Bad Movie Mondays Review

Two Headed Shark Attack

“1 body, 2 heads, and 6000 teeth!” The movie’s snappy poster warns. Sharing the screen with the conjoined shark are Brooke Hogan and Carmen Electra, whose acting prowess, being somewhat better than the sharks, lends considerable credibility to the film. It was this credibility that inspired Bad Movie critics Simon and Matt to dive into the aquatic nightmare of Two Headed Shark Attack.

“1 body, 2 heads, and 6000 teeth!”

  Bad Movie Moments

-Close up of the shark looks like a sock puppet

-A Mexican deckhand/stereotype is named “Tequila”

-Size of shark varies greatly from shot to shot

-Actors react inconsistently to being devoured

-Hull breach drawn with marker

A fascination with many-headed monsters has echoed throughout pop culture as well as classical mythology. From the three-headed Cerberus, guardian of Hades, to the indomitable hydra, enemy of Hercules, these beasts possess several advantages over their single-headed brethren. Multi-headed beasts can attack in a wide swath and are difficult to surprise and surround. They can also multi-task; one head can gorge on prey while the other scans the horizons for threats. Our two-headed shark uses his particular mutation with great results. When both heads are gnawing on the same surfer, it creates a kind of tug-of-war effect, often tearing soon-to-be-corpses completely in half. 

"the three-headed Cerberus, guardian of Hades"

The movie opens with such a display of two-headed skill. Two wake boarders, towed behind speedboats, are simultaneously and voraciously devoured by the twin maws of the shark. This is the Cerberus-shark at its finest: swift, powerful, hungry and free. As the blood and human remains darkened the water Simon was moved to utter “the intro leaves me breathless. For real.” Sadly the sensational opening moments only make the inevitable fall into disappointment all the more heartfelt.

The plot revolves around a group of students embroiled in a “semester at sea.” At first glance the class consist of various high school stereotypes: the jocks, the nerds, the princesses and the skanks. All were apparently chosen to show off their tight, bronzed bodies, with the obvious exception of Carmen Electra, the professor’s wife/acting veteran. As their ship is damaged by two-headed shark attacks, the class flees to a nearby small island (or atoll). Naturally the atoll begins to sink, trapping the protagonists between attempting to repair the boat, which would expose them to the dual-headed beast, or wait for rescue, and risk the possibility that the atoll’s sinking might cast them into the shark’s domain.

"apparently chosen to show off their tight, bronzed bodies, with the obvious exception of Carmen Electra"

These concerns coincide with the obligatory, yet gratuitous sunbathing scenes. The fine line between B movies and pornography is further blurred when three of the students, two girls and one guy, slip away from the group for some watery intimacy. Based of the levels of nudity, the audience presumes the young man’s pubescent threesome fantasy is about to be realized. But he doesn’t make his move fast enough! The Cerberus-shark hauls away and consumes the two ladies while the young man watches; his arousal melting into abject horror and loss (we assume.) At this point in the movie we paused to discuss the ramifications of what had happened. What if, I asked my esteemed Bad Movie colleague Simon, the shark let this guy live? What kind of grey, meaningless life would this traumatized man endure? Oh, to have known such intimacy only to have it wrenched away would be the sickest of tortures, suitable for a villain of Deathbed proportions! We soon unpaused, and the shark mercifully finished the job.

The Cerberus-shark hauls away and consumes the two ladies while the young man watches

As the shark picks its way through her classmates, the lantern-jawed Brooke Hogan emerges from obscurity and begins to lead the remnants of her class via mechanical expertise and white trash grit. With the help of a nerd she has trapped in the friend zone, she dreams up ways to distract, blow up, elude, and electrify the diabolical shark. Her tough, powerful character is arguably an important role model for young women. Despite this (or perhaps, because of it) the monstrous shark saves Brooke and her pet nerd for last, the surviving head battling on even after its twin has been slain.

"Her tough, powerful character is arguably an important role model for young women."

It is in these last fleeting moments that the director begins to introduce close-ups of the shark in order to keep things dramatic and fresh. These close up shots, intended to cause fear and horror, only inspired unintentional humour. One Bad Movie Monday guest even declared “Oh my God, rewind that! It looks like a f______ stuffed animal!” Quickly dubbed “Ol’ Button Eye” the puppet shark encapsulated in the screen capture below is the true tragedy of this film. What happened, noble Cerberus-Shark? You were so powerful at the beginning, when you devoured those wake-boarders. You were truly alive, embracing your inexplicable mutation with skill, artfully flinging your victims into your mouth. You even surfed in a tsunami as the atoll collapsed, striding the world like a Colossus. And now look at you, Ol’ Button Eye: beaten, ludicrous, and laughable.

It looks like a f______ stuffed animal!”

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is Deathbed: The Bed that Eats) Two Headed Shark Attack merits a 7.5 due to entertainment value, unintentional comedy, and soft core appeal. A highly enjoyable Bad Movie, this flick represents an enormous step backwards in giant shark puppetry, a niche expertise which Simon and I have developed through close scrutiny of Bad Movies, specifically monster-shark Bad Movies.