for some shark meat.

In the meantime the Shark has horny teenagers to eat, doubting law officials to devour and of course we gotta get ready for some kind of fun event that the powers that be refuse to cancel. And of course the bratty younger sister, also built for comfort, has to get herself into all kinds of perilous peril. But to her credit she only jumped on the boat with those other irritating horny teenagers to warn them not to go into the water. Something she probably could’ve done via telephone. Can our heroes stop the shark before it reaches the Gator Festival? Uh… no, because their plan is to lure it to the Gator Festival with a trail of blood. Hey man, that’s what their plan was. Damn if it didn’t work.

Being the positive type, let’s focus on what’s good about ‘Swamp Shark’. For starters we have Kristy Swanson in motion. That’s good. Pretty much the entire female cast in motion in this movie was a good thing, but this is to be expected. Then we have D.B. Sweeny’s haggard appearance in this movie which was also good. D.B. really looks like he needs some rest. Did we mention that Wade Freaking Boggs was in this movie and that he was arguably the best actor in this movie in the little time he was in this movie?

Unfortunately my man Griff Furst has given me a shark attack movie that moves way too slow, is devoid of almost any genuine action or thrills, and is stupid… but just not stupid enough. You see, this movie tries to straddle the line between seriousness, with all of the fancy shark talk and not to mention our shark info enhanced Asian Cajun expert (Jason Rogel), with this seriousness combined with campiness. That’s a mix that didn’t work all that well here. And while I appreciate a good jump scare as much as the next guy, if a character is reaching in the water and reaching in the water and reaching in the water… at this point it would actually be scarier if the shark didn’t jump out of the water. This is a bit of a spoiler but we did like the part when the whiney boyfriend got eaten, followed by Rachel’s three minute mourning period, followed by Mister Charlie’s immediate attack on the newly single Rachel. I mean Rachel is hot and all, but that might’ve been in poor taste. At least wait until the next day, or the funeral even, before jumping on that.

Yes, the shark looked like ass, but we expected that. It was stupid and we expected that too. Leading the shark to the festival so it can eat more people… didn’t expect that, but it was appreciated. A movie calling itself ‘Swamp Shark’ with Kristy Swanson bouncing around incessantly and directed by Griff Furst being boring… did not think we would get that.

And does anybody know why do sharks find Black folks so tasty?