Two More Monster Movies

Well following on from The Host, I decided to check out two other monster movies I've been hearing about.

The first was Rogue



I'd heard good things and I wasn't disappointed. The basic plot is: a tour of Australia's Northern Territory ends in disaster (giant saltie attacks boat, all Hell breaks loose). But the acting is better than most B movies, and the CGI is pretty good too. I actually wanted the heroes to survive when usually I'm just praying the monster will get it over and done with quickly.

Speaking of which...

I followed up the pleasantly surprising Rogue with Shark in Venice. Now I'm a sucker for anything that has a shark in it, but if I'd researched this movie before watching I'd never have picked it up. The plot is basically a treasure hunt interspersed with random shark attacks in the canals of Venice. Sadly it is made by the same team behind the Shark Attack series and they have one terrible problem... they cannot edit a movie to save their lives. It's bad when you see the same boat go behind the main actor three times in one shot (almost as if they just kept replaying the footage...) but worse is how they handle the shark scenes.

Stock footage should have little place in modern movie making. But sadly Shark in Venice has so much shark stock footage it had me laughing out loud. One minute the actors are diving in a tight cave under the city, then the scene cuts to a shark which is not only quite obviously in deep ocean but is also surrounded by unusual tropical fish unlikely to inhabit the Venetian canals. Then it attacks and basically you get the same thing... leaving any suspense or drama to whither away.

Add to this some terrible acting plus a plot that was obviously written up on the back of dinner menu the night before filming and you have one truly awful movie. I stopped watching after half an hour, just as I did with Shark Attack 2. The B movie genre is crying out for a quality shark flick... we'll just have to keep on dreaming...