Invisible Shark

The first, No Shark, was an unexpected masterpiece to me. You can see my review there, I thought despite its silly premise it was actually a great movie and a peek into human psychology. I recently found there was this sequel, Invisible Shark, so was excited to watch it.

Ugh. What even is this movie. This feels like a terrible student project. Terrible acting, terrible writing, terrible special effects, everything. There was no human introspection here, it just felt like a super cheap movie made for no real reason at all.

It disappoints greatly, as it proves that the first was just a fluke, and the creator had no idea what made it special.

I don't mean to get on my high horse knowing I'm in this movie, but this is really good stuff.

Definitely the biggest thing Cody has done so far, the scale of this feels upped, in large part due to the ensemble cast and the world-building, and yet it remains a down-to-earth character piece, which I'm glad about.

What I really love about this movie, and what I also loved about the script when I read it, was that Cody took this trashy shark b-movie format and - in the same way he did with No Shark - made it follow this singular female character on an emotional existential journey that also made me care about her, making her so much more than a b-movie stock character. The movie doesn't shy away from leaning into the cheapness of the movie's format, but the story still carries emotional weight. The lead is one of his most full-dimensional characters yet, and her journey really invested me. That Invisible Shark is able to balance this down-to-earthiness with the cheeky schlock of it all is impressive and Cody to a T. He even makes time for meta humor with a trashy shark movie within a shark movie that makes for a really amusing running gag.

Probably my biggest pet peeve with this movie was the sound, which sort of gave the cheapness away a bit more than needed, but it wasn't totally distracting, and I thought about it less the further I got into the movie. Against the rest of the movie, it was honestly not a big deal.

This is great. It's knowingly "so-bad-it's-good" while being really good-quality at storytelling, emotion, and editing despite some flawed sound, and I loved the performances, mine most of all (kidding). The pacing was solid, and those opening credits were FIRE! I enjoyed the experience of doing a Cody Clarke/Kill the Lion Films production. I feel so lucky to have worked on this, and I can't wait to show it to more people in the not-too-distant future.

Thank you Cody and thank you Chloe!