Welcome to Knockout Horror. It’s Shark Week so I am sure you know what that means. Yep, another shark themed horror movie. But not just any old shark themed horror movie. Nope! A crap shark themed horror movie.

Believe it or not, today’s movie manages to be a turd of considerably larger size than the one we looked at yesterday – Shark Waters. In fact, we are gonna need a bigger boat. Today we will be reviewing the truly terrible Shark Huntress from 2021. The result of a person finding ten dollars down the side of their sofa and deciding to use it to fund a movie.

I Didn’t Know It Could Be This Bad!

I have to be honest about today’s movie. It is truly one of the worst I have ever watched. In fact, I didn’t know that movies this bad were still being made. I had no clue that a team of people could actually put out something this utterly terrible. If you could take away everything that makes “The Room” so bad that it’s good and leave only the awful things. It would still not be nearly as bad as Shark Huntress. That is how shockingly abhorrent this film really is.

I could end the review right there, safe in the knowledge that I saved at least a few people an hour or so of their lives. But that wouldn’t really be doing justice to just how much of an irredeemable piece of shit Shark Huntress is. It’s the James Corden of horror. I need to exorcise this demon from my life and then begin the long path to rehabilitation. Pushing forward with the hope that one day I will live without the memory of Shark Huntress haunting my waking hours.

An Absolutely Ludicrous Plot

You are going to probably think I am joking when I break down the plot of Shark Huntress. It is beyond silly. A woman, Sheila, loses touch with her mother for a couple of days. Determined to find her, she heads to the island where she was working. A devoted environmentalist, Sheila’s mother had been working on alternatives to one time use plastics. Something which, apparently, angered big plastic making her disappearance a little suspicious.

Best part of the film by a considerable margin.

Upon arriving on the island, Sheila finds out that her mother has been killed by a rogue shark. Determined to get revenge on the shark and to bring down the plastics industry. Sheila heads out with her environmentalist pals, a spear gun, and a scuba kit. Holy shit, what a terrible idea for a movie. Let me summarise that once again for you. An environmentalist wants to kill a shark that was acting on instinct all while bringing down the plastic industry. Does this movie seem a little confused to anyone else?

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?

The plot of Shark Huntress has me asking a few questions. One being how the hell did this thing get commissioned? And another being why did nobody love the writers enough to tell them that they are shit at their jobs and need to quit? Somebody actually spent time writing this trash out on the back of a napkin and another person actually added their ideas and opinions to it. Not once did someone come along and say “What the hell is this shit?”. 

If you look close, you can say hi to the camera operator in Guru’s glasses

If a person told you they had an idea for a shark movie where an environmentalist seeks revenge on a shark that killed her mother. You would probably feel that, as a friend, you were obligated to tell them how dumb of an idea it was and that they should burn it immediately. Never breathing a word of it to another human ear for the rest of time. You might even be well within your rights to disown them as a friend. Nobody did that to writers Dante Delmare and Dustin Alexander III. Nobody cared about them enough to stop them embarrassing themselves. Not a single person thought for one second to tell John Riggins that he shouldn’t direct this movie. There wasn’t anybody in his life to tell him he was committing career suicide. And the result of this negligence is Shark Huntress.

Aside from the whole “You can’t take revenge on an animal” thing that Moby Dick goes so out of its way to illustrate. Why the hell would you make the person taking revenge an environmentalist? Somebody that loves animals and the environment would never kill an animal. Even if it had harmed a family member. They would understand it was acting on instinct and it was your dumb family member’s fault for invading its space. It is the worst story ever.

Undermines Its Own Message

If you told me this was a movie made by actual anti-plastic industry activists. I would believe you. It plays out very much like the cringey type of shit made by narcissistic students that believe they are the only ones that can save the planet. All while hypocritically engaging in the very actions that they are campaigning against. You know the types. Complaining on Reddit about corporate greed and capitalism while posting on their iPhones and wearing Nike trainers. We are all hypocrites in one way or another. These guys are just much louder about it.

Eve Cerda really isn’t too bad

Shark Huntress goes out of its way to preach about the dangers of one time plastics. As well as the damage being done to the environment. All while Sheila grabs the biggest spear gun that she can find so that she can give a shark a brand new breathing hole. It just feels so utterly ridiculous. What is the message here? It’s okay to take revenge on an animal if it killed someone who was a one drop relative? Plastics are bad but so are sharks? Let’s make one time plastics big enough so they only effect sharks? I don’t know. It’s a dumb plot written by dummies. That’s not the worst of this movie’s issues, though.

