Bull Shark

Texas Game Warden Spencer Timms (Thom Hallum) battles a man-eating bull shark that has made itself at home in a Texan lake, feeding on unwary tourists.

The title of this low budget shark-in-a-lake horror positively invites the single-word summary 'Bull Sh**', but someone else beat me to it.

Written and directed by Brett Bentman, for whom a Spielberg-like meteoric rise to fame is extremely unlikely, Bull Shark joins the likes of House Shark, Ghost Shark, Sand Sharks, Jurassic Shark and Sharkenstein as one of the worst in a sub-genre that has churned out plenty of stinkers.

The terrible script spends more time on the protagonist's drink problem, his failing marriage, and a totally pointless subplot concerning a corrupt mayor than it does the shark, which isn't necessarily a bad thing given how crappy the titular fish is: the CGI shark effects are dreadful, and more often than not, it's just a plastic fin on a stick poking out of the water.

1/10. Have fun identifying the comments posted by the director's friends.

I've seen a few reviews about how unrealistic it is about sharks living in freshwater lakes. There have been sightings and attacks in the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, Trinity River. Lakes in Louisiana and California. So that part is probably the only true and good thing about this film. The public needs to be educated, but since this movie is more an SNL Jaws parody (without the comedic approach) they really dropped the ball. And really, it's not even about sharks. It's about a small Texas town with corrupt political figures and a game warden struggling with alcoholism, divorce and being a bad father. The sharks have small guest appearances a couple times and then some plastic fins a few other times. Nope. No thanks.

*The people behind this film have a funny stereotype of Texas. But seriously dude, we're not a bunch of beer drinking till we fall over drunk people.*

A game warden who answers to a county sheriff and a local mayor? Haha!

Not the worst rip off of "Jaws" that I've ever seen, but still not good.

At least they got the whole, bull sharks can live in fresh water, correct.

Well what did you expect from a movie on Tubi called Bull Shark? Oscar winning special effects? Pacino level acting? Don't leave a negative review saying how horribly bad this movie is if you sat through the whole thing. Couldn't have been that bad if you did watch it all. Is it bad? Yes. Is it horrible? No. You get what you pay for, and since it plays on Tubi don't complain.

First off this movie was a free release on the net and I got what I paid for...not much!

First the good news. The lead actor Thom Hallum is an experienced actor but his character was so clichéd that it dominated and eventually overwhelmed his part in the movie.

Derek Woodford, the Sheriff was in the same boat (pun intended) but he was underused. He'd pop in and out of the movie and that was pretty much it.

After that the thespian qualities becomes very thin on the water. And here's the rub, I haven't even gotten around to discussing the story itself. The problem here is that there's hardly any story to discuss.

Sure, it was a change to have a shark movie about a fish other than a Great White, which really does get a bad rap in virtually all shark movies. And like the Great White, the Bull Shark (once known as Bronze Whalers) doesn't exactly like human food. And the same can be said about most sharks and humans.

So what shark does have a particular taste for people...it's the Tiger Shark. They'll go for a human and they'll follow until they chomp their way through the targeted food source.

Now you might be wondering why I know so much about sharks? Well I live in Australia and surfed for around forty years and had a shark swim under my board at the age of fourteen. Also, I've done a lot reading on the subject. And therein lies the problem with this production...there was a lack of research.

The movie itself was reasonable until one hour and three minutes and then it completely went off the (boat's) rails. I won't give it away but I seriously cracked up and by the end of the movie I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Now this isn't a spoiler but if you're trying to attract a shark you can do a number of things. One is to throw fish bait into the water. Another is to throw blood and meat into the water and that will have the same results. And a third method is to jump into the water and splash around. See the movie and you can see which one they accurately go for.

OK, so after this analysis there must be someone or something to blame. Well the production company is ITV and they are a low rent mob that are little better (or maybe worse) than The Asylum.

The second blame magnet is Brett Bentman who wrote and directed this woeful story. I mean for crying out loud all he had to do was start off with Wikipedia and then go to some sea world people and possibly approach an expert on the subject. Nah, too much work so he just made it up.

I could go on and on about movie but it's just too painful. So where will this disaster end up? The same place that all ITV productions end up...Tubi of course.

Oh and you have to wait until after the credits for the final nail in this production's coffin. It's a real humdinger.

I gave this movie two stars and that was for the first hour or so and zilch after that.