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Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Land Shark' (2017)

'Jabberjaws: The Revenge'

By Reed AlexanderPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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I was scrolling through Tubi which has a multitude of cheese movies and came across one entitled Land Shark. Apparently, my wife had seen this hot mess before and suggested it as a potential good-bad movie. I have to tell you, it did not disappoint. In the category of "So Bad It's Good" I'd place this gem along side the original Carnosaur. Of course, Carnosaur didn't have CGI to work with, so mostly all they had was a green screen and a dinosaur hand puppet. Land Shark doesn't leave out the hand puppet but I really wished they'd leaned on the practical FX more than CGI.

Let's talk acting. This movie might as well be a porno, the acting is so damn bad. I mean, at any point you expect the actors to just strip and start fucking. I give them plenty of credit, though, they didn't get obnoxiously sexploitative. They set you up with the proper expectation though. The first couple lines in the movie sound like they're written by a toddler. It lets you know what to expect—that, plus the FX are completely disarming. You can't help but giggle.

The plot is just fantastic. I can't go too deep into it without spoilers, but the point is that Jabberjaws here is genetically modified. They don't stop there—it's completely over the top. Of course, this movie is competing with Three Headed Shark and Sharknado, so it has to be pretty over the top.

No atmosphere to speak of. I guess stage lighting and lens filters weren't in the budget. But you really can't expect much out of this movie.

If you're looking for a good ol' silly time with a Good-Bad horror movie, this is a good one. It's fun, it's silly, it's riff worthy. Give it a shot.

SPOILERS!!!

So Jabberjaws is being mutated by genetic experiments to walk on land. I really wanted it to be paddling along on its tail fin tips. I guess they thought that might be a little too silly so it kinda just crawls along on its belly like a mud skipper. Apparently it can climb, though. Not once, but twice, it manages to get atop something behind the protagonists. I mean, it hops on the roof of a house, for fuck sake. My wife and I almost died laughing.

They had a hard time being consistent with the size of the shark. They clearly had a shark's head prop, a shark hand puppet, and a rubber shark. The shark head prop kinda set the size and they needed to go off that as best they could. Unfortunately, the hand puppet was tiny and they even used it once to grab one actor by the leg (seemingly no larger than his ankle). I mean, it obviously could have just bitten his leg off but the hand puppet and lack of budget just couldn't make that work. Finally, the rubber shark prop used to show the full shark is green screened into the movie appearing to be as small as a dog, or as large as the shark from Jaws. Even with a shit production like this, I feel they could have done better. But it does kinda add to the giggles from time to time.

To ruin the plot for you (not that it needs help), the reason the protagonists are genetically modifying sharks is for a weapons project. What mad scientist wouldn't want an army of sharks that can roam about on land?! Even better, the protagonists have to hunt the mutant sharks down with fricken lasers. I was hoping at some point one of the sharks would get hold of a laser and learn how to shoot it. Mutant sharks with lasers would just be an amazing crescendo for this movie. They chose to go in a different direction, instead having the male lead shoot enough modified shark's blood into himself to turn into "manshark." Now we just need a sequel to Land Shark called Man Shark. I'd watch that shit.

But yes. This movie was a hoot. I'm glad my wife recommended it.

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About the Creator

Reed Alexander

I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.

@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.

Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander

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