Sand Sharks (2011)

As a non swimmer I've felt smugly content in my unlikeliness to be eaten by shark, so naturally land sharks are my biggest fear and I have always held a sneaking suspicion that one day they will arrive. And now they have. We’re doomed, we’re all doomed.  

An underwater earthquake cracks open a crater deep beneath the ocean’s surface unleashing a prehistoric predator on the peaceful seaside community of White Sands. Meanwhile White Sand’s prodigal son and dedicated party boy Jimmy Green (Corin ‘Parker Lewis, I Know My First Name Is Steven, Jonas Quinn’ Nemec) returns to home town intent on organising a spring break beach festival appropriately named The Sandman Festival. Unfortunately his plans haven’t taken into account one thing, the newly freed prehistoric predator’s ability to swim on land. Tremors meets Jaws, what could be better than that?

After a pair of dirt biker disappear whilst riding the dunes local cops Sheriff John Stone (Eric Scott Woods) and his sister Brenda (Vanessa Lee Evigan) investigate and are somewhat perplexed when all they find of them in a helmet with its owners head still inside. The only conclusion they can draw is that it is a shark attack, but they cannot convincingly rationalise how it could seemingly take place so far from the sea. They call in marine biologist Dr. Sandy Powers (Brooke Hogan, daughter of Hulk) as a consultant expert (everything about that sentence is somehow hilarious). Carnage and hilarity ensues.

I have two favourite things about Sand Sharks: 1) it continually references Jaws and every pun imaginable is mined with shameless abandon, and 2) the fact that a social networking campaign is embarked upon to promote The Sandman Festival which is going to massive and sustain the local economy through the winter and when we see this extravaganza there’s about 50 people there spaced out at wide intervals to fill the beach. Hilarious.

Sand Sharks does not labour under any pretensions to reinvent the genre it simply does the noble thing and celebrates derivativeness. It’s fun, silly and probably best enjoyed with a few friends and a few drinks. Take a drink every time there’s a Jaws reference, there are many, it’s awesome.  

Sand Sharks is kind of like of the movie equivalent of me, it revels in its limitations, is bombastically naff and references Jaws a lot.