Bad Movie Night! 'Shark Night' and 'The Zombie Diaries'

Because yesterday was my first day back at work, after annual leave, and I was trying to get my head round all the stuff that had happened (while I was away) as well as trying to work out what to do first. I was also trying to get my head round a book that I'd just finished and will be reviewing tomorrow (apparently, middle age means that I need more of a run up to writing reviews, for fucks sake...) With all of that going on then, I needed to put some movies on and they very much needed to be movies that wouldn't make me think at all. Movies that were literally the equivalent of watching paint dry so I could let my mind just switch off for a bit. And so, 'Bad Movie Night' was born! :o)

Just to clarify, 'Bad Movie Night' is not to be confused with 'So bad, it makes me laugh.. Movie Night' which is entirely different and something that you will see a lot of round here ;o) I will fight anyone who questions the cinematic value of 'Mongolian Death Worms' or 'Camel Spiders', just saying... Nope, what I was after last night was something so bad that it wouldn't matter if my attention wandered off the beaten track entirely. I may have done too good a job with one of my choices...

'Shark Night' (2011)

An easy choice, this one, as I've seen 'Shark Night' before and already knew that it would tick all the 'bad movie boxes'...

Arriving by boat at her family’s Louisiana lake island cabin, Sara and her friends quickly strip down to their swimsuits for a weekend of fun in the sun. But when star football player Malik stumbles from the salt-water lake with his arm torn off, the party mood quickly evaporates. Assuming the injury was caused by a freak wake-boarding accident, the group realises they have to get Malik to a hospital on the other side of the lake, and fast. But as they set out in a tiny speedboat, the college friends discover the lake has been stocked with hundreds of massive, flesh-eating sharks! As they face one grizzly death after another, Sara and the others struggle desperately to fend off the sharks, get help and stay alive long enough to reach the safety of dry land.

What an awful movie (which is kind of the point, I know)... So much effort goes into killing off each unlikeable college kid (to be fair, death by shark is always cool and there are some good ones here) that someone clearly forgot the characters were there for the rest of the movie as well. What you get then are a bunch of dull characters lurching from one shark death to the next with no real reason to root for any of them. Even the villains of the piece hardly merit any real attention, especially when you find what their 'amazing plan' is.

'Shark Night' has enough shark action to maintain some interest but all the other bits in between are just dull really. Just what I was after then but lets be clear about one thing, this is not a recommendation. There are a LOT of shark films that I'd pick up before watching 'Shark Night' again (and that includes 'Ghost Shark'...)

'The Zombie Diaries' (2006)

A zombie-creating virus has taken hold across the world with its effects recorded by the video cameras of three separate groups of survivors. A couple fleeing London begin scavenging what they can in the devastated towns, oblivious to the omnipresent danger. In another area, survivors hole up in a farmhouse to escape the nightmare, only to find themselves under siege from the undead. Finally, a film crew caught up in events decide to shelter in nearby woods, unaware of the approaching horror.

You know me, if there's a zombie movie going cheap in CEX then I'll be all over it. I've got a natural suspicion of 'found footage' zombie movies (because seriously, who actually would carry a camera around and film the zombie apocalypse? Also, they invariably look rubbish, apart from 'Diary of the Dead' but my first point still stands there) so I figured this would make 'The Zombie Diaries' a prime candidate for last night's viewing...

Little did I know that I'd chosen a film so bad that I literally couldn't finish it. A dull and overshot 'virus exposition' followed by so much 'shaky-cam' that I actually had to give the film a little credit on that front. If I was trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, I'd be running instead of filming as well. It doesn't make for a great viewing experience though and only served to punctuate a particularly dull zombie apocalypse. Maybe I'll go back and give it another go some time but right now, I severely doubt it. There are films so useless that life really is too short to stick with them.

And... rant over! I feel better for that :o) Seriously though, give these movies a miss. I'll have to come up with a couple of lists of zombie and shark movies that are worth your time...