Psycho Shark (2009)

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Psycho SharkReviewed by The Foywonder

Starring two guys and five lusciously hootered Japanese bikini girls

Directed by some Japanese dude


The only thing I can say for certain about Psycho Shark is that it had something to do with cute Japanese girls with large natural breasts in bikinis, a psychopath, a man-eating shark, and a misguided sense that it was some sort of avant-garde, cinéma vérité-style psychological mumblecore thriller. Also, it was originally going to be released to DVD in the US under the title Jaws in Japan. Shortly after its release was announced, the title got changed to Psycho Shark, possibly because Paramount gets all legal whenever anyone tries to release a killer shark movie with the word “jaws” in the title.

I made it only a few minutes into Psycho Shark when I came to realize the only proper way for me to review this motion picture, a motion picture only in the sense that pictures moved, would be to do something I haven’t done in a long, long time: a real-time review. Less a review than a specifically timed running commentary of my thoughts as I watched. Doing so always means there will be heavy spoilers. Well, normally this would mean heavy spoilers, but with Psycho Shark I don’t think there’s much to be spoiled. Spoilers usually require the existence of a plot, don’t they? It would be like reviewing a porno movie and you get angry with me because I wrote, “And then he came on her face,” as if that constitute a spoiler.

00:00:30 – Three cute Japanese girls in bikinis with “luscious hooters” (Copyright: Al Bundy, 1989) are frolicking in the surf. No complaints so far.

00:01:40 – The music is turning very ominous even though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary is occurring.

00:02:00 – The music has now become a full-on Jaws riff with just enough changes to avoid a lawsuit.

00:02:30 – All that build-up led to a jump cut to a sinister looking eyeball staring back at the camera from the darkness. What the hell?

00:03:40 – Other than the director trying to get all surreal and artsy, I have no clue what the hell is going on.

00:05:15 – Shouldn’t the flashback sequence recapping the movie happen just before the end credits, not the opening credits?

00:05:45 – Opening credits. The heavy metal score sounds like a riff on the Jaws theme as performed by the guy that composes entrance music for WWE wrestlers.

00:08:00 – Two more cute Japanese girls with luscious hooters. I feel like I’m watching b-roll footage from a Japanese “Girls Gone Wild” video. When do they stop being irritating and actually go wild?

00:11:25 – For the record we are now over ten minutes in, and none of these girls has yet to be raped by a tentacle.

00:12:50 – They’re trying to decide what they should do first: eat, go swimming, or go shopping. How ’bout you start the damn movie! Get on with it!

00:14:30 – Now they’re in their bikinis posing for the cameras. I’m not going to complain about this part. Oh, the things I would do to these two girls in Charlie Sheen’s closet…

00:16:30 – She’s showering in her bikini? This is the country that gave the world Rapeman; yet, a stupid z-grade movie in which 5 out of 7 characters are sexy girls with big natural boobs that spend 95% of the film in bikinis is going to deny us any actual nudity? Someone needs to fly Jim Wynorski over to Japan to teach the maker of this crap how it’s done.

00:23:10 – One of the girls is now watching a camcorder tape she found of the girls from the pre-title sequence. To be more specific, she’s watching the pre-title sequence, and thus, we too are being forced to again watch the pre-title beach frolic.

00:24:40 – Time for another beach house bikini shower. This is about as sexually arousing as watching Muslim women sunbathe in burkas.

00:30:28 – If the movie is going to insist on randomly jumping back and forth between these two girls and the previous three girls, would it kill either set of girls to say or do anything whatsoever that might be construed as entertaining?

00:31:00 – Three things Psycho Shark has yet to show the audience: a psycho, a shark, a narrative.

00:33:37 – Dear God, she’s back to watching more video of the previous girls doing nothing.

00:35:01 – Hey, no fair! She gets to fast forward through her video of nothing happening crap. I’m expected to just keep watching this nothing happening crap.

00:36:36 – The movie has officially reached such a high degree of uneventfulness that a character on screen has grown so bored from watching video of it that she switched it off and flopped into bed face-first.

00:38:00 – Okay, I am seriously tempted right now to pause the movie on this shot of this one lusciously hootered Japanese bikini babe as she stretches so I can motorboat my flatscreen. Now where did I put the Windex?

00:38:50 – A shark fin. An actual shark fin. The first indication of an actual shark. The director finally remembered there’s supposed to be a shark in this movie.

00:39:20 – Smart thinking. Warn your friend asleep on a raft by wading deeper into shark infested water, thrash about and scream as much as possible. Are you trying to alert her or convince the shark to eat you instead?

00:39:45 – Something was finally about to happen and it turned out to be a dream sequence. I wish I could wake up from this nightmare.

00:49:45 – Allow me to recap the events of the previous 10 minutes: not a damn thing.

00:50:00 – Allow me to recap the events of the previous 50 minutes: not a damn thing.

00:51:00 – I am officially sick of watching cute big breasted Japanese girls in bikinis and am fully prepared to shove that digital camera up someone’s ass in a non-sexual manner.

00:53:27 – Holy crap! A plot twist! But how can you have a plot twist if you don’t have a plot?

00:56:15 – So the cute guy at the beach house is a serial killer who murdered the previous group of girls and fed their bodies to the shark? Something finally happened, and it still managed to be vague and confusing.

00:59:05 – You’re an attractive young woman asked by a cute guy to close your eyes. He proceeds to unzip your jacket and begins caressing your cleavage with what even with your eyes closed you should be able to discern is the blade of a knife, and still you do not open your eyes or react alarmingly to this sensation. I believe this is the very definition of too stupid to live.

01:01:11 – The psycho has just been thwarted by nothing more than a running shove delivered by a tiny woman that he simply stood and watched as she charged towards him completely out of breath from approximately 50 yards away.

01:02:00 – The middle aged guy at the beach house is also a homicidal maniac. Who is he again? The janitor? The caretaker? The director?

01:02:48 – All four of them are standing on the seaside rocks looking up and behind in slow motion as a shadow engulfs them. Either Godzilla is coming ashore or this shark is big enough to star in an Asylum movie.

Psycho Shark

01:03:50 – The gigantic shark is now lingering in the air above them, having presumably leapt out of the water (not shown) intent on delivering one big dive bomb chomp to them all. This is just like that scene in Back to the Future 2 when Michael J. Fox got attacked by the holographic Jaws sign except the computer effects here aren’t as realistic.

01:06:00 – Everyone’s dead. The end. The shark in a movie with the word “shark” in the title had exactly nine seconds of screen time. Only two things right now are preventing me from giving Psycho Shark the dreaded “Fuck This Movie!” rating, and they came in five sets of two.

01:09:00 – Three minutes of end credits. I refuse to believe making this no-budget non-movie required the efforts of so many people. These must all be the names of friends of the director he let come to the set to ogle the girls in their bikinis.

1/2 out of 5

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