Conventional wisdom at the turn of the century held that if a producer wanted a franchise, he needed a theatrical release of at least modest success to serve as its foundation. The straight-to-video market was understood as a place where franchises went to continue, not where they began; a series needed a launching pad with cinema screens, press screenings and a poster campaign behind it. Shark Attack, the opening instalment of a trilogy of action horror films, took a completely different route. Its origin was a low-budget, eponymous 1999 feature that, according to the most reliable sources available, premiered on HBO rather than in cinemas. Somebody evidently believed that a film could beget sequels without ever troubling a box office, and the fact that they were right says something about the economics of the era's cable market rather than about the quality of what was produced.
The plot is set in Port Amanzi, a fictional South African fishing town whose economy has been wrecked by a suddenly aggressive local shark population that has ruined both tourism and the fishing industry. Marc DeSantis (Cordell McQueen), a scientist attempting to solve the mystery of the animals' behaviour, is attacked on the water by two corrupt policemen and thrown overboard to be fed to a hungry shark. Some of his remains are later recovered by Dr Miles Craven (Bentley Mitchum), a fellow scientist who runs a nearby medical research centre. Steven McKray (Casper Van Dien) is Marc's friend, and he arrives in Amanzi after receiving a cryptic message from him; all he finds is Marc's sister Corine (Jenny McShane), who has come to attend the funeral but is equally determined to discover how her brother died. Most of the locals are hostile to American outsiders, though the influential local businessman Lawrence Rhodes (Ernie Hudson) appears friendly, as does Mani (Tony Caprari), a fisherman forced to make ends meet by driving a taxi. Steven and Corine eventually discover that somebody has been manipulating the sharks' behaviour with special thumpers that lure them into shallow water, along with a hormone that keeps them permanently hungry. While trying to unravel the mystery, they also have to deal with somebody who wants them killed.
Shark Attack is one of countless live-action and documentary films made since Spielberg's Jaws in order to exploit the public's fascination with those sea creatures, and the probable impetus for its production was the far more expensive and ambitious Deep Blue Sea, released roughly two months later. The script by Scott Devine and William Hooke actually shares a few scraps of that film's general premise — sharks mutated or behaving badly thanks to unethical and sinister science — although the comparison flatters the imitation considerably. Director Bob Misiorowski obviously had a much lower budget at his disposal, and the only notable names in the cast are Van Dien, who somehow tries to reconcile a fashion model's looks with the role of a serious scientist, and Hudson as the ruthless local businessman. Mitchum, who plays Dr Craven, is known as Robert Mitchum's grandson and is also Van Dien's former brother-in-law, which is the sort of trivia one reaches for when there is little else to say about the performances.
The extremely low budget is reflected in the fact that the sharks, despite the title, play very little part in the film. Their attacks are usually reconstructed through editing and stock footage, so that the animals are forever arriving from somewhere else, in worse lighting, at a different film stock. Misiorowski appears far more comfortable on land, and Shark Attack works better as a 1980s-style B-action film with a little conspiracy thriller thrown in for good measure. There is a mystery of sorts concerning the identity of the real villain and his real motives, resolved after a few entirely predictable red herrings. The action scenes are decent enough, including the obligatory and authentically 1980s trope of an exploding helicopter near the end.
Jenny McShane, obviously cast on the basis of her looks just as Van Dien was, appears in a bikini in many scenes, but this — along with an unfortunate bikini-wearing tourist who loses a leg during one attack — is as far as the production company would go down the exploitation route. McShane would reveal considerably more in the more famous sequel Shark Attack III, where she plays a completely different character altogether.
Even with expectations lowered accordingly, Shark Attack is a very disappointing film, although a few cast members, Caprari among them, show flickers of enthusiasm and suggest that the whole thing could have been much better with only a little more polish. Despite its flaws it was successful enough to warrant a 2000 sequel, Shark Attack II, which recycles some of its motifs, and the arguably best-known Shark Attack III, which revolves around a completely different story. The franchise, in other words, outgrew the film that started it — and that film remains its weakest link.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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