Probably the worst bad shark movie I have ever watched
There are directors whose names are synonymous with excellence. Spielberg, Scorsese, del Toro. Their names are hallmarks. Their presence on a poster tells audiences there’s quality. And then there’s Qualiana, a name synonymous with Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast and, now, Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark. The incompetence Snow Shark only hinted at is revealed in all its ignominious glory in Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark, a magnum opus in the realm of terrible filmmaking that transfigures its flaws into an postmodern tour de force.
Imagine, if you will, a post-apocalyptic landscape where the remnants of the Cold War have mutated into a fever dream of papier mâché fin headed soldiers and incoherent plots. This is a motion picture which sneers at jumping the shark and instead assembled a commando unit of them to lead an assault on your sense of sight, sense of sound and, eventually, sense of sanity.
Set in a dystopian future, where the Soviet Union, resurrected and angrier than ever, unleashes an army of half-man, half-shark hybrids upon an unsuspecting America. Leading this piscine platoon is the fearsome Commander Komodo (Ken Van Sant), whose performance is as wooden and sturdy as a rotten log floating in a swamp. Defending the good old U S of A is the Marty Warbuck (Simeon Qualiana), accompanied by the brainy yet bewildered Doctor Klaus (Andrew Elias). Together, they must navigate a plot so full of holes, it makes a fishing net look solid by comparison.
Prior to January 6th, this film held the record for largest number of gravy seals playing dress up soldiers and while – for a couple of minutes at least – it initially promises the same knowing goofy fun as House Shark, those hopes are soon dashed by this witless, piss-poor excuse for a film that astonishingly – at an hour and twenty-two minutes – feels about two hours too long.
It’s reach exceeds its grasp by such a degree that they’re likely in different time zones and while the plot and writing are, on their own terms, execrable, the filmmaking execution takes something bad and makes it so much worse. Camerawork, acting, directing, costumes, make-up and props are all delivered with egregious ineptitude, as if each production department were competing with each other to deliver the worst possible product.
And then there’s the special visual effects. Like alcohol according to MacBeth’s Porter, the use of cheap off-the-shelf digital FX packages provoke the desire but take away the performance. They’re so clumsily and stupidly deployed that rather than covering up the paucity of the physical production, they amplify its inadequacies.
Much of its abject awfulness might be forgivable if it was even the slightest bit funny, but it’s not. It may have been fun to make – if it was, any sense of it is kept far enough away from the screen so as not to disturb the audience – but it sure as shit isn’t fun to watch. It may be laughable, but you won’t be laughing. Whatever this micro-budget monstrosity cost to make, it was too much. If I could give this a negative score I would.
