NIGHTMARE SHARK (2018)

Studio:       Syfy
Director:    Griff Furst, Nathan Furst
Writer:       Griff Furst
Producer:  Griff Furst, Isaiah LaBorde
Stars:     Tony Amendola, Bobby Campo, Rachele Brooke Smith, Lulu Jovovich, Caroline Cole, Nick McCallum, Thomas Ian Nicholas

Review Score:

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Summary:

An experimental drug trial forces six sufferers of recurring nightmares to face a mythological shark that exists in dreams.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Ava levitates while experiencing a recurring nightmare involving her dead family, a supernatural shark, and a mysterious man on a boat named Kauhuhu. Ava’s boyfriend Enzo helps Ava recover.

Ava and Enzo travel to a retreat where Dr. Reginald Novak promises to treat chronic nightmare sufferers in an experimental drug trial. Gina and her boyfriend Kaplan, who also experience recurring shark nightmares, arrive at Novak’s remote cabin.

While driving to the cabin with his girlfriend Jolene, Rob falls asleep at the wheel and briefly experiences a haunting shark nightmare. Jolene drives the rest of the way.

Dr. Novak introduces his program to the six participants. Initial tests are conducted as the trial begins.

Over dinner with the group, Ava recounts how she has been traumatized since childhood when a hooded man intentionally sunk her family’s motorboat. Although a shark killed her parents and brother, Ava survived because someone unknown called in her location to the Coast Guard. The others realize that the same shark haunting Ava’s dreams haunts their nightmares as well.

Even though Jolene elects to stay, Rob decides to quit the trial. On his drive away from the cabin, Rob encounters the supernatural shark Kauhuhu and dies.

Ava spends the night with Jolene to console her about Rob leaving. Ava witnesses Jolene becoming briefly possessed while sleeping and then sees Kauhuhu emerging from the ceiling.

While Jolene continues to dream she is drowning, Ava rushes to the main house to tell Novak what she saw. Novak administers a sedative against Ava’s will and puts her in his MRI machine in the basement.

Kaplan briefly sees Kauhuhu in the ceiling while having sex with Gina. Gina encounters the shark when she falls asleep in the bathtub afterward. Kaplan slips and knocks himself out while trying to pull Gina from the bathwater.

Gina runs for help. While unconscious, Kaplan experiences a nightmare that ends when Kauhuhu pulls him up a chimney.

Gina finds Jolene coughing up water from her dream. The two women conclude that their nightmares were real.

Enzo joins Gina and Jolene. With Kaplan missing and their cellphones not working, Enzo goes with Jolene to the road to send her for help on a bike. Enzo and Jolene find Rob’s overturned vehicle.

After they return to the house, Enzo and Jolene confront Novak with Gina. Novak pretends to call the sheriff to report Rob missing. Novak adds that he will cancel the drug trial in light of everything that happened.

Novak tells Enzo that Ava is sedated inside his MRI machine. Enzo demands to see her. Novak uses a paperweight to knock Enzo unconscious and locks him in a storage closet.

Ava dreams of being buried alive. Ava escapes to a desert where she flees from evil incarnations of her parents. Ava sees Kauhuhu and stumbles on the sand.

Unable to find Kaplan, Gina and Jolene agree to watch each other while they take turns resting. While Gina sleeps, Jolene sees Novak driving a forklift, which he later uses to move Rob’s disabled vehicle, and goes to investigate. Jolene discovers that Novak’s landline is disconnected.

Jolene returns to the sleeping quarters in time to see Gina levitating off her bed. Jolene also sees Kauhuhu hovering above Gina. Jolene wakes Gina to tell her Novak is up to something.

Enzo escapes captivity through an air vent and regroups with the two women. Enzo shows Gina and Jolene that Novak has the Kauhuhu boat Ava saw before her family died. The three of them go to the basement to free Ava from the MRI machine.

