5 Terrible Shark Movies

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Sometimes I'm in the mood for an arthouse flick but other times I just want something 'so bad it's good'. These five shark movies are some of the best/worst in that category that Tubi has to offer.


1. Two Headed Shark Attack (2012)



A group of marine biology students and their professor find themselves marooned on an atoll while a two-headed shark stalks the surrounding waters.

Two Headed Shark Attack is brought to you by The Asylum, the company responsible for films such as Sharknado and Titanic 2, and it does what it says on the tin. The shark has two heads (or two sharks have one body?). Why? Who cares! There's not even the flimsy backstory you get in the Sharktopus series, it's just there and it wants to eat people.

This movie has Carmen Electra as Dr Anne Babish, the wife of the professor, who spends a good 40 minutes writhing on the deck like a princess who found a pea in her beach towel. The rest of the cast are mostly nubile 20-somethings, led by Charlie O'Connell, who I kept thinking of as 'poor man's Kevin Sorbo', as Professor Babish.

There is gratuitous nudity in this one, and not from Carmen Electra. There are a lot of women in bikinis, and much to my annoyance, the two in matching bikinis do not get simultaneously eaten by the shark. You can't just put the bikini on the mantelpiece and never fire it, movie writers!




2. Shark Week (2012)



Seven strangers find themselves kidnapped and transported to a remote island by a wealthy madman. There they must face a different species of shark each day for seven days.

Shark Week is another The Asylum production, directed by Christopher Ray. It stars Patrick Bergin (from Sleeping With the Enemy and a tonne of B-movies) as Tiburon, the mad billionaire, and Yancy Butler (from Kick-Ass 2) as his wife Elena, who is strangely on board with the kidnapping and elaborate reality TV style murder plan.

I wasn't expecting realism, but there was some impressively bad CGI in this one, including the moment when instead of the actor jumping into the water they are seemingly picked up by an unseen hand and levitated into it. You also get sharks growling like dogs, which is so common in these dodgy shark movies that I now have to remind myself that it isn't something sharks really do.

You might think that the characters could avoid the sharks simply by staying out of the water, but Tiburon is able to cause chasms to open up on the island, dropping his victims into shark-infested sea caves. I actually really liked how bonkers the plot was. It's got layers, like a nonsense parfait.

I highly recommend Shark Week for inclusion in a B-movie marathon or unwinding after a long day.




3. Ouija Shark (2020



A teenage girl finds a ouija board on a beach by a lake. When she and her friends use it for fun they accidentally summon a ghostly shark which then picks them off one by one.

Ouija Shark was directed by Brett Kelly (director of Jurassic Shark). The effects in this one make Two Headed Shark Attack look like Terminator 2, but it has a certain low-budget charm. It's another one full of young women in bikinis, but they are mostly just hanging out together at a girls-only slumber party, so it doesn't come across as quite as tacky. They also look like real, ordinary people rather than super skinny models, so I suspect that the filmmakers roped in all their friends from film school to be in it.

One point to note about this one is that at no point are the characters anywhere near the ocean. There is a lake and a swimming pool, but apparently, the ghost shark doesn't even need a small body of water because it can just float around over land.

If you watch this one, you can look forward to lots of Sam Raimi-style camera work and the hilarious use of a "mystic shield", and ponder the mystery of what happened to Car Wash Girl when she goes missing for a third of the movie.




4. Ghost Shark (2013)



After a shark is brutally killed by a fisherman for eating his prize catch, it is resurrected in a magical underwater cave and returns to seek revenge on the fisherman and all other humans.

Ghost Shark, directed by Griff Furst, was made for the SyFy television network. It stars MacKenzie Rosman (from 7th Heaven) as Ava, a teenager who teams up with her friends to try and get rid of the undead shark.

While it has a similar premise to Ouija Shark, it clearly had a bigger budget (although so did my last camping holiday), and the effects are a little better. Don't get me wrong, it's still bad, but hilariously so. I especially enjoyed the car wash scene. Also, it is my head cannon that this is a prequel to Shark Week, and that Finch, the drunken shark-obsessed guy grieving his dead wife, later reinvents himself as Tiburon.




Swim (2021)



A family's holiday turns into a nightmare when they are trapped in their flooded seaside rental home with an angry shark.

Swim is a Tubi original directed by Jared Cohn. It stars Jennifer Field (from General Hospital and Station 19) as Lacey, the mother trying to keep her family safe. Joey Lawrence (from Blossom and Melissa and Joey) plays the dad of the family, who spends the majority of the movie driving, far away from the action.

This one had the bones of a good movie, if it had been given a bit of rewriting and better effects. I'll give it some points for originality because the premise is at least different from most of the shark movies I've seen. Also, they do foreshadowing properly and have at least one character you can care about a bit. Unfortunately, the dialogue is mostly dull and the second half drags on a bit too long.




I hope you enjoy watching some terrible shark movies as much as I did. If so you are in luck because there are plenty more where these came from.

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More articles by Jennifer Muirhead:

Shark Exorcist - Film Review
Sharktopus vs Whalewolf
5 Fun Monster Movies
5 Films About Ghosts
Night Swim - Film Review
The Invitation - Film Review
Jack and Diane - Film Review
Carnifex - Film Review
4 Reality Shows on Tubi That I Watched So You Don't Have To
5 Trashy Reality Shows on Tubi