Just Completely Terrible

Every single thing that could possibly go wrong with movie making has gone wrong here. Terrible acting, awful dialogue, technical issues. Everything. Shark Huntress is the definition of an awful film. It starts poor and just keeps on getting worse. Katrina Grey’s quickly abandoned, terrible American accent offers a quick hint of things to come. The camera operator’s reflection appearing in a character’s sunglasses also suggests we may be dealing with a careless production crew. But as time goes on, the issues just continue to mount.

In fact, Eve Cerda is the only one in the movie who actually puts in any effort

Horrible audio hissing and low quality, overly compressed, dialogue plague every scene. A script that reads like the writer only just learned that one time plastics are a bad thing. Dumbs complex issues down to remedial levels. Terrible death scenes that play out as someone with a shark fin attached to their back squirting red dye into the water while they pull the unfortunate character around a bit provoke genuine groans. It’s all so awful. There isn’t a single thing to praise here.

Katarina Grey showing her full emotional range in these screenshots

I suppose you could argue that the movie might be worth a watch purely for the laughs. And it is hard not to crease up laughing as the group pour Sheila’s mum’s ashes into the sea. Especially due to the fact that her ashes consist of sand and large pebbles. There are moments where the movie verges on being “So bad it’s good”. For the most part, though, it is just bad; plain and simple.

A Complete Lack of Action

This is a shark movie so we must, at the very least, have some action, right? Well that’s what you may think but the answer would be a resounding no. Nothing happens for the entire film. The cover hints at some epic battle between a woman and a shark. The closest we get to that is Sheila standing ankle deep in the swell pointing her speargun into the open sea. It is terrible. 

The camera focuses hard on this jar of cremains as Grey lovingly cups it against her bosom

To emphasise this point. We actually get an extended part of the movie where Sheila gets her diving certification. I shit you not! We actually see her taking diving lessons. She sits in a waist deep pool wearing scuba gear and learning to breath using the apparatus. We even see her taking her final exam. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Have you ever watched a movie where someone seeking revenge has to get a certification for something? Imagine watching John Wick taking his black belt in Karate or Han Solo receiving his pilot’s license. It is so silly.

Horrific Acting

Right, let me get this out of the way first so I can pull out the flamethrower. Some people may not agree but I thought Eve Cerda was actually okay. Sure, her character is terribly written and they have her saying dumb things like “Thumbs down emoji” but she is okay. She feels fairly natural and does a good job making her lines feel, at least somewhat, organic..

Such a painfully awkward scene

Okay, everyone else sucks a fat one. This is some of the worst acting I have ever actually seen. Katrina Grey is completely and utterly horrific. She has a thick accent that lends her a sort of Tommy Wiseau quality. Her line delivery is completely flat. She never emotes and seems completely bored. Looks like she barely knows what is going on and brings absolutely nothing to the movie. She can cry on cue pretty well, though. 

Saving the world and killing sharks – Go Team!!

John Flano, as Guru, is even worse. I have no clue what was going on with this guy. His delivery is so bizarre. He says every line in the same way and doesn’t seem to understand the script. I am fairly sure he must have very limited acting experience. A scene later in the movie where he is drunk is absolutely hilarious for how bad his acting is.

Dean Alexandrou, as err Dean, and Russell Geoffrey Banks, as Luca are pretty bad, as well. I kind of got the feeling both were very bored. Banks in particular. I get the feeling he can probably act, he just didn’t want to. Maybe he realised how bad this movie was and decided to phone it in. Who can blame him?

Final Thoughts and Score

I have given this movie one out of five but I have to make this clear. There is something called Schema. It’s fairly important and helps search engines to recognise that the article is a review. Google doesn’t like when you rate movies less than one. They freak out a bit and tell you that you haven’t rated it at all. The reason I am saying this is because Shark Huntress isn’t a 1. It is a 0.2 and that is incredibly generous. This is the worst movie I have ever watched. An absolute marine disaster that will take years to clean up and will impact the flora and fauna of the horror world forever. Well, it would if anyone gave a shit about movies like this.

Some of the worst acting I have ever seen, a ridiculous story, loads of technical issues, a horrible script, no action, no actual sharks and no reason at all to waste your time watching this. This movie is physically and mentally painful to watch. It hurts, it burns, and it leaves an itchy rash that lasts for months. Don’t let my suffering be in vain. I watched Shark Huntress so you don’t have to. Go watch The Reef, or marvel at Blake Lively’s nice hair in The Shallows or, hell, even go for a swim in shark infested waters. There are much better ways to get your toothy kicks than this.

We are now three movies into our Shark Week feature. It just keeps on getting worse. Shark Week in 2023 is not looking very positive. Will it get any better tomorrow? I doubt it but we will see. Thanks for reading!