[HorrorScience] Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2015)

Reading time: 7 minutes

Qualification

Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre

Year

2015

Duration

80 minutes

Director

Jim Wynorski

Distribution

Dominique Swain, Traci Lords, Cindy Lucas, Christine Nguyen, John Callahan, John Archer Lundgren, Amy Rasimas Holt, Serafin Falcon

Script

William Dever, Jim Wynorski

Not long ago and on the occasion of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Jaws, the Combogamer team dedicated it a special item in which it became clear that this film is still excellent and at no time were they satisfied with showing morbid images of the shark eating people, but rather they managed to shoot a great film around that simple idea.

If you have seen the documentary about how Jaws was filmed, or read the Bonus magazine special where this saga was discussed, you will know that the difficulties they had in making the mechanical shark work increased the shooting time, the budget and almost caused the cancellation of the feature film. Spielberg and his team had to muster patience, courage and enthusiasm to face all the difficulties, something that surely helped them to face similar problems in the future.

But let's imagine now what would happen if there was no need to fight against any type of problem? If everything were obtained with such astonishing ease that anyone could afford something halfway decent. That's when we get to the present day, where we are literally invaded by movies like Sharknado (and its aftermath) Mega Shark, Sharktopus and a dozen more films.

Unfortunately, being able to do whatever you want in terms of special effects only solves a small % of the film, you still have to solve the issue of the script, the rhythm, the characters, the performances, the photography and a host of elements that shape the film. Although of course, we're talking about people who make movies about giant sharks that jump out of the sea and catch a plane in mid-flight, people who spend part of their budget hiring fallen stars like Jaleel White (Steve Urkel) or Lorenzo Lamas (from Falcon's Crest). It is clear that They're not trying to make a big movie, they're just trying to get attention and hopefully make something that drunk teenagers can laugh out loud about..

On this occasion I am going to comment Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre, whose fallen stars are Traci Lords (former porn actress who moved to “mainstream” cinema with Roger Corman) and Dominique Swain (known for her role in Lolita). Let's check if the director of this feature film offers us something fun enough to endure viewing without having to advance in fast forward looking for the shark scenes.

After controlled explosions, a group of strange sharks escape from underground waters and spread out nearby. Those responsible for the explosions will be the first to check what the released animals are capable of.

Elsewhere in Arkansas, a group of women are taken from jail and transported to a nearby area to do community work, under the watchful eye of two guards. One of them cuts her arm with a bottle and when she cleans herself in the lake water she attracts sharks. The rest of the team does not find out anything and assumes that he has escaped, so they resume their journey back to the prison.

[HorrorScience] Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre (2015) — Curious uniform of the inmates of Arkansas

But not everything was going to be so easy, because the girlfriend of one of the imprisoned girls (played by Dominique Swain) manages to deceive the police and kidnap the entire group in a house lost in the middle of the forest, a huge wooden house, with all the comforts in the world so that the girls can take a bath in the jacuzzi in their bikinis.

The group's internal problems (there are girls who don't want to run away, one of the police officers has died and no one trusts anyone) disappear when one of the girls is found dead with a leg torn off. Trying to find an explanation for this event, they meet two geologists who were studying the explosions nearby and who have an interesting theory about what is happening.

After explaining the existence of prehistoric sharks capable of swimming across land, our protagonists try to escape in the van but... it is too late, the sharks are surrounding the house and have burst the vehicle's wheels.

How will the group of protagonists manage to get out alive? The detective played by Traci Lords and her companion who appear in the film if they have nothing to do with the main story? Discover it for yourselves.

The best of Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre is the title of the film, original and fun, the rest is worthless. I have seen some movies of what you could call Sharkxplotation, as Mega Shark VS Crocosaurus with which I laughed a lot more, My expectations were very low, and I was still disappointed..

I didn't expect the characters to be interesting (they have chosen actresses worthy of a garage calendar so they don't have to worry about that), I didn't expect the romance to be believable (if it isn't in "serious" movies, how is it going to be in this one?) and I didn't even expect the director and scriptwriters to maintain the coherence of what the protagonists or the sharks do during the movie, I just expected to laugh or at least say "I can't believe they thought of that, how brilliant" and still So, it has been a regrettable viewing.

One of the reasons for that is that there are no memorable scenes with the sharks, you only see them swimming and sometimes they jump towards the camera and the shot changes or the scene cuts, you don't see any of the sharks eat, you don't see them tear off a piece of the victim or anything, It's like people and sharks aren't in the same movie., well… yes there is a scene where a shark and a person “coincid” but it gives you the feeling that instead of being an animal destroying an adult human, you are watching a Powerpoint slide scroll.

In short, I don't think it's worth watching. Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre. Jim Wynorski is a veteran of films of this type and that is why he could have done something much better in terms of entertainment.

Out of curiosity I decided to watch the Kickstarter video they made to record the film and I have to say that I find it much funnier than the movie en sí.