Zazzali considers Shark Girl in a very unorthodox way, describing it as Not a straight-up vampire movie but it definitely has consistent vampire vibes. I was bothered how that could be possible, not only because it was the director’s first feature film, but in my head still loom memories of Sharkula. Ok, on the bright side, it can be classified as a vampire movie according to the producer’s worldview. But most importantly, not only was I favorably surprised but on the contrary I was rather dazed here.
A near mishap unfolds at the reactor of a Southern California nuclear plant as the film gets underway. Given how minuscule the budget was, the producers were successful to convey a good sense of the strife both visually and audibly. Due to coolant leaks caused by the reactor fire, they vent coolant to the sea. A shark gets trapped and spewed into the discolored feces the animation may not be superb, but it is brief and garnished well enough that it doesn’t offend the sensibility of the viewers. It would be unskilled of me not to mention how vividly composed were it soft focused stills, and it was the fact that I have seen such intelligent work of shoddy film photography which made me surprised the most.
Heidi (Alexandra Corin Johnston) gets her paycheck as an influencer. At this point, it is curious how influencer culture has found its way into horror movies in general and vampire films in particular. It is not a surprise, of course, movies are always honoring the times and yes I do consider the vampire as capitalist and the zombie as the consumer in my piece for the forthcoming Toxic Nostalgia on Screen. What I, therefore found quite fascinating was the image of Heidi at this moment as cute and abused this is not the usual image of an influencer.
She comes across the poster of a dog that has gone missing and decides to take some time to put it on her account to her fans. However, her lover and photographer Ron (Ryan Bertroche) does not feel the same empathy. They go back to the beach to take some more pictures and he asks her to get in the water (as he is trying to shoot a picture of her hair being flipped dry). She is adamant about not going in but he pushes her again and again to go deeper. As he is busy focusing on his camera, something yanks Heidi and pulls her into the depths wisely the filmmakers illustrated nothing at this point and let it be in the viewers’ minds and when he does not see her, he loses his temper and storms out leaving an annoyed voicemail. He is certain she has gone and does not particularly care for her.
We see a couple who seem to be on a romantic evening walk at the beach despite the violence of the waves. She appears to be apprehensive because of the darkness around her. After a moment, he notices something and discovers it to be a lifeless body. He approaches where he sees she is still breathing and it is Heidi but unconscious. Since they do not have any reception, he asks his girlfriend to go help. Heidi wakes up seizes the young man and sinks her teeth into his neck. The woman then sees her brings her attention and then attacks her too. Now we see that her teeth are sharp and knife-like but that is the only aspect that is used that involves transformation. We also only see her bite and feed like a vampire there are words exchanged about victims being torn or bodies butchered and in pieces, all of these happened off screen yet this was an effective choice. Knowing about the shark part we expect the off-screen bloodbath with the image we expect the vampire’s depredation.
As the film AIDS progresses, it is interesting to note how Heidi changes her traits and characters throughout the film. She is definitely more ‘predatory’ now, unyielding to be the growing victim of Ron other influencers, agents, or fussy designers. This goes further on to develop where she turns an alien to the globe, remote, and at times, heartless too. The term alien seems apt considering there is a strand that does borrow from Species (1995). Also, Christopher (Nick Tag), a not-so-famous reporter who has toured to her high school, and a close friend of hers, Sienna (Sumayyah Ameerah), a marine biologist are also involved. There is an overarching conspiracy theory, preoccupied with industrial conspiracy in the narrative of the film, which is furthered by the presence of a batmobile.
There’s not much of a lore she’s a mutation and maybe we can say science made her or rather the refuse of science make her. A forceful mounting of her head in an appropriate angle makes her freeze for a brief period of time (this works as an equivalent of hitting a shark’s nose for disorientation). It is not only her who happens to have been mutated and we even know that there is a serum which can be custom-made to cure the mutation we also know that a single bite is enough to turn someone else.
I think I enjoyed this partly because of the very good photography. The acting was okay and even though the plot was somewhat absurd, the filmmakers understood the concept well. I did like how Christopher’s suspicions are raised as wound bite diameters were far too small for any shark large enough to cause the damage found it is not a huge problem that it appears the authorities do not work this out. Heidi leaves such a close trail to her that it is impossible to go on with her activities, but the time span is small enough that the fact we see only her companions looking for her is acceptable. Absolutely all the same to me the creators made the antagonists don’t possess either bad practical or CGI effects and work on a less is more basis. Is it the best movie ever made, no but itsy Bitsy is a film called Shark Girl for crying out loud. Nevertheless, it does look ok has a few nice touches and a decent characterisation in Heidi, and was entertaining. Six out of ten surprised me but is absolutely fair.
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