Shark Night parents guide

Shark Night Parent Guide

It's difficult not to poke fun of this movie that is so desperately bad it borders on unintentional parody. It may possibly even win cult status on home video in a decade or two.

Overall D

A group of college students head to a friend's island vacation home to gobble up some fun in the sun -- but instead find themselves on the menu in this shark-fest.

Release date September 2, 2011

Violence D
Sexual Content C-
Profanity C-
Substance Use C-

Why is Shark Night rated PG-13? The MPAA rated Shark Night PG-13 for violence and terror, disturbing images, sexual references, partial nudity, language and thematic material.

Run Time: 85 minutes

Official Movie Site

Parent Movie Review

About the only thing you can’t fault Shark Night on is delivering the goods to its bloodthirsty audience. The opening credits, with accompanying heavy metal music, are bathed in red-tinged water with gory shots of sharks pursuing and eating whatever their teeth can devour.

Moments after the blood and credits clear we are privy to our first victim. She’s a lithe little blonde whose boyfriend has left her high and wet after removing her string bikini top. Wandering back to the van to get a beer, he doesn’t hear the screams from his sweet little thing over his rockin’ sound system. This hors d’oeuvre leads to the next course, which features the best shark food there is: drunken college students.

It’s summer vacation and med student Nick (Dustin Milligan) joins his beefy buddy Gordon (Joel David Moore) and gamer guy Malik (Sinqua Walls), along with their girls Beth and Maya (Katharine McPhee and Alyssa Diaz), in accepting an invitation from their friend Sara (Sara Paxton). Piling into a SUV with too few seatbelts, the gang heads out on a long overnight drive to her parents’ very large cottage on a salt-water lake in Louisiana.

Arriving at the local bait shop, the party meets a couple of toothless hillbillies. While one views the ladies in the restroom through a covert camera, the other picks a fight with the "college boys" outside. Moments later the group is in Sara’s family’s powerboat heading toward the island cabin. When the local sheriff begins to pursue them, with sirens and lights flashing, the bikini clad blonde behind the wheel just smiles. It turns out the sheriff is a friend of Sara’s family and simply wants a beer or two.

With the other two girls quickly changing into their bikinis (we see them disrobe from the rear), the only thing the audience isn’t certain of is who will get eaten first—unless they have watched movies like this before. Statistically, people of color are far more likely to fall prey to sharks, snakes, monsters or aliens and this movie falls right into the center of the bell curve with the African-American couple attracting the first nibbles. Who will be next? The geeky dude and his Hispanic girlfriend, or the Caucasian couple made up of the handsome med student and the busty, blonde babe? I won’t provide any further hints…

It’s difficult not to poke fun of this movie that is so desperately bad it borders on unintentional parody. It may possibly even win cult status on home video in a decade or two. Stupidity abounds. These are supposedly intelligent young adults, yet they can’t figure out what to do. They are outside of cell phone range, but no one even thinks to check to see if there is a landline in Sara’s huge holiday home. Perhaps these young brainiacs don’t know about telephones with cords.

All laughing aside, parents should be aware of the many reasons why they may not want their kids wasting their time or brain cells on this title. Discussions of drinking and "making babies" are frequent, and many scenes show characters with booze in their hands. In addition to bikinis and women in underwear, rear male nudity is seen when an art model is depicted in a classroom setting. However violent portrayals are what tip our grades into the red zone. Blood effects are plentiful as sharks feast on the ever-shrinking cast. One scene moves the film into truly disturbing waters, when two of the "locals" force a woman out of her clothes at gunpoint and then video her being devoured by Cookiecutter Sharks.

Certainly Shark Night will take a bite out of your wallet, but only if you fall prey to the lure of bikinis and blood.

Directed by David R. Ellis. Starring Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Alyssa Diaz. Running time: 85 minutes. Theatrical release September 2, 2011. Updated

Shark Night
Rating & Content Info

Why is Shark Night rated PG-13? Shark Night is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for violence and terror, disturbing images, sexual references, partial nudity, language and thematic material.

Violence: Blood effects are frequent as characters are attacked by sharks. A man is seen with a bloody stump of a dismembered arm. Guns and rifles are fired. A man is shot and thrown from a boat. Two men hold a woman hostage at gunpoint, force her to strip to her underwear and throw her into a water filled cage where she is devoured by small sharks—they record the action on video. Sharks are killed with spears, and a shark’s carcass breaks into pieces that float in a 3D effect. A boat explodes after running into a fueling station. Passengers ride in the back of an SUV without seatbelts. A woman refuses to stop when a police boat with lights and sirens pursues her.

Sexual Content: A nude male model in an art classroom is viewed from the rear. Two women change into bikini tops—the sides of their breasts are visible from the back. Females are seen in small bikinis and males are seen in swimwear. Sexual discussions about "making babies" and other sexual activities are heard. A woman is seen getting a tattoo.

Language: Infrequent language includes scatological and anatomical terms, along with other mild profanities. Terms of Christian deity are used as explitives. A sexual finger gesture is seen.

Drugs/Alcohol: Characters are frequently seen with drinks and discuss wanting to get drunk. A drinking game is played between a man and a woman, while the man attempts to talk the woman into having sex. Characters are seen consuming alcohol in powerboats, although the driver of the boat is never shown drinking.

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Shark Night Parents' Guide

Does the character chosen to be the first shark victim in this film surprise you? What racial and regional stereotypes do you see? Who is rich and smart? Who is struggling in school? Why do you think these depictions persist in American movies?

You can learn more about Cookiecutter Sharks here:

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/ecology/deepsea-cookiecutter.htm

Home Video

The most recent home video release of Shark Night movie is January 3, 2012. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: Shark Night

Release Date: 3 January 2012

Shark Night releases to Blu-ray and DVD on January 3, 2012. Bonus extras include:

- Shark Attack! Kill Machine!

- Ellis’ Island – A cast appreciation of director David Ellis

Shark Night on Blu-ray also offers:

- Shark Night’s Survival Guide – Everything you need to know about the sharks in the movie.

- Fake Sharks Real Scares – Behind the scenes featurette

- Digital Copy

Related home video titles:

These veracious terrors also threaten people in Jaws. They are given the animation treatment in Shark Tale, Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid. For a more realistic depiction of sharks and other creatures of the sea, check out the documentary Oceans.