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While I started watching Blue Demon, I caught myself thinking if the makers of these killer shark movies have gotten more creative or are simply getting desperate. Over the last few months, I’ve watched Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy which had a man-shark and Raging Sharks which had UFOs alongside aliens. Now we also have Blue Demon which is the first ever shark suicide bomber movie, a film I was itching to watch since I first heard of it late last year. After actually watching Blue Demon, I can answer the question I posed: these filmmakers are slowly but surely losing it.
In fact, Blue Demon is so bad that not only do I wish to never watch another killer shark movie, but I wouldn’t mind having every species of shark go extinct tomorrow. I understand that it is hard to believe that this particular shark movie could be infinitely worse than so many others from the past few years, but trust me when I say that Blue Demon takes the cake for being an exceedingly awful motion picture.
The Blue Demon creators were well aware that they were creating a ludicrous shark movie, and that its audacity was intentional. They went out of their way to make it appear like they were attempting the film as a comedy. Nothing is wrong with that except there is no humor present. Instead, we get an unappetizing mix of bad sitcom humor and the kind of broad stereotypes and puerile gags that were once the staple of the abysmal sex comedies from the USA’s Up All Night programming block over a decade ago. Simultaneously, the film bears the look and feel of a production made for the PAX Network. The whole time I was watching Blue Demon, I was continuously reminded of an equally awful movie about killer bats entitled Fangs. That’s not a film I ever want to be reminded of.
I have maintained that the lowest form of a bad movie would be a bad comedy because in that case, you can’t even get any unintended laughs from it: it was supposed to be funny to begin with and Blue Demon is the best example of a bad movie because it wants to be funny but isn’t, and clearly believes that it is far funnier than it really is. The Blue Demon movie has four credits which are given to four different screenplay writers which means the whole movie is disrespectfully unappreciated from four different angles
Dedee Pfeiffer (the sister of Michelle) and Randall Batinkoff enrol into an estranged husband and a-wife scientist couple working on a secret, undivided Pentagon project which aims to genetically alter sharks in such a way that they are able to survive in both fresh and saltwater to be used as defense against terroristic attacks on America’s waterways. They are supposed to be geniuses but in fact, neither ever gives you the impression that they even have a working brain cell in their head let alone a genius IQ. Do you remember how the kind of tongue-in-cheek stupid daughter played by a blonde woman in Eight Simple Rules managed to grow up into being a brilliant scientist? Well that is exactly how Pfeiffer plays her role in the movie.
His character is a combination of a scientist and a cocky boy in a fraternity and that is how Batinkoff assumes his role. The never-ending bickering couple is on the brink of divorce but it is clear they are still in love with each other which results in them making very painful attempts at cute dialogues. This is the kind of dialogue I would expect to hear in a sitcom that gets only six episodes.
More humorous mistakes come in the form of their short-statured boss. While a dwarf king may have been okay for a while, the movie manages to offend once again, and we are forced to see a lot of those sight jokes such as when the vertically challenged boss is giving a speech and standing up on the podium from which he can barely be seen. The first time we see this characterifying gag, there is nothing amusing about it, and it is certainly unpleasing to view when the movie goes on to reuse this joke later on within the same scene. This character is also made out to be one of the loudmouthed futility bosses who spends all of his time in the workplace shouting at his subordinates and throwing around weak insults. Did I tell you that this sitcom would be cancelled after only six episodes? Allow me to correct myself and rephrase that to just three.
Jeff Fahey needs to be mentioned as well. Oh God, Jeff Fahey! The actor who plays in the movie is called General Remora. Remora as in the Remora shark… Ugh. As General Remora is put in charge of the military project, the director Fahey thanks God we have an actor who is capable of doing so because he really wants the screens on all the time. He goes to great lengths to un-ironically portray Remora as a cigar-chewing stereotype who fluctuates between performing General MacArthur’s and Clint Eastwood’s roles. If Jeff Fahey believes in reincarnation, he overacts badly enough for five lifetimes.
They start with the moving of the genetically altered sharks. The cattle on the underwater project are eaten by some of the sharks and then they’re farmed. Then Batinkoff’s character gets blamed and spends to much of the movie getting Pfeiffed from the brig, while he spends JP chasing the sharks that are strangely found around San Francisco completing the cheesy footage that is raised with tremendously expected poor outcomes.
One father is preaching the joys of fishing to his daughter when he humorously slips and falls into the ocean. As the sharks commence circling, he is safe and sound!
A couple in love put on their finest undergarments and have the most romantic swim. Unfortunately, a shark benignly moves towards them from afar, but thankfully does not devour them.
I’m absolutely positive that the Blue Demon is going to call into a classic as the Jaws-inspired mortality-stricken-poor-man’s version- with as few as four deaths, if I am not mistaken. Considering the outline of the movie and the rating of PG-13, I already knew that this movie wasn’t going to be your orthodox shark flick, but the fact that more than a dozen Great White sharks are unleashed into the water and even the surfers at a crowded beach have only one life saver is utterly embarrassing.
However, the ending of the film is quite miserable, namely in that the most intelligent shark in the school is sent by the saboteur to set the neutron bomb in its jaws on the Golden Gate Bridge, which appears to have been done in 1st generation Pixar animation. But little time is devoted to the actual suicide bomber shark aspect and more is devoted to our annoying lovebirds car chasing the saboteur, and more rancid scene chewing by their boss and especially Fahey. It’s also established early on that Pfeiffer’s character is a whiz at playing ring toss; sure enough, she ends up thwarting the gun-toting villain by tossing a lifesaver ring around him at just the right time. Ugh.
Blue Demon is what I call a Blue Whale. The entire killer shark concept managed to occupy space on the DVD shelves, but it is now officially dead. The genre’s death certificate will read KILLED BY BLUE DEMON. Rest in peace.
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