Shark Night 3-D

Some months back, Snakes On A Plane director David R. Ellis launched a campaign to give his newest film the equally knowing, Internet-savvy name Untitled 3-D Shark Thriller, a title that spelled out with blunt force the exact sort of blatant capitalization on 3-D thrills it would deliver. Unfortunately, his commitment to honesty was compromised—though only slightly—by studio suits who insisted on calling it Shark Night 3-D. Fortunately, as the trailer reveals, that's as artsy-fartsy as it gets.

Shark Night, the night of the sharks, is the simple tale of a group of college co-eds on their way to a lake house for a weekend of drinking and disrobing, and just when they thought it was safe to take off their tops—boom, vicious shark attack. “But that’s insane! It’s a lake!” you may be saying, perhaps while pushing a pair of spectacles up the bridge of your nose. Well then, Mr. Oceanography, would it help if you knew that one of the characters expresses that very objection himself, only to be told that it's a saltwater lake? How about knowing that someone apparently put the sharks there deliberately, as some sort of nefarious plot to kill show-off water-skiers or something?

"Or something," indeed, as this whole trailer shares Ellis’ “Whaddaya want from us?” vibe, right down to its title card proclaiming that it boasts “one of the producers of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” And in between the cage scenes and all the underwater shots of buoyant bikini bottoms, Shark Night pretty much makes no bones about being a total rip-off of Jaws (and more recently, Piranha 3-D), and all but dares you to find a problem with that. After all, it’s a 3-D shark thriller. Let’s not overthink it.