Welcome to Knockout Horror and to another terrible shark movie courtesy of free streaming service Tubi – Bull Shark from 2022. Do you want to know what is fairly atypical about Bull Shark? Well, there are barely any sharks in it. It’s actually a story about a prick of a human trying to sort out his life while making the least amount of effort possible.
A woman goes missing while swimming only for her body to, later, wash up on the shore. What is, initially, suspected to be foul play actually turns out to be the result of a shark attack. A Local man desperately pleads to shut down the waters to prevent the death of further innocent people. But the town’s mayor refuses, realising the impact it will have on the area’s tourist industry. It’s now up to the man to overcome both his troubled home life and the shark that is killing people right under his nose.
Now if you think I am describing the plot of the fantastic Spielberg movie Jaws, you would be right; but I am also describing the plot of Bull Shark. Yes, this movie is a complete and utter rip off of the 1975 iconic shark thriller. Simply swap the job of Sheriff to that of a game warden and change the setting of the New England beach town to a lake and you have this movie.
Bull Sharks is Amazing!!1!
I get a distinct feeling that writer, director, Brett Bentman didn’t know much about bull sharks. I feel like he watched a documentary about them, was completely amazed that they could live in fresh water and then had the bright idea to put a fresh water spin on Jaws. For those of you who don’t know, Bull Sharks belong to a group known as Requiem Sharks. This is a group of live bearing sharks, many of which are capable of surviving in brackish, or even fresh, water. You don’t see these sharks in freshwater lakes all that often because they have a massive demand for protein. A demand that they would quickly outstrip in fairly isolated sections of water.
Bull sharks are also noteworthy for being incredibly aggressive. Unlike Great White Sharks that have a fearsome reputation but mostly attack humans due to mistaken identity. Bull Sharks want you to get the hell out of their territory. In fact, their propensity for taking chunks out of people’s legs has lead to their numbers being drastically reduced. Humans cull, en masse, due to the threat posed to swimmers in local beaches. A sad fact of humanity’s need to place money above the health of nature.
So does the premise of the movie Bull Shark make sense? Well, it is certainly possible. Bull Sharks are found in fresh water, we know that. In fact, Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel that Jaws is based on, built his story around the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Two of which took place in either brackish or fresh water, leading to Bull Sharks being the lead suspects in those cases. They have even been noted to have attacked bathers in the Ganges river, so there is a distinct possibility that this could happen.
Just So Slow and Dull
Bull Shark chooses to push aside its cool subject matter to, instead, place the focus on an annoying game warden who is slowly ruining his life. This guy manages the lake and feels like it his responsibility to protect the people there. He is a recovering alcoholic who is struggling to avoid drinking every day and is slowly losing his grip on his family. His wife wants a divorce, his son doesn’t want to see him and I don’t want to watch a horror movie about people’s relationship struggles. Nobody is getting what they want from this film.
While Jaws did devote a fair amount of time to Brody’s personal life and the corruption of the town’s government. Bull Shark decides to take all of that bullshit and bureaucracy and make it the focus of the movie. The shark barely makes an appearance. Instead of cool scenes of scantily clad people being eaten alive. We are given scenes of Spencer frantically talking on the phone with a bunch of different people. Seriously, this is the most action packed the movie gets. Bull Shark is tremendously boring.
Terrible Effects
When Bull Shark isn’t sending the viewer to sleep with Spencer running his errands. It is disappointing them with some of the worst CGI I have ever seen. It is beyond bad. We have more of the crappy CG blood from Shark Waters but the actual shark itself manages to look even worse. It is like something you would see on an educational CD ROM from the late 90s. Just awful. In fact, I am fairly sure it isn’t even a bull shark. It is just a generic great white, Bull sharks have blunt snouts.
Combine that with the movie repeatedly re-emphasising the fact that bull sharks can live in fresh water as if nobody there ever watched a documentary before. And a bunch of inaccuracies regarding sharks such as claiming it lost a tooth because it is a juvenile. Despite the fact that sharks lose and replace teeth consistently throughout their lives. And what you have left is a poorly researched movie that gets its only point of interest completely wrong. It’s all very lazy. Throw in some lacklustre acting, a bad script and a level of pacing that feels like the equivalent of being eaten alive by a caterpillar, toes first, and you have little to hold onto.
Action scenes involving the shark consist of people shooting randomly into the open water, desperately hoping to hit something. And idiots falling into the drink before being consumed off screen. But, don’t worry, we also get to see Spencer’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor chastising him for falling off the wagon so it’s not all a complete wash. Utterly mind numbing. The ending of the movie, once again, pays homage to Jaws but it is so completely underwhelming and such a non-event that you will almost wonder whether that is it. Did you miss something? I suppose, if nothing else, it is fitting given the lethargic flow of the movie leading up to it.
Should You Watch Bull Shark?
No, you shouldn’t watch Bull Shark. This is probably the most boring shark movie I have ever watched. It is a laborious, slow, dull and uninteresting movie that manages to make the subject of sharks yawn inducing. That is a task in and of itself. Nothing happens for the majority of this movie. Instead of seeing a killer shark gobbling up swimmers. We see an annoying man gobble down alcohol while ruining his life. If I wanted to see that, I would sign up to Facebook and add some of the people I went to school with. Just skip it!