Unable to physically get to Ava, Gina has Jolene choke her until she passes out in order to reach Ava in the desert dream. Meanwhile, Enzo returns to the vents to enter the MRI room where he successfully disables the machine.

Gina finds Ava inside the desert dream. Giant shark fins rise from the sand to engulf both women.

In reality, Gina and Ava levitate. Kauhuhu briefly begins manifesting until Enzo wakes up Ava. The shark kills Gina.

Ava, Enzo, and Jolene realize fear makes the dream shark real. The trio goes searching for Novak. Ava finds a photograph of Novak on the Kauhuhu boat and confirms he is the man who caused her family’s demise.

Enzo finds notes revealing that Kauhuhu is a shark that exists between the real world and dreams and was once worshipped by Hawaiians. Kauhuhu desires to enter the real world and rule it. Once a foothold is gained in a victim’s dreams, Kauhuhu will torture that person until he crosses over or the victim dies. Any human who assists Kauhuhu will rule at his side forever.

Ava and Jolene plan to reenter their dreams in order to pull Kauhuhu into reality and kill it. Novak suddenly shoots both women with tranquilizers before holding Enzo at gunpoint.

Novak tells Enzo about his first encounter with Kauhuhu and how he became fascinated with the mythic shark. Novak also explains how he identified Ava as the surrogate capable of summoning Kauhuhu and manipulated her life path.

Jolene drowns in her dream. In her dream, Ava opens the gate for Kauhuhu. Novak and Enzo fight.

Ava wakes after bringing Kauhuhu into reality. Novak prepares to shoot Enzo when Ava suddenly spears Novak with a harpoon. Kauhuhu becomes an insect swarm that envelops Novak and Enzo.

The swarm chases Ava to the house where Ava finds all of the dead bodies stored in a basement closet. Ava activates the MRI machine, which seemingly destroys Kauhuhu.

Novak pulls Ava out of her MRI into apparent reality. Novak explains that Ava conquered her dreams and mastered her fear as she reunites with Enzo and the other program participants. Ava goes upstairs for a glass of water and realizes she is still dreaming when she sees Kauhuhu on the other side of a window.

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Review:

It’s astonishing that killer shark thrillers are even a thing since not only does the subgenre’s average quality level barely scratch mediocrity, the majority of those movies are plain dreadful.  Of course, the finger of fault can be pointed at the initial popularity of “Sharknado” for inspiring the wipeout wave of mega-monster flicks regularly flooding Syfy’s programming.

Really though, we have ourselves to blame for the fact that the copycat tsunami hasn’t yet subsided.  Audiences still lap up this claptrap without necessarily noticing that the joke is now on them.  With ironic laughter permitting lowered standards, lazy filmmakers too easily take advantage by exchanging campiness for carelessness to smash and grab fleeting notoriety.  Until viewers stop tuning in for disappointment, there’ll be no end to the sham strategy of throwing sh*t at a wall hoping another lucky pop-cult phenomenon sticks by happenstance.

Is “Nightmare Shark” the next “Sharknado?”  Let’s hope not, because Syfy doesn’t need five more of these.  They could safely do without this one too.

“Nightmare Shark” positions itself as the “Nightmare on Elm Street” of killer shark movies, but it’s not even the “Bad Dreams” of killer shark movies.  Its premise proffers a perfectly primed idea for a basic cable monster movie-of-the-week.  But a slapdash screenplay and moths in the wallet make for a bland movie that’s too much of a somber slog to be fun.

I didn’t realize this beforehand, so I can confirm it won’t affect anything if you’re not in the know either, but “Nightmare Shark” doubles as a pseudo-sequel to both “Atomic Shark,” one of two 2016 movies with that title, and 2017’s “Trailer Park Shark.”  Bobby Campo and Rachele Brooke Smith reprise their roles of Kaplan and Gina from the former while Lulu Jovovich and Thomas Ian Nicholas reappear as Jolene and Rob from the latter.

