Avalanche Sharks (2014)

Number Rolled: 27

Movie Name/Year: Avalanche Sharks (2014)

Tagline: Get ready for a snow day.

Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

Length: 82 minutes

Rating: TV-MA

Production Companies: Odyssey Media, Pulser Productions, Rogue State, The Cartel

Producer: Barbara Chisholm, Alexandra Julson, Christian McIntire, Michael Roddy, Keith Shaw, Kirk Shaw, Jacob Silver, Devi Singh, Stan Spry, Scott Wheeler, Eric Scott Woods

Director: Scott Wheeler

Writer: Keith Shaw

Actors: Alexander Mendeluk, Kate Nauta, Benjamin Easterday, Eric Scott Woods, Kelle Cantwell, Richard Gleason, Gina Holden, Jack Cullison, James Ouimet, Nicole Helen, Emily Addison, Mike Ruggieri, Erin Ross, Patrizia Cavaliere, Matt Gunther, Vinny Petengail, Richie Million Jr., Erika Jordan, John Hundrieser, Amy Ninh, Haley Stewart, Michael Dostrow

Stunt Doubles: None

Blurb from Netflix: A ski resort accident causes an avalanche to unearth ancient “snow sharks” that feed on human flesh, especially young spring break snow bunnies.

Selina’s Point of View:

Me and Cat were both looking forward to this film. We enjoy goofy, illogical creature features.

Sure, they tend to be a bit corny… but if you get a bunch of friends together and add pizza to the equation, it can wind up being a good time for all. You don’t watch B-creature features because you’re expecting a masterpiece. You watch to shut off your brain for an hour or so and laugh.

At least, that’s why I watch.

That said, there’s very little I hate more than a creature feature trying to take itself way too seriously. 

It’s one thing if the serious nature comes in the form of something like Jurassic Park (1993). That was meant to be a bigger film and it worked on trying to back up everything with science and real acting.

If you’re going to name your film something like Avalanche Sharks I expect to be kept amused by some silly bullshit.

The problem is, the creators of this film didn’t fully dive into what it could have been. It was like they kept one foot on a steady, serious shore the whole time. That’s not enough for a film like this.

If I could ignore that issue, it still wouldn’t have felt like a proper movie. It was disjointed and felt like a bunch of scene thrown together without any attempt at making them mesh.

All in all, it was lazy. It tried to be so bad it was good and wound up forgetting the second half.

I’m very disappointed.

Cat’s Point of View:

Time to put my ‘thinking cap’ on – because it’s going to take some serious effort to say something positive about this film.

This really had the potential of being a great creature feature B-movie.

I love shark movies. I’ve discussed my fascination with the toothsome terrors of the deep before. I love creature features, and also have an appreciation for off-the-wall films. This one, though, was so off the wall it went right into a dumpster.

Oh, I’ve got it. My one positive note about this movie is simply that the rendering of the sharks, when they were completely out of the snow, was interesting.

Everything else about it needed some serious help. The aesthetic they gave them was pretty cool – but it all fell apart the moment the effects interacted with people.

With a movie about events happening at a ski resort I did expect some sporty action sequences. This definitely wasn’t anywhere even in the same hemisphere with what I was hoping for.

I was actually shocked to discover that this film’s director is primarily working in cinematography in the visual effects department of many productions. Some of them were even well known, such as Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017). I just don’t understand where the disconnect happened.

Can we talk about the IMDb blurb? Was there a bikini contest in this movie? I honestly never picked up on that. It quite possibly could have been mentioned as an aside that blew past me at light speed – but it fell prey to what quite a bit of the plot here did… devoured by loose ends.

There were elements of the story that were introduced near the beginning and just never came to anything. You can’t always apply sound logic or reason to sci-fi productions on this level, but at least give the story some flow instead of bouncing around like a drunken pogo rider.

I’m surprised I don’t have a big red mark on my forehead from all the face-palming that happened during the course of watching this film.

Watching this was a trial of endurance. Needless to say, if asked for a recommendation, this film wouldn’t be among the contenders. 

Languages

Speech Available: English

Subtitles Available: English, Spanish

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 7%

Metascore - None

Metacritic User Score – None

IMDB Score – 2.2/10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 1.5/5

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 1/5

P.S.  There’s an audio addition at the end of the credits that is important if you decided to care about the film.

Movie Trailer: