This is an archived copy of the Spring Break Shark Attack live review which streamed in real time while it aired. It is hard to believe such a great concept – The O.C’s Shannon Lucio and some other teenagers face an army of sharks – turned out so badly. That being said, as far as great ideas which go horribly wrong, it was second to my own personal decision this spring break to make money to pay my lawyer by playing high stakes poker. This choice eventually led to me being miserable enough to watch Spring Break Shark Attack.
8:00 – Five trophy wives are eaten by an unseen, underwater menace. I think it was a shark.
8:02 – Shannon’s dad won’t let her go to spring break because of all the Jello wrestling and sex. We are informed by the opening credits this movie is produced by someone named Peter Sadowski.
8:04 – The first montage of bikinis and lotioning is immediately followed by the first great line of dialogue – “You are pale even for a white girl!”.
8:10 – Guy Hero, who I think used to be on 7th Heaven, is introduced. He is smart and sensitive and depressed about college, but his mom encourages him to “go meet a girl” even though he is wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt.
8:15 – Two creepy dudes with a video camera walk around telling girls they are with “Girls Unleashed”. This reminds me of the time me and my friend went to Lake Havasu for spring break but somehow ended up there a week early. All he had was a still camera, and we only came away with this photo, which we always preface by rubbing our stomachs and saying, “We went to Lake Havasu and all we got was some terrible gas!”
8:19 – Guy Hero and Shannon dance awkwardly to a slow song at a raging kegger. His new flannel shirt has sleeves and I have to admit, I really like his haircut.
8:24 – Two teenagers are eaten by a shark in a marina which somehow produces a geyser of blood shooting out of the water, not to mention the first commercial break. Snuff Toll: 7
8:31 – It turns out Shannon’s pasty-faced brother is a nerdy shark scientist who works near the beach and says things like, “I don’t know what the question is, but the answer is sharks!”. He warns her about a reef he just discovered that could be home to the Tiger Shark which can “smell blood and has no fear”. I will coin this moment as the “The Moment the Second Great Line of Dialogue Occurs”.
8:32 – The first fake attack of the movie occurs when some girl’s boyfriend playfully pulls her under the water, alarming everyone on the beach and every viewer for a few nerve-racking seconds.
8:44 – Shannon gets slipped a roofie by a serial date rapist. I haven’t seen a shark for about twenty minutes and it hits me that more people will see this than Open Water, the good shark flick I saw a few days ago. I am sad.
8:53 – I wake up after falling asleep to find a scene of Shannon getting molested intercut with two teenagers being shark-yanked off a dock by their feet. Subtle. Snuff Toll: 9
8:58 – Dad shows up but it’s too late. Shannon is getting on that tour boat no matter what! As they stop the boat to swim Guy Hero eats apple slices off a knife… roofie rapist jumps in the water… second fake attack happens when he pulls a girl down by her feet… getting nervous… blood appears in the water out of nowhere… Sharks!
9:03 – The commercial immediately after Guy Hero yells, “Sharks!” is a Gap commercial with a jingle that refrains, “Shorts!”. I keep thinking they’re singing, “Sharks!”. Because I’m not looking at the TV, I think the movie is still going on and just became awesome. It’s not and it didn’t.
9:08 – Shannon wins the race back to the boat. Unfortunately, sharks ram the boat until it can only make it to the nearby island of a mad scientist (I’m guessing), where Shannon finds a near-full packet of Rohypnol (or maybe Sudafed) in Rape Guy’s bag. Who is the real enemy? Subtle.
9:15 – I finish downloading the Sex Pistols box set from the Internet. I’m sampling a demo of “God Save the Queen” so I nearly miss the nerdy brother look at a mutilated sea turtle and say something that ends with, “…inescapable conclusion – Sharks!”
9:25 – The dead body of her friend’s boyfriend is found on the shore of Blood Island by Shannon. I assume he was one of the guys killed earlier in the marina. I can’t help but think of the movie Tremors and it’s underground worms. In the sequels, the worms learned to walk and eventually fly. I am starting to hope something similar happens here so the local news can start 30 minutes early.
9:36 – Finally, after years of sharks on film only attacking by themselves or with a few others, they finally get their shit together and storm Spring Break Beach in a herd. Because of the geysers and generally bad camera work, I am left to speculate how many people actually die. Snuff Total: 1,981.
9:40 – Shannon, Hero Guy, and the nerdy brother lure every shark away by tying a cage full of shark food to the back of their boat and speeding away.
9:41 – Bryan Brown, who is apparently in this movie, stands on the beach amid the smoke and triage tents and says, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s all wrong.” Though never really explained, he was evidently dumping chum in the water to attract sharks and scare tourists back to a beach where he owns resorts. I think he is just having a Vietnam flashback.
9:50 – Shannon’s boat is going down so the nerdy brother pulls out his latest invention – Tiger Shark-repelling electrical balls. Though Hero Guy shoots himself in the shoulder with a spear gun and Shannon has to swim into the shark swarm to fix one of the pods, the sharks are eventually driven away in the direction of what looks to me like Mexico.
9:58 – Hero Guy and Shannon enjoy the sunset and decide to spend next spring break together… in Cancun! Although, Spring Break Shark Attack 2: Cancun would be great I kind of hope they push it into production a little sooner – maybe a Memorial Day Shark Attack. Are you listening Sadowski?