Arriving for an assignment in Beverly Hills, a research class looking into the environmental damage done to the local marine life, but when there starts to be revelations about the true intent behind the trip a special connection to a mystical shark arrives to sort out those with ulterior motives.
This was a decent if decidedly flawed genre effort. One of the better aspects involved here is the setup involving the class coming there to the area to come across the shark. As this brings about several different interlocking elements that give all of the class a reason to be there, from the devious teacher looking for book material on the girl who's there trying to get over her father's tragedy and the different needs of the students who are trying out their objectives on the trip, this starts with a decent enough start that segues nicely into the shark attacks. Featuring the fine connection to the shark's appearance through her necklace, this is all quite enjoyable and makes for a decent first half. This connection with the necklace and how the shark appears causes many of the sudden shark appearances to come forward. The idea of it appearing out of the blue from within the necklace whenever she's aroused or excited causes some enjoyably cheesy moments where it comes out to attack, chomping on the skeevy assistant trying to get out of the trip, the attack on the boyfriend who wants to get with her or the later scene with the remaining couples who are left. Since this also plays around with her growing enjoyment over the power and becomes quite devious taking out those who are tormenting her, there are a few enjoyable aspects to be had with the film. This one does have some issues with it. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome is the somewhat unnecessary padding that goes on here which is always obvious about what's being done for this extra running time. The overlong scenes of the girl ogling the guy she has an unrequited crush on as he takes a swim in the pol, the constant pans around the house to take in the environment or the numerous side-stories about the class hanging out at the house which takes up nearly the entire first hour to this one. Each of these takes up way too much time before actually getting to the actual horror elements in the story that it's insanely obvious these are dragging the film out to a longer running time. The other aspect that holds it back is the fact that there's not a whole lot of actual shark action which comes about due to these factors as well as other issues. The time-padding doesn't leave this much chance to work with much in terms of chances to let a shark loose, but that all of this is spent on land with the shark appearing as a mystical being out of the necklace with no gore or bloodshed at all leaves such a sour taste in the first place that it can feel like an absolute cheat to even lump this into the genre with the first appearance nearly halfway through the film. Combined with the cheap look and overall underwhelming CGI that looks off, these are what hold this one back overall.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Mild Violence.
