Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)

Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
Director: John Shepphird
Stars: Jack Scalia, Jeremy Luke and Joey Russo




From IMDB:
“Many years ago, hundreds of locals and tourists were massacred by giant man-eating sharks in the infamous 1916 Jersey Shore attacks. But that's just a legend... or is it? It's a holiday weekend on the Jersey Shore and, unbeknownst to anyone, underwater drills have attracted dozens of albino bull sharks to the pier. When a man goes missing, TC (The Complication), Nookie and friends fear the worst and plead with the police chief to close down the beach. It isn't until a famous singer is eaten alive during a performance on the pier that the shark hunt begins. Now, the Preppies must work together with the Guidos in order to save the Jersey Shore and its inhabitants from another vicious slaughter. Written by Anonymous”

I have to admit I’ve never seen even one episode of Jersey Shore, MTV’s successful reality show featuring uneducated Italian Americans who love to tan, where gold chains, talk shit, and create a lot of drama in their life. I have witnessed a ton of appearances by said cast members in interviews, talk shows, and tabloid stories.

I’ve gleamed enough of what these people are about to not want to watch the show. With that being said watching this film it was easy to follow who and what was being spoofed. I realized I knew a lot of the characters from media appearances and the like.

The initial framing for the spoofing of these real life characters are all setup and punch lined with in the first 10 minutes of the movie. After this these ”characterchures” if you will, are just used in a typical SyFy creature feature about killer sharks.

The cast of copy cats dress and talk like their real life counterparts, even going as far as to regularly use some of their catch phrases skewed just a bit of course.

Grading it on a comparison scale for what it is, a SyFy original creature feature it’s not too bad. The CG is laughable as always, but you’ve come to expect as much from SyFy so expectations weren’t that high.

Reading some reviews by Jersey Shore fans, it became plainly obvious to me that a lot of people didn’t get it. Some thought the real life cast were playing themselves; others thought it would be a mad magazine type spoof about MTV’s reality show.

What a lot of people don’t realize is this movie was produced by exploitation film veteran Fred Olen Ray. What producer Ray did was what he does best, he made an exploitation film. You won’t find the gratuitous nudity that’s in a lot of his films or even major gore. What he did do was exploit the cult of personality that is the Jersey Shore phenomenon.

Using their likeness, and way of talking and acting he duped a large number of fans to turn in to watch the premier of Jersey Shore Shark Attack. I think it was a great tactic and shows that old school exploitation still has a place in modern media.

At the end of the day, it was a midgrade SyFy exclusive but one I can say with all honesty is worth checking out.