Sharksploitation

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, and so I thought that I would end the “Fangirl’s Hot Summer Shark Festival Extravaganza of 2024” (name still pending) with a documentary looking at the history of shark attack movies, a genre that it calls “sharksploitation.”

It’s a feature-length documentary, so we get to cover a lot of ground and hear from a lot of different people. I didn’t keep count, but IMDb lists 39 people. They draw from creative fields (actors, directors, producers, writers, special effects artists), academia (historians, sociologists, and one Monster Expert who had the best title), and science (oceanographers, marine researchers, and general shark people).

They managed to get some really cool people too. Like Joe Dante, director of Gremlins. Like Wendy Benchley, noted conservationist and wife of Peter Benchley. Like Thomas Vitale, who created Syfy’s entire original movie business. Like Roger Corman, who was, well, Roger freaking Corman.

This is one of the reasons why I love Shudder’s documentaries. There aren’t a lot of them, which is to be expected for a niche, horror-focused platform. But the ones that they do make always manage to get really interesting people who very clearly care deeply about the subject matter. They’re incredibly candid too, like the Jaws 3 director openly stating that the climax of that movie was horrible.

It was fun seeing just how many movies I reviewed popped up, either as brief examples or for a larger segment. There were several moments where I definitely channeled the “Leo DiCaprio pointing” meme. I also loved the timeline, and I wish that I had a picture of the whole thing that I could study.

What I appreciated most, though, is how it let the actual scientists get the last word. The closing segment was about Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, a docufiction that aired on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week 2013. Basically, it looked like any other show that you would watch on Shark Week, except that it focused on a series of deadly attacks that the scientists determined were caused by a megalodon.

But it also went a step further, and it showed that the governments of the world already knew about megalodon’s continued existence and were deliberately concealing it from the public. Any scientist who insisted that megalodon was extinct was lying to you, and was in the pockets of the corrupt, international cabal that controls our lives from the shadows.

I remember watching this with my family, and while my parents insisted the entire time that it was fake, my brothers and I were genuinely fooled. It wasn’t until they re-aired the mandatory disclaimer that absolutely nothing we just saw was real, and that the "scientists" were actually actors that we realized what was happening. And I wasn’t that young either. I was a teenager, sure, but one that was more than confident in her ability to distinguish between reality and fiction.

I got annoyed that Discovery was wasting time with this instead of showing me actual shark facts, and promptly forgot it existed. But other people didn’t dismiss it. It was incredibly sobering to hear actual marine scientists talk about the sudden lack of trust they encountered with the general public. One even called the movie the worst thing that has happened to their field.

Another expressed frustration that the passionate, driven people that usually do go on to become scientists and researchers have instead become fixated on things like the megalodon. Instead of researching ways to protect manatees or nurse sharks, they pour their time, energy, and money into hunting for something that has been extinct for millions of years.

Which brings me to something that I have been thinking about all summer. Sharksploitation movies are a ton of fun. They’re frequently ridiculous and usually horrible, but there’s a reason why there are so many of them floating around out there. But 99% of them are completely, wildly inaccurate with regards to how they depict sharks.

Sharks are not mindless killers that will devour people whole the moment they enter the water. They’re really beautiful animals that deserve our respect and protection.

Random Thoughts

This summer, I reviewed 13 different shark movies. Instead of my usual Random Thoughts, I’m going to rank them. Now, this is not a ranking based on quality. Okay? This is based on my own personal enjoyment. I also will not include Sharksploitation since it is a documentary.

• The Shallows
• Under Paris
• Shark Night 3D
• Deep Blue Sea
• Ghost Shark
• 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
• Jaws
• From the Depths
• Malibu Shark Attack
• Swim
• Sharks in Venice
• Cocaine Shark

Out of the 13 movies, Swim and Sharks in Venice are the only two that I would absolutely not recommend to someone. Cocaine Shark is something that I inflict upon my friends. Lovingly.

I’ve had a ton of fun with this project, and I hope that you all enjoyed it as well. And who knows? There’s a lot of shark movies out there. I might just have to do this again next year.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

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