(9) SHARK HORROR

 

For instant horror, just add sharks!

I’m joking and serious. There’s even a trope for it in TV Tropes – Threatening Shark (or Everything’s Even Worse with Sharks).

Obviously that’s the case in shark horror films – that is, horror films where the source of the horror is a shark or sharks preying on humans.

However, even in films of other genres, adding a shark or sharks usually adds an element of horror – even if only from fear or suspense by the appearance or presence of that shark or those sharks. The James Bond films are fond of their sharks for example, so much so they were parodied by Dr Evil in Austin Powers wanting sharks with “fricking laser beams” attached to their heads.

There’s just something primal about our fear of sharks.

“Want to make a (usually) aquatic situation a dangerous nightmare? One way is sharks.”

But none more so than in shark horror films. In those, the sea’s your limit – or rather it isn’t, since you can have your sharks in almost any water, natural habitat or not. There’s the mutated cave sharks in the sequel to 47 Meters Down – or sharks in a suburban store flooded by a tsunami.

You’re not even necessarily limited to your “(usually) aquatic situation”. The sky’s your limit – literally with the Sharknado films.

For that matter, you’re not limited to normal sharks, often in combination with not being limited to aquatic situations. I’ve mentioned those mutated cave sharks but there’s other strands of evolution – biggest of them all the prehistoric megalodon. And the sky’s the limit for it as well – I’ve seen an excerpt from one megalodon film (Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus), admittedly hilarious, where the mega-shark breached the surface as sharks do, but to literally bring down a jet airliner at commercial flight height.

And you can just get weirder from there – genetically engineered sharks, ghost or demon sharks, and so on.

And yes – one can easily compile a shark horror top ten on the spot, particularly if you’re prepared to get…schlocky about it.

 

In no particular order other than alphabetical (other than Jaws in top spot)

1 – Jaws (indeed, a whole franchise of them)

2 – 47 Meters Down (with at least one sequel – with those mutated cave sharks)

3 – Bait (the one with the tsunami sharks – in Australia!)

4 – Deep Blue Sea (genetically engineered brainy sharks – with a sequel!)

5 – Great White (res ipsa loquitur)

6 – The Meg (megalodon shark horror)

7 – Open Water (based on a true story from Australia – with at least two sequels)

8 – The Reef (another film set in Australia)

9 – The Shallows

10 – Shark Night

(Dis)honorable mention – Sharknado

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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