2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
i liked it (jaws on steriods ), August 28, 2008
Hi i am surprised by the bad reviews . the people who gave this a bad review should be feed to the sharks in the movie / first off anotiono sabata is hot and his action is not bad either. it has a decent plot .
and the sharks actually looked real .. also who doesnt like a nice rated r shark flick with lots of blood .. i really ienjoyed this flick its right up there with the classics like anaconda 2 hunt for blood orchid which i also recommend highly and python was good too . check out theses classics .. its a creature movie its supposed to be cheesy people ..
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Two Stars Solely Because It's Not Danny Lerner's Worst Bulgarian Shark Movie!, October 20, 2011
"Shark Zone" is another B-grade shark thriller that shares numerous conventions with an earlier (and genuinely good) shark movie that you may have heard of. It's from director Danny Lerner and was made in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian shark movie being an extremely specialized genre niche that is a specialty of Lerner's. Lerner's even more preposterous "Raging Sharks" ensures that this is not the worst Bulgarian shark movie ever made, though leading lady Brandi Sherwood does everything she can to secure that title. Just sit back and prepare to be stultified.
The film opens with a narrated account of the last voyage of the Spanish galleon "Santa Cruz" full of diamonds on its way from Spain if I understood correctly. After battling a horrible storm for days, it gets lost off San Francisco. Though the narration assures they were lost for days, I still can't imagine that gross of a navigational error. Perhaps I misunderstood, but frankly I didn't care enough to revisit the footage in question. Anyway, a hilarious model of the ship sinks after hitting a reef. The film then jumps to sometime in the late 1990's when a group of scuba divers are about to jump from a Russian helicopter to go get the diamonds. There is lots of wretched dialogue in this scene and though the dive master gives them instructions to behave one guy in particular is a discipline case as he refuses to put away his gaudy gold necklace that is sure to attract sharks. The dive master is former Navy SEAL Andrew Wagner (Alan Austin) who is bringing his son Jimmy (our hero Dean Cochran) along. Due to the lout with the chain everyone gets eaten in a spectacular frenzy of roaring sharks (Really? They roar?) except Jimmy who narrowly escapes by miraculous helicopter intervention. Please note how the galleon transmogrifies for a while to a sunken ocean liner. No matter, it won't be the last continuity error in the film. What is really noticeable is the terrible footage matching in this scene (with an Ed Wood meets Jacques Cousteau day versus night editing sensibility,) and after watching both back to back I think the shark puppet must be the same one seen in "Raging Sharks." If it's not, it's awfully close.
Fast forward again, this time ten more years and Jimmy is in charge of beach security in Horseneck Beach, California which is having its biggest beach festival of the year coming up. Suddenly the Russian mob turns up (!) and wants to sponsor the festival. I bet that's got no strings attached. No wait. I was wrong. It turns out that all bad guy Volkoff (Velizar Binev) wants in exchange is a trip to the "Santa Cruz" to get the long lost diamonds. Jimmy's boss, Mayor Cortell is all in favor of this agreement, and pushes Jimmy to take him to the galleon, though Jimmy stubbornly refuses. Now here's what I don't get: I know it's a low budget film, but why is the mayor also played by Alan Austin, who was Jimmy's dad about half an hour earlier? Were they that short on the budget? Is it a statement? Did Lerner just think we wouldn't notice? I am open-minded to all three theories, but lean toward the latter.
It is to be expected that a shark appears promptly at the beginning of festivities (it does) and sets off an argument between Jimmy and Cortell about whether or not to close the beaches. Now where have I heard that before? It does seem familiar, but I just can't quite place it.... Jimmy's choice of employees is questionable at best (the lifeguard in particular gives one of the worst performances ever in a film, though is handily outpaced by Sherwood at every turn.) Jimmy comes up with a plan to rid the beach of sharks that I still don't entirely understand. It involves putting three of his friends in shark cages, tossing them off a boat, putting chum in the water, and then urging them to swim quickly toward the boat. I am not a trained ichthyologist, but that would not have been my first reaction. Later that night after watching his three friends slide down the gullet of a shark Jimmy also seems to reconsider, though somehow he manages to keep his emotions (very) in check.
What follows is a little detour into the Russian underworld, as Volkoff's pals kidnap Jimmy's son Danny (Luke Leavitt) and put him on a boat. My question: Danny gets kidnapped off his school bus on the way to school in the morning; why does it take Jimmy and his wife Carrie (the always grating Sherwood) until night to figure out he's gone? What is the demanded ransom? A trip to the kelp beds (!) with Jimmy to find the "Santa Cruz" and her diamonds, of course. ("It's your funeral.") There are intriguing plotpoints (Volkoff's brother was the rescuing helicopter pilot from ten years earlier,) and it's no shock when underwater fisticuffs and shark attacks plague the diamond liberation team. I won't give you any hints as to Volkoff's fate, not that I need to of course. Amazingly, the boat Danny is being imprisoned on catches fire for no discernable reason during all the ruckus. (Nobody said it would make sense.) How will Jimmy and Danny ever get to safety? I am sworn to secrecy. Be sure to watch to the very end which contains my favorite scene (by far) in the film. I will only tell you that Jimmy, Carrie, and Danny go on a cruise holiday and Danny gets over his fear of water in the ship's pool. This scene made me laugh so unexpectedly and so hard that my spleen hurt.
"Shark Zone" is a ludicrous guilty pleasure for those who love the excesses of the B-movie world. The acting is poor, the script predictable, derivative, and inane. The special effects are bad, and the stock footage is edited unbelievably unconvincingly. The Bulgarian locations are beautiful and there are lots of actors who add considerable foreign ambiance (e.g. Boiko Boyanov as Vlad and Plamen Zahov as Boris.) I was oddly amused by the dual casting of Alan Austin in particular, and found many of the plot contrivances laughworthy as well. This is not a good movie in any conventional sense, but if you are looking for a nature gone amok movie played straight to enhance the tenuous production values, this could be a good way to waste 91 minutes. The DVD itself has poor audio in several places, often making the volume button on your remote of key importance as the dialogue is nearly inaudible, though sound effects (especially the roaring sharks) are very prominent. Extras are skimpy: a trailer (you can just watch this and get the best two minutes of the movie and you won't be missing much) and a Spanish language track.
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