Spring Break Shark Attack (2005)

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Starring Shannon Lucio, Kathy Baker, Bryan Brown, Riley Smith

Directed by Paul Shapiro


Ah, Spring Break Shark Attack, where CBS dives head first into the made-for-television, nature gone amok genre only to crack their skulls on the bottom of the pool because they chose to dive into the shallow end. The best the “Tiffany Network” could come up with was two hours of mildly laughable, 100% suspense-free entertainment. Call me a nitpicker but when I watch a movie called Spring Break Shark Attack I expect to see plenty of shark attacks. Even when the sharks do appear pretty much all you see are fins in the water and screaming people splashing around a lot.

The basic premise to Spring Break Shark Attack is that this chaste freshman college student named Danielle goes behind her cranky dad’s back and sneaks down to Seagull Beach, Florida to hang out with two former high school girlfriends that have rented a house. There she finds herself torn between two men, one a hunky creep and the other a hunky nice guy. Also, her brother Charlie just happens to be a local marine biologist, who suspects that a new artificial reef just offshore may have upset the balance of nature, specifically the local tigersharks.

I’m going to do something a little different this time out. Instead of just writing a full-fledged review of the movie I have instead transcribed my real time thoughts that I was scribbling down in a notebook as the movie went along. I think you’ll find this more informative and probably more entertaining that an actual review or the movie itself for that matter.

00:00:00Spring Break Shark Attack finally begins following a half hour delay due to NCAA Basketball running over earlier. I had zero interest in watching the end of this “Cold Case” program and it wasn’t even worth flipping over to “Desperate Housewives” to kill time since it was not only a rerun but also a rerun where the redhead keeps all her clothes on.

00:00:30 – The pre-title shark attack sequence robs the world of a group of future “Bachelor” contestants, or were they supposed to represent the “Desperate Housewives”? I smell an in-joke.

00:02:30 – Can you really blame a dad for not wanting his teenage daughter to go to Florida for Spring Break? “Nothing but a bunch of drunken idiots wrestling in kiddy pools.” I see dad has been watching MTV’s Spring Break.

00:03:30 – Oh, I can’t go to Florida for Spring Break, can I? Remind me father, what was the name of the whore you cheated on mom with?

00:04:45 – Newspaper Headline: “Desperate Search For Missing Housewives”. Ha! Ha! Ha! They’re on ABC right now and the fact that it’s a rerun is the only reason this movie won’t get completely clobbered in the ratings.

00:06:10 – Drunken idiots are actually wrestling in a kiddy pool. Well I’ll be damned!

00:08:45 – Emmy award-winning actress Kathy Baker appears as the owner of a boat rental shop. It’s been a long slide since “Picket Fences” and I don’t see David E. Kelly bringing her in for a guest appearance on “Boston Legal” anytime soon. And there’s Bryan Brown too. He’s down on his luck. No kidding. He’s in this movie isn’t he?

00:11:30 – Do most marine biologists dangle their foot in the water while theorizing about how tigersharks are eating away at the local sea turtle population and might soon work their way up to people?

00:14:00 – Ugh! Was this song composed by the same band that did the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” theme?

00:15:30 – This guy is clearly being established as a sexual predator and he’s wearing a shark tooth necklace. Better believe he’s going to be shark bait soon enough.

00:17:00 – Is this supposed to be a killer shark flick or a Lifetime Network movie about the dangers of Spring Break?

00:20:00 – Seeing how casually Danielle just ditched shark tooth guy for the vacuous nice guy I’m finding it really hard to believe she’s supposed to be a virgin.

00:22:00 – No seriously, where the hell are the sharks?

00:24:00 – Finally! And so of course it’s time for a commercial break.

00:30:00 – Is that her brother Daniel or David Koresh? I’d swear that’s the guitar-playing goof that got fired off “The Apprentice” a few weeks back? Oh, you say he’s developing an electronic buoy that can repel sharks? How convenient.

00:32:30 – In lieu of sharks we’d like to offer you more chicks in bikinis. I accept – for now.

00:35:00 – Hey, Bryan Brown! I’d already forgotten he was in this. Mr. Brown delivers what few lines of dialogue he has in a voice that clearly indicates he’s not happy about the quality of the scripts he’s getting offered these days.

00:37:00 – “What are the chances this is all a bad dream?” Amazingly, that line does not come out of the mouth of Bryan Brown, at least not on film.

00:38:00 – More awful music, this time by the people that did the “Hope & Faith” theme song.

00:39:00 – Wouldn’t you be pissed if you were watching a Girls Gone Wild video and just as some chick in a bikini went to pop her top the camera swung around to a close-up of the cameraman’s face laughing like a total doofus.

00:40:30 – ROOFIES ALERT! Geez, this really is a Lifetime Network movie.

00:49:00 – I don’t mean to keep bringing this up but uh, sharks?

00:51:30 – Hi, daddy, it’s Danielle! I just called to let you know I snuck off to Florida behind your back and someone slipped me a date rape drug. I feel so totally wasted right now. Talk to you, later.

00:53:00 – I gotta give shark tooth guy credit. He really is a determined would be rapist.

00:53:40 – They had to go and interrupt a perfectly fine attempted sexual assault with a shark attack. And I’m beginning to suspect that someone involved with this movie had a major foot fetish.

00:54:00 – Uh, this movie is called Spring Break Shark Attack so why are the sharks taking a back seat to this really lame soap opera?

