Trailer Park Shark (2017)

Table of Contents

Cringe: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoyment: ⭐⭐

The poster art for the Trailer Park Shark film. On the top half is the main cast of the film. On the bottom half is a shark swimming in water with floating trailers in the background. There is a tagline which reads “They’re gonna need a bigger trailer”.

A tropical storm floods Soggy Meadows trailer park and forces a hungry shark upriver.

Introduction
#

Trailer Park Shark, also known as Shark Shock, is a 2017 adventure comedy film directed by Griff Furst. It has a medium-sized cast of actors, most of whom I’ve never heard of before. This is one of those SyFy channel made-for-tv specials with a relatively low budget, which mainly exist to hook you into watching some ads based on a silly premise and low-grade humour.

There are a lot of dumb movies about sharks around, like the Sharkando series, Mega Shark series, the X-Headed Shark Attack series, and so forth. SyFy has been behind a shocking number of them. I was attracted to this one based on the premise of a bunch of hillbillies fighting for their life against a shark, but as you’ll find out, it gets much sillier than even I expected.

Plot
#

This review contains minor plot spoilers

Trailer Park Shark opens with a tour of the trailer park, and introduces some of the characters which don’t immediately die. The production team went out of their way to produce an exaggerated version of what people might call “trailer trash”, clearly having fun with it. There’s people fighting, drinking, arguing about money or their partners, and so forth.

An image of several people leaning against or standing against an old pickup truck. The bed of the truck is lined, and a duck is sitting in it. Strewn about the scene are bottles of beer and various trash. In the background is a beat-up looking trailer, and in the foreground a shirtless man in a cowboy hat is in the process of throwing a bottle of beer at someone. — Seems like a good time

We’re also introduced to our hero, a man named Rob, and his uncle. They have a plan to steal power from a nearby windwill, which apparently works by just grabbing a single cable and plugging it into a transformer box. For reasons that will become clear in a moment, they they are doing this in water, with a cable which is supposedly electrified, or will be in the future. Brilliant.

An image of a middle-aged man in scuba gear, mostly submerged in water. He is holding a cable in one hand, which is stick out of the water, and holding onto the side of a small boat. — "Imma go plug this in now"

Anyhow, flash back a little bit for some exposition. We found out they’re stealing power because they have an evil landlord who squeezes them for all the money they have, fair. We also find out that the landlord really wants them totally gone, and has ordered his henchman to blow up a nearby levy which apparently keeps the ocean from flooding Soggy Meadows (where the trailer park is situated). What could go wrong? Well, a shark, of course.

A CGI shark swims up a muddy river. In the background a van is driving parallel to it, on a road beside the river. — I mean, I guess it’s possible, right?

After the dam blows up, the area floods, as predicted, and Rob has his fast first encounter with the shark. He somehow manages to fight the shark off by throwing the highly electrified cable at it. This, of course, only makes it more powerful. Now it’s an electric shark!

An image of shark, partially submerged in water, biting down on an electrified cable. It looks like the shark is receiving a strong electric shock and perhaps catching on fire. There is a very bright orange glow coming from it’s mouth, with smoke billowing out. — Don’t try this at home, kids

What follows is your typical action adventure schlock. Rob spends most of the films rowing around in a stupid little boat and avoiding getting eaten or shocked by the shark, while the landlord dispatches henchmen to clear up any residents that didn’t drown. In between this, we’re treated to scenes where various members of the park hanging out on top of their mostly submerged trailers. I generally liked the set design here, as it leaves lots of room for people to get munched by the shark, but the writing was pretty bad.

An image of a women standing on the roof of a mostly submerged trailer in muddy looking water. She has arranged various pieces of wet clothing to spell out SOT. — "Save Our Trailer"

Review
#

Trailer Park Shark is built on an insane premise, designed to provide the sort of low-brow action and comedy that can be enjoyed either ironically or seriously. It mostly succeeds in that mission. The evil landlord character and his henchmen are effective baddies, so you’re rooting for either our hero Rob or the shark to win. Unfortunately, at least half of the film is padding, pointless back and forth scenes that don’t serve the plot at all, and fall flat on the humour front. What remains is pretty decent, with some fun action scenes on the water and the terrible CGI electro-shark.

The film earns itself 4/5 cringe stars. A lot of the writing bogs down what would be an otherwise enjoyable film, with some scenes that make you wish you could turn back the clock and fast-forward through them. For mostly the same reason, it earns itself 2/5 enjoyment stars. There’s some fun to be had here, but it could have been so much better.

A a close up image of a woman with a yellow blouse hanging onto a small boat. She looks very scared and a bit angry. — "What can I say? It’s a shark eat shark world, sweet tea."

I can’t in good faith recommend this one, it’s just not worth the 85 minutes of your life. Maybe save Trailer Park Shark for a rainy day where you’ve completely exhausted every other shark mockbuster.

Planet Dune (2021)

2024-06-16·5 mins