RAGING SHARKS (2005)

RAGING SHARKS (2005)

Tagline: You Can Swim, But You Can't Hide.

(Action, Horror, Stock Footage) [R]

Whales can’t spell…sir. 

In this one, the crew aboard the underwater ocean research facility “Oshana”, is being hunted by a lot of sharks. The sharks are being frenzied by the wreckage from an alien spaceship that landed in the ocean a few years earlier. Yes, aliens from outer freakin space. Will the crew of the Oshana survive? Will anyone coming to the rescue them survive?

First off, I have to say that a LOT of shark movies from around this time were loaded with stock footage from photographers and marine biologists studying sharks rather than the film crews of these movies. Sometimes that is fine. The main idea is to get the story out there and not just have a mechanical shark that looks weak or CGI that looks weak. In this thing, a lot of this shark footage actually works out, so I am not going to knock it. Where my issue comes in is when you borrow from other movies when it’s 2005 and everyone and their brother can make a shark movie. This movie lifts a shark autopsy scene directly from 1999’s SHARK ATTACK. I have to take points off when you do that any time after 2001. 

Acting wise Corin Nemec is fine in this as Dr. Mike Olsen. After this Nemec would go on to shoot another shark movie SAND SHARKS. He was also in one of the best movies of 2021, RUN HIDE FIGHT. We also have Vanessa Angel in this one as Linda Olsen. Vanessa is still cranking out performances with 6 projects in play or completed as I am typing this.  Corbin Bernsen as Capt. Riley rounds out the top cast and does well in this with not a great amount of screen time. Elise Muller does a pretty good job with her screen time and lines as Vera. Vera is kind of the character that Michelle Rodriguez would have played if she was in this movie. Yes, that is me saying 9 times out of 10, Michelle Rodriguez plays the same type of character (usually a sarcastic bada-s). Overall the acting is sub-par if this was a regular movie, but in the “sharkverse”, it’s fine. 

What this movie did well is giving us “raging sharks”. This movie isn’t called “mild-mannered shark” or “shark that swims right by you on their way to an underwater McDonalds”, it’s not called “depressed shark” or even “mad shark”. They have a butt load of shark attacks in this movie and I have to give them props for that stock footage or not. This movie has “raging sharks”. I also liked the premise of an object from an alien spaceship messing with the sharks. We also get some pretty cool-looking alien designs for the individual aliens themselves. 

What I didn’t like about this movie is that as much as I love the 80s, a shark movie shot in 2005, should not feel like it was shot in the 80s. This is a really rough outing for something that came out 6 years after DEEP BLUE SEA and appeared to be trying to do a similar movie. There are some spaceship effects early in this movie that look pretty janky, but my issue isn’t with that. It’s with the fact that it seems they blew the budget on just that stuff and we ended up with a weaker set, lighting, and cinematography than we could have gotten. Just a few lighting tricks here and there would have really helped this thing out. It would also have helped out if some of the stock footage wasn’t of Orca attacks rather than “shark attacks”. This score and soundtrack are also terrible and sleep-inducing. 

Having said the few good things I did, this movie is a 2 out of 7. The biggest issue is the second half. It goes from basically being a full-blown shark movie to an almost shark-less suspense thriller in the final 45 minutes or so. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MILLENNIUM FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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