From the title alone I assumed that the Matthew A. Peters (Big Brood, Brackish) directed and written Graveyard Shark was not going to be a film that took itself seriously, that certainly turned out to be the case. I had images of a shark somehow 'swimming' beneath the surface of a graveyard, but this was more of a creature feature, featuring an antagonist who was obviously someone wearing a shark-man costume, but one that still looked good.
Abby (Stephanie Ward - Big Brood) has dedicated her life to hunting down and killing monsters after seeing her father be killed by one when she was a child. Despite her mission, herself and her long suffering assistant Greg (Michael John Gilbert - Big Brood) haven't actually ever been close to finding one. One day she is unexpectedly contacted by Dr. Jan Lovnik (Olga N. Bogdanova - Earworm) who hires her to come and stop a monstrous beast known as the Graveyard Shark who has been terrorising a large graveyard outside the town of Willsboro Point. Learning about the creature from a Graveyard Shark survivors group, and hearing of its origins from the eccentric Captain Issac Seyburn (Berndele March), she sets out to stop its reign of terror once and for all.
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It was good to see Ward here as the protagonist as I thought her small role in Big Brood was a lot of fun. Here she doesn't disappoint either with something charming about her determination to stop the monster. The character was driven with there seeming to be no doubt within her about what needs to be done. It was also good to see Gilbert again, here playing as comedic role as previously with the weird character he had. Best of the supporting roles was the character of Captain Seyburn, such as weird person, with the actor delivering his lines in such a dramatic way that made him a joy to see on screen.
There was a lot of humour throughout the film, with a huge chunk of the jokes revolving around sex, something that isn't my favourite type of humour. There were a little too many scenes around this, the most pointless one being a dream sequence where Abby sleeps with a Bigfoot creature for some reason, while elsewhere you had several sex scenes featuring bare breasts that seemed to be there just for titillation, rather than serving any real purpose. Admittedly, the lengthy flashback sequence Captain Seyburn has where he gets caught up in too much detail about a past exploit he has much to Abby's ever increasing disgust was a bit funny, especially with him in the present adding flavour to his retelling by doing things to the food he has around him.
The Graveyard Shark looked different to what I had expected, with him looking like a villain from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A muscley humanoid creature wearing clothes was not the look I figured would be gone for. It did fit into the feel of the movie and there were a steady stream of victims from beginning to end. While it is in the last act when Abby and company head off to do battle, there were plenty of scenes of characters getting killed throughout the film's one hour thirty seven minute run time. The actual attack scenes were often a little light on detail, the shark biting its victims in a way that this was obscured from the camera, but featuring plenty of blood spraying every where and more than a few kills where the intestines are pulled out from the victims. I did like the origin story for the creature. feeling like something that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The Mighty Boosh.
The humour wasn't always to my liking, but I still found myself enjoying Graveyard Shark. It was surreal and weird, and featured a good amount of enjoyable characters. It was also well made, looking better than the comedy indie horror films of ten years or so back that it often reminded me of. Graveyard Shark is due to be released on July 19th on Blu-Ray, DVD, VHS, and a special collector's box set, it can be pre-ordered from Mad Angel Films' website here.
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