Dinoshark Review

Recently (very recently!), I reviewed The Devil’s Tomb. I didn’t like it. My main criticism was that it took its stupid concept seriously, without humour or irony and I concluded that it wasn’t even worthy of being deemed ‘so bad, it’s good’. I watched The Devil’s Tomb immediately before I watched Dinoshark – now this is how to do a bad film well. Dinoshark is an unaccountably terrible film. But it knows this and is utterly hilarious.

The film begins with a chunk dropping off an ice shelf, from which several tadpole-like things emerge. Cut to three years later and behold! The Dinoshark! (Which, if you hadn’t guessed, is essentially a big shark with a tyrannosaurus Rex’s head.) The abominable being swims to Mexico to terrorise attractive American tourists and only the quick wits of Trace (Skyline’s Eric Balfour) and water polo trainer/marine biologist Carol (Croatia’s Iva Hasperger) can stop the beast.

I watched Dinoshark with my flatmates and we laughed long, hard and frequently, usually, it must be said at Hasperger’s truly revelatory, convention-breaking interpretation of ‘acting’. For her, no facial expression is too simple to mess up and no dialogue is left unscathed by her bizarre diction. It’s a joy to watch. There’s also a moment when, after making a crucial discovery garnered from a search engine similar-to-but-in-no-way-resembling-Google-at-all-no-sir, Hasperger gasps and, for reasons unknown, casually pops her top off! We were rolling in the aisles. She also delivers a gloriously dumb final quip, which we also enjoyed very much indeed.

There are naff special effects galore, dodgy Mexican accents and plenty of apparently bikini-induced slaughter. The infamous Roger Corman produced the film, in what is an obvious cash-in on the recent Sharktopus, which gives an indication of the kind of thing you’ll be letting yourself in for, namely dumb, kitsch, schlocky giggles, a splash of tomato ketchup and a healthy dose of good clean fun. Enjoy with friends and booze.