Swamp Shark (2011)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

hyped garbage

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Swamp shark is the typical monster movie. In other words, there is a monster we barely get to look at going around and eating people. So much for the analogy. These movies tend to be awful with few exceptions. Those are Jaws, Anaconda and maybe Crocodile. Those movies survived not because of the monster, but because of the atmosphere and characters. It also helped that there weren't to many hard to believe stunts and they had less glaring plot holes.Speaking of plot holes. If your shark is strong enough to break through a steel tank where it was held, how is it possible to be killed by the propeller blade of an airboat? I'm talking not just killed, but made sausages. Another thing which is glaring is the acting. Most actors in the movie convey just as much emotion as a plastic mannequin. In a way, I understand. The characters aren't complex in any way, and the dialogs are simple and uncreative. And it's a lame monster movie. Lame as in not enough killings and not enough action, and very little blood and torn limbs.The one thing the movie has going is the nice scenery, which we don't get enough of anyway.

This movie is rated R only for the brief instances of gore, I would assume, and maybe for the very brief nudity. There were several scenes with blood in the water, but you only saw one mangled corpse and one other man lose his head. It wasn't very scary. The jump scares weren't...jumpy. It was a boring movie.I'm not going to go into detail with how bad the acting was, but it wasn't plain stupid, as one would expect. But it was far from good. I mean, at the very beginning, when the giant tank of the truck crashes into the swamp. releasing the shark, the sheriff drops a terrible one-liner. After the driver leaves, paying no attention to the deaths of the other two men, the sheriff dramatically takes off his glasses, and, looking into the distance, says, "What a lousy way to start the summer." Speaking of these men's deaths, the bodies disappear in the shots immediately after the kills.There were several deaths. None were very bloody, except for the one when the shark chopped off a cop's head that was watching a girl strip with his binoculars. Pervert. He had it coming. The deaths of the boyfriend and girlfriend in the boat were not spectacular. Swim away, scream, and disappear underwater. Not a lot of blood. The girl's mutilated torso is discovered later, however. There were at least four other deaths, but none were shown. Only one had blood float to the surface of the water.It qualified more as a PG-13 movie than a horror, except for the one scene with the girl's shredded torso, which probably gave it the R rating.I'm not asking for more violence and blood. I'm saying it shouldn't really qualify for a horror. It's more of a thriller.As a whole, it was pretty boring. I was waiting for the gore to spice things up, and it never came.And they went ahead with killing off the black guys, because every horror does that.

All I can say is Kristy Swanson, D.B. Sweeney, and Robert Davi all must have REALLY needed a paycheck because this stinker is a WASTE of everything. The special effects look high schoolish. The acting is horrible. At no point is there ever even the slightest hint of suspense or horror. This movie was so bad my popcorn even soured. Save the 2 hours you'll spend watching this and sleep or watch paint dry. I was hoping Kristy had retained her hotness, but nope, wrong again. This script is a typical retread of anything the Syfy folks make. It's always monster this or killer that. I'm having trouble coming up with ten lines that accurately describe how bad this movie is. It's not even worth a $2 rental. Avoid this at all costs!!!!

When a series of attacks in their waters lead them to believe a shark is responsible and the authorities doubting the claims, a family of restaurateurs heads into the Louisiana swamps to kill it before it attacks more people.Overall this one was a pretty decent creature feature and gets some good points to it. One of the better points here is the film taking full advantage of the situation to make for some really tense moments, as there's a couple rather fun stalking scenes in the swamps. The Louisiana bayou setting is appropriately handled with the swampy marshlands and waterways bringing about some really high-end sequences from the first encounter in the open waterways or it taking out the penned crocodiles before the drunk fisherman. There's also a couple other great scenes here taking great advantage of the setting with the attack on the partying students on the row-boat or the hunting party where the family sets out to hunt the creature out in open waters in speedboats making for some really impressive scenes. These here set the stage for the film's two big action scenes on the attack on the partying houseboat and the rescue attempt later on as she tries to save her daughter as both scenes offer up some bloody deaths, tons of fun with the action to keep the creature at bay as well as the suspense of the creature appearing which are highly enjoyable. As well, the finale is a lot of fun as it's the main attack on the festival where it leads from an exciting chase to start off that there's some fun there, the attacks are quite bloody and action-packed while the final resolution of killing the creature makes for a good time. Lastly, unlike how most of these usually are, the shark actually looks really good and has some scenes where it's a full-live shark, prop and not CGI, although the CGI here does look better than expected but can't compare to how good the shark-prop looks. These here are enough to make-up for it's one weak area is that there's not a lot of actual shark attacks going on, and while it's not noticeable to the plot or pacing, it does lower the gore quotient somewhat since there's not a whole lot of attacks in here. It doesn't have that many attack scenes to really ramp up that factor regardless of graphic the few ones are, but this isn't enough to truly deter this one fully.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.