Having survived their respective shark encounters, the two couples look to deal with their newfound night terror trauma by enrolling in Dr. Reginald Novak’s experimental drug trial at a remote cabin.  Accompanied by her boyfriend Enzo, Ava anchors the third pair participating in Novak’s program.  Ever since an unknown saboteur sunk her family’s boat when she was a child, Ava has suffered from recurring nightmares involving her slaughtered parents, the mysterious man, and a seemingly supernatural shark.  Remarkably, the other subjects think Ava’s ethereal shark is the same creature haunting their dreams too.

SPOILERS

The titular terror only takes some of its inspiration from Freddy Kruger as it tortures sleeping victims on this retreat.  The rest comes from Hawaiian shark god Kauhuhu, an actual mythic monster who, according to the movie’s take on its legend, seeks to rule reality by breaking through the nightmare plane.

As the only suspect in sight for the horrors plaguing Ava’s past and present, Dr. Novak naturally turns out to be orchestrating everything according to evil plans you can figure out without reading further or seeing the film.  Novak sets himself up from his introduction as a stereotypical mad scientist obsessed with his life’s work.  He is made more stereotypical by showcasing the sophisticated creep characteristics of sipping cabernet and listening to classical music while secretly watching his subjects on surveillance monitors.

Tony Amendola, a venerable ‘That Guy’ who always provides solid support, nevertheless makes the most out of the man by chewing on dry dialogue like it has the succulent juice of Kobe beef steak.  It doesn’t go a long way, but it goes far enough to squeeze a reason to pay attention out of predictable plotting.

END SPOILERS

All of the actors actually give it all they’ve got, or at least as much as a movie like this affords them slim opportunities to engage.  “Good” isn’t the adjective to describe the performances.  But everyone commits wholeheartedly to the concept in spite of its outlandishness and that honest effort creates some captivating chemistry onscreen.

You’ll find it far harder to overlook all of the evidence left behind of a film content to cut every possible corner.  Chintzy effects aren’t exclusive to the primitively animated CGI shark, although that’s a big problem too.  Issues extend all the way to the basic technical tricks of harsh cuts or speeding up/slowing down footage to simulate dream settings simply.  Few of the setups look creative.  Many look lame.

Cheapness boomerangs back to the shark, which should be the centerpiece feature of a film titled “Nightmare Shark,” but instead serves as a sad reminder of the limited effort expended.  Bizarrely, and for a reason I can only assume relates to low funds, the ghostly beast takes the form of a buzzing bee swarm more often than it appears as a shark.  “Nightmare Shark” gets your eyeballs coming and going as the shark either looks awful when it does appear, or doesn’t show up in its scenes at all.

Shot selection frequently has little narrative logic behind it.  In a dream sequence where Ava runs from an evil figure, the camera cuts to the entity mouthing mocking laughter, even though the dream takes place in Ava’s perspective and she can’t possibly see this person.  Before chalking that up to “dream logic,” an earlier example starts with a close-up of Ava throwing a cup away, an entirely unimportant moment, before panning to follow conversational action.  Why block sequences without motivated movements?

Also, I’m pretty sure I saw a shot of Enzo with a scar on his forehead well before he receives that injury.   I’m only uncertain because I can’t determine how or why that would have happened.  Perhaps the crew needed to grab a quick pickup shot for the earlier scene and, rather than do it right, they hoped his hair would cover the makeup?

Some briefly trippy moments come close to giving “Nightmare Shark” a few flashes of frightening flair.  Yet when a movie this skimpy presents its premise in such a sincere fashion that it can’t follow up, the film gets felled by a tone that just doesn’t gel.

“Nightmare Shark” is to killer shark movies what Lunchables are to cuisine: simple sustenance with flat flavor mass-produced by an unthinking machine.  It might make do in a pinch, but you’ll toss the tray in a trashcan and forget it soon after eating.

Review Score:  45

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