taking a bite out of reality
First things first: sharks are not mindless killing machines
sure, they can be dangerous but they’re literally animals trying to eat + survive meanwhile, they’re hunted for sport, overfished, and vilified over fictional versions of themselves
criteria for this list: features sharks or a shark-like creature must have at least a moment of being totally ridiculous or “jumping the shark” no children or animals harmed / killed mild to no trauma or “torture porn” not required: being a good or great movie
common content warnings:
(check each title for specifics)
blood and gore
death, dismemberment
misogyny + bikini
fanservice shots
casual racism
explosions, guns,
various other weaponry
bad scripts
worse science
jaws 3-D, aka Jaws III (1983)
The third movie in the Jaws series has more bark than bite – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just worth knowing before you find yourself cheering the shark on to hurry up and eat someone already. A great white shark – technically a baby, but still big enough to do some damage – gets caught in the waterways leading from the ocean to a waterpark. The shark initially comes across as a bit of a picky eater, with plenty of near-misses and humans just barely staying off the menu. I think I did spot a whole watersports team literally jumping the shark at one point, and one of my favorite things remains the quirky architecture of a series of underwater glass tunnels leading through the different parts of the waterpark.
Dinoshark (2010)
This particular title takes a minute to begin rolling along, but once it reaches a rolling boil it’s full steam ahead. For once the action isn’t as American as apple pie, instead featuring characters who work and play in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The locale may be different, but the plot remains mostly familiar; those in the know caution against a big festivity as an even bigger fish swims ever closer.
Ghost Shark (2013)
Okay, this movie is the one exception to the “no animals or children dying” rule of this list. I’m allowing it because their deaths are sudden, instant, and don’t linger. A total of three kids are eaten by the titular glowing shark ghost. One child slip-n-slides right into the ghost shark’s mouth and two others are bitten in half as they pass through the cast-off from a fire hydrant.
That’s because in this particular tale, the ghost of a wrongfully-murdered shark comes back to take a bite out of the inhabitants of a small coastal town. The pesky paranormal shark can pop up anywhere there’s water, including fire sprinklers, shallow puddles, and an office water cooler.
sharknado (2013)
+ its *Five* sequels
This series of intentionally preposterous movies is probably the main title(s) that most people would be somewhat familiar with and expect to see on this list.
Each entry has its own little pieces of story that chum the proverbial waters for various running gags of increasingly ridiculous shark logistics and chainsaws.
You can, of course, watch ALL of them, but I personally would suggest going with 1, maybe 3, 4, then 6:
Sharknado (2013)
A washed-up surfer who runs a bar, his bff, a waitress who keeps trying to flirt with him, and a barfly attempt to make their way across LA to rescue the ex-surfer’s ex-wife and two offspring.
Sharknado 2: The second one (2014)
Ex-surfer and no-longer-ex-wife visit family and friends (and ex-surfer’s first love) in NYC only for sharknadoes to stop by too.
Sharknado 3: oh hell no! (2015)
Ex-surfer saves the American President, attempts to roadtrip to Florida to save his wife and daughter as sharknadoes keep popping up across the Eastern coast, then goes into space with his estranged astronaut father.
Sharknado 4: the 4 awakens (2016) th
A few years after the previous movie ex-surfer leaves his quiet new life to visit Vegas, only for sharknadoes to reappear for the first time in years. Bonus: cyborg action.
Sharknado 5: global swarming (2017)
Ex-surfer and ex-waitress do some Indiana Jones action and make everything much, much worse, but on the plus side they discover you can use sharknadoes as portals.
The last Sharknado: it’s about time (2018)
Ex-surfer surfs through time and genres with various friends (several of whom had died in previous movies) to try and save the world from sharknadoes for good.
Avalanche Sharks (2014)
It’s Spring Break at a ski resort where they somehow still have a bikini contest. Then thanks to the convergence of alien shark ghosts and a revenge spell from yesteryear by a massacred shaman, noncorporeal sharks take a bite out of tourism.
shark lake (2015)
Dolph Lundgren crashes a van into a lake with a shark in the back just before he’s arrested and five years later there’s a pack of sharks that begin eating people just as Dolph returns from jail.
Ozark Sharks (2016)
A family of four head to a lake in the Ozarks for a quiet weekend only to discover that there’s a big fireworks festival and sharks are crashing the party.
My favorite part was the unhinged local inventor’s stash of weaponry that comes into play.
Mississippi River Sharks (2017)
A big annual fishing competition is interrupted by a school of sharks who are swimming up the Mississippi River to munch on the locals.
santa jaws (2018)
the meg (2018) + Meg 2: The trench
(2023)
A kid given a magical writing implement accidentally makes his immediate family vanish and brings a holly jolly supershark to life, and has to figure out how to stop it before it eats everyone else. The other most obvious entry in the list, ostensibly based on a book series of megalodon-themed adventures. My personal theory is that when they planned the second one, they made a bulletin board of specific critiques from the first one to address. And honestly, in my humble opinion, the last third or so of Meg 2 does a better job of a Jurassic Park movie than any of the Jurassic World sequels.
sharkula (2022)
The actual plot and most of the movie is a mess, but it’s completely worth watching it just to see a literal shark hand puppet with what looks like mouse ears (I think they’re supposed to be bat wings?) pop up on the screen every now and then as the big bad shark bitten by Dracula himself.
(Also worth noting: the same lowest-of-low budget studio has made a variety of other shark-themed “movies,” including Frankenshark, Land Shark, Mummy Shark...)
bonus content
black demon (2023) bait (2012)
The premise I read sounded like something that belonged on this list, but the actual film is more serious and intense. A variety of characters go about their lives -- including being caught shoplifting, family tension, and an armed burglary in progress – until a freak tsunami interrupts everything, flooding a grocery store and its parking garage, stranding the ensemble characters in a situation made only more dangerous by multiple hungry sharks that were swept in with the water.
This one is also a bit too grim for the rest of the list. There’s a lovely “eat the rich” vibe to it, but there’s also two kids who are among the folks who end up stranded on a derelict oil drilling station as a possible banquet for an ancient ecological-revenge demon who happens to be shark-shaped.
recommended soundtrack: surf music and water sounds
and, of course, balance out with documentaries that feature sharks as more than chomping teeth