00:57:00 – Can vacuous nice guy and shark tooth guy just have a fist fight so we can be done with this plotline?

00:58:45 – Angry dad just showed up. Did he teleport there?

01:01:00 – Everyone’s on a boat. This had better lead to some major shark attack action.

01:02:00 – Where’s all of that blood in the water coming from? Did the Little Mermaid just have her first period?

01:02:30 – Sharks! Commercial! Dammit!

01:03:00 – Whoever came up with this Old Navy Bermuda shorts commercial jingle set to the tune of “Fame” deserves a fate worse than death.

01:09:30 – Drugged, nearly raped, almost eaten by sharks…Danielle, don’t you think it might be time to just go home?

01:10:45 – Sharks are ramming the boat, it’s beginning to flood, and the engine is dead – what would MacGyver do?

01:12:00 – Well, that certainly wasn’t suspenseful.

01:12:40 – Gamera is really neat! Gamera is filled with meat! The sharks have been eating Gamera!

01:13:45 – The boat is too incapacitated to make it back to the marina so they’re going to hang out on nearby Gilligan’s Island while vacuous nice guy tries to fix it. There better be land sharks on this island because this movie is not delivering on its title at all.

01:14:00 – Danielle finds roofies that have fallen out of shark tooth guy’s bag. Cue intense music. Commercial break. Not now! Not in the middle of such a compelling subplot!

01:14:33 – Dear Sci-Fi Channel, I know I tend to rag on you guys and your original nature gone amok movies but all of a sudden I can’t help but to feel as if maybe I’ve been to hard on ya’ll.

01:18:35 – A promo airs for CBS’ next nature gone amok flick, Locusts! Oh, I hope it has an extended subplot involving Lucy Lawless, the date rape drug, a near sexual assault, and a drawn out hunt for the truth as to who really spiked her drink.

01:20:00 – Shark tooth guy slyly blames the roofies on vacuous nice guy. Will this subplot ever end? Oh wait, I forgot that the sharks are the subplot.

01:22:30 – Fist fight! You did it! No, you did it! Using Nancy Drew style deduction Danielle finally solves the mystery of who drugged her.

01:24:50 – Okay, what are the odds of this particular girl walking along this particular beach of this particular island and coming across the washed up decomposing, partially eaten remains of her boyfriend?

01:26:00 – The boat is fixed. They arrive back at the marina. Can someone remind me again what the point of that whole diversion was?

01:33:30 – Bryan Brown has been chumming the waters off Seagull Beach to attract sharks in order to cause the beach to be closed so that all the tourists will then go over to the next town where they will hang out in his club, which has been losing money hand over fist due to the popularity of this neighboring city! Are you kidding me? Is this movie for real?

01:35:30 – Yeah, everyone look and point at the dozens of shark fins swimming in. No, no, don’t say anything or try to warn everyone.

01:35:35 – “Oh my God.” Well, someone had to utter that line eventually. It’s legally required in disaster films and believe me, this film is a disaster.

01:36:30 – Shark tooth guy got over his friend’s death awfully fast and is already back to hitting on the female population.

01:37:00 – Finally, at long last, the title of the movie comes to pass.

01:38:00 – I’m thinking maybe they should have titled this movie Day of the Dorsal Fins instead.

01:39:20 – Some poor guy parasailed right into a shark’s jaws. Good move, sucker. If not for a couple geysers of blood in the water this movie would be perfectly suitable for the Pax Network. And shark tooth guy finally gets eaten. What took so long?

01:39:45 – “This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.” Hey, shouldn’t I be the one saying that?

01:40:35 – They’re going to chum the waters and lure the sharks back out to sea. Why does vacuous nice guy suddenly know more about sharks than the marine biologist brother that’s standing silent right next to him? It’s like Speed 2 when L.A. cop Jason Patric suddenly knew more about the operations of a luxury liner than its own crew.

01:41:30 – Just before the final commercial break, a guilt ridden Bryan Brown walks along the beach surveying the carnage he’s responsible for. I swear they copied this exact scene straight out of the climax to Piranha.

01:48:00 – It’s suddenly a WB Network version of Jaws with vacuous nice guy as Quint, marine biologist brother Charlie as Hooper, and Danielle as Chief Brody.

01:48:45 – Damn those spear guns and their hair triggers!

01:49:30 – Uh, Danielle, far be it from me to give you advice on the proper way of removing a spear from someone’s arm but you might want to just push it through instead of yanking it out because that arrow point will do considerable damage if you…Too late. Never mind.

01:50:00 – Thank goodness for the experimental electronic shark zapping buoys Charlie invented.

01:51:15 – One of the buoys isn’t working and if one doesn’t work then none of them will. Danielle puts on a wetsuit and prepares to be lowered down into the shark-infested water to manually repair…I’m sorry but this is just too asinine even for a dopey B-movie like this. Good grief!

01:53:20 – She did it! The sharks are going away! Hooray! I’m suddenly in the mood to punch something.

01:55:00 – Bryan Brown is going to jail. Kathy Baker is wondering what was even the point of her character since she never did anything except yell at Bryan Brown. Danielle makes up with her father and then makes out with vacuous nice guy, who in all honesty should be completely out of his mind with pain seeing as how she just yanked that spear out of his shoulder minutes earlier.

01:57:00 – The end. I skipped “Boston Legal” for this?


1 1/2 out of 5

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