Shark Exorcist 2: Unholy Waters

Jessa Flux steals the show as Kacey in SHARK EXORCIST 2. She's hilarious as a party dancer determined to enjoy a luxury vacation in Destin. Too bad she ends up on a shark-infested beach where a psycho nun has summoned Satan's shark. Ford Windstar gives another great performance as Claude after raising the bar on his films CANNIBAL COP, HOOKER WITH A HACKSAW and BIGFOOT EXORCIST. And watch for ANGEL BRADFORD from DEBBIE DOES DEMONS and JOE CASTERLINE from BLOOD AND HONOR. SHARK EXORCIST 2: UNHOLY WATERS is the rare sequel that tops the original, with more and better cgi shark attacks and a cast of really likeable actors. If you get the DVD it also has the trailer for both SHARK EXORCIST 1 and 2.

If you've seen some of the director's more recent works then you'll recognize several of the people here. I think one of the best things about this film is the editing from Tim Ritter who keeps everything moving at a nice pace. The film obviously isn't taking the subject matter too serious and that's a good thing. The CGI shark looks a lot better than what was used in the previous film and I'd also argue that this CGI shark looks better than a lot of the recent CGI shark films.

This doesn't contain the sleaze and nudity like a lot of the director's other films from the past few years but the CGI kills are mostly entertaining and make up for it. There are also some bloody scenes thrown in. There could always have been more shark kills but that could be said for any shark movie.

It's difficult to fairly review low budget movies and ignore the obvious technical limitations that the filmmakers are working with, but I try to do my best. That being said, I have seen indie films made on shoestring budgets shot well, edited professionally, with decent stories. This movie's technical missteps cannot be overlooked. The camera shakes and rattles when the wind gusts. There's a scene where the camera is obviously set on a table, and when the main character in the scene moves, the camera shakes like a webcam on a laptop. The sound design issues are myriad - with the volume and sound quality wildly varying between shots in the same scene... and the editing is terrible! The last scene of the movie, the conversation between Jessa Flux and the Autumn's friend character (whose name I cannot find in the credits) obviously took place in two very different locales, on different days, using different equipment. There were four directors of photography, and four FULL pages of producers, executive and otherwise. Is there an excuse for this? I can't think of one.

This is a profoundly bad movie, and I can't believe it turned out worse than the first.

Living in a small town, a series of strange deaths in the area are soon attributed to a curse enacted by a nun summoning a demon shark to prey on the town members after the treatment of her child years ago and force a disgraced priest into a battle of good and evil to stop it.

This was a generally fun and likable follow-up. One of the stronger elements here is the rather enjoyable setup that brings about an opportunity to revel in quite a bit of solid cheese. The overall setup of the shark's resurrection and presence in the community by going for the route of the beast as a physical manifestation of a nun's vengeance over her child's death and enacting a pact with Satan to ensure the demonic shark is the instrument of her revenge gives the film a great baseline to work with. Given the means through which the nun goes about taking victims to the shark as a sacrificial offering or tracking down survivors to ensure the attack is followed through on, as everything ties back to the curse as her actions spur the priest into action to stop her. It's all pretty well-connected with the other girls who become connected to everything over time, which gives this a solid start alongside the sense of cheesy and outright silly action featured in this one. The idea of the shark seen swimming around the lake getting ready to attack either the swimming mother, the series of sacrificial victims given to the shark, or the final attack on the beach which are extremely silly and provides a perfectly acceptable feel to the storyline provided here. Also, rather fun with everything here is the improved technical aspects from what happened to the original, as it's enhanced quite significantly, all keeping this one going along rather nicely. There are some drawbacks to this one that hold it down. The main drawback to this one is the same issue that plagued the original in an overlong sense of padding that arises from the scenes here not involving the shark. Having a majority of the scenes here go on far longer than they should, whether it's the endless scenes of characters wandering around a location with little purpose, talking about movies with friends, or the exploits of the dancer forcing a client to take a road trip to the beach, are all generally enjoyable scenes taken individually but manage to highlight how the pace is off with these taking up the time it could've spent on shark attacks. As well, there's also the expected low-budget antics featured here, which are expected but manage to also hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Graphic Language.

Shark Exorcist 2 is much less sleazy than the original Shark Exorcist, but is also somehow much more incompetently made. At times it felt like a Dustin Ferguson movie, because there so much obvious filler. This is really weird coming from Donald Farmer, who while not a master filmmaker, has nearly 40 years of experience. His movies aren't always "good" but they're at least competently made. Also, the CGI shark is somehow worse than the first movie. I'm going to give this movie a 3/10, mostly due to Jessa Flux chewing up the scenery in every scene she's in. Jessa has really become an indie horror juggernaut over the last few years. If you're a fan of hers, this is a much watch. If not, mostly just watch if you're into bad shark movies, which I am.