Cut bait.
Ouija Shark (2020): 1 out of 10: is a bewildering misfire in the realm of shark-themed horror films. Boasting a baffling premise and subpar execution, it’s a movie so bad it makes you reevaluate your disdain for other low-quality shark films.
The story revolves around a group of twenty-something girls who somehow summon a ghost shark with an Ouija board, despite being nowhere near the ocean. The film’s setting, a middle-class house next to a national park, adds to the confusion.
The Good
The Good: The few positives in this otherwise disastrous film include Amy Osbourne’s brief appearance in a white bra washing a car, the helpful end credits that display the actors and the parts they played, and a catchy theme song. Additionally, the Ouija Shark The Fantasy Playlist on Spotify offers a surprisingly enjoyable listening experience.
The Bad
The Bad: As a fan of Brad Jones’ reviews (The Cinema Snob on Stoned Gremlin Productions) I can often feel his pain. Giving slight praise this holiday season to 2022’s The Nutcracker Massacre, claiming at least it is better than 2022’s The Killing Tree, 2022’s Curse of Jack Frost and 2022’s Return of Krampus all crowding the VOD space and Tubi listings this Holiday season. The Nutcracker Massacre is bad, he explains, but it is not The Killing Tree bad.
I often find myself in the position to reexamine my hatred for, say, 2015’s Shark Exorcist because that movie at least tried to do something new and was within view of a body of water. Ouija Shark is so bad it makes me think better of other terrible films.
It is in some details where I sense the film is doing some sort of sixties style abstract minimalism. The movie could not afford fake business cards, so one character hands another a black piece of paper. It could not get its hands on a deck of Tarot cards, so those are faked as well. Hot dogs were apparently out of budget as well, so a picnic scene comprises characters pretending to eat hot dogs and then pretending the dishes are dirty.
The Ugly
The ugly aspects of the film stem from its low budget and strange production choices. Ouija Shark takes place in a public park and a house with a pool, and for some reason, the characters must walk through the shark infested park to get to the store. The lead actress seems more suited for a Monday afternoon shift at a strip club rather than carrying a film, and the ghost shark’s growling sound is both puzzling and laughable.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: Ouija Shark is a cinematic experience to be quickly forgotten. Shark enthusiasts will be sorely disappointed by the lackluster ghost shark, and exploitation fans won’t find much to enjoy either. The film might have some appeal for those who revel in nonsensical stories and wooden acting, but otherwise, it’s best to steer clear of this poorly executed mess.
RiffTrax Review
RiffTrax: Ouija Shark: 7 out of 10: I have a rule. If I review a movie and RiffTrax later covers that movie, I have to buy the RiffTrax and see what Mike, Kevin, and Bill can add to the experience. Sometimes this is a happy obligation. If RiffTrax covers something like Amityville Dollhouse, a movie I genuinely enjoy in all its lunatic late-franchise glory, I am there with bells on. Sometimes it is something like 1990: The Bronx Warriors, where the movie may not be conventionally good, but there is so much happening on screen that I am curious what the boys will even even be able to focus on first.
And then there are the danger titles. The cursed ones. The ones I have already reviewed, already survived, and do not especially want to invite back into my life. The 2006 film San Franpsycho has been sitting there with a RiffTrax attached to it, waiting patiently for me like a bear trap with a download button. Fear has stayed my hand.
I did not have the same fear with Ouija Shark. Perhaps I should have.
So I gathered a fellow victim, and we watched the RiffTrax version of Ouija Shark. It was her first full-length RiffTrax feature, and I suspect it is going to take some mighty convincing to get her to take on a second.
This is not the title you use to introduce someone to RiffTrax. This is not entry-level riffing. This is not even intermediate riffing. This is the stuff you hand to someone after they have been properly hardened by the bad movie mines.
Without repeating too much from my glorious, award-winning original review of Ouija Shark above, the film has some obvious issues. It is a shark movie that appears to take place in a suburban home beside a small nature park, two locations not generally known for their shark population. It has possibly the least appealing final girl in horror history, and I am not merely speaking in terms of attractiveness. Personality counts too, and unfortunately she does not have much of that either. It has no real features as a horror film. It has one of the most incompetent prop departments I have ever seen, which is at least something. And it has the pacing of molasses despite barely being over an hour long.
Now, in fairness, RiffTrax has turned rougher raw material into gold before. I will always mention Terror at Tenkiller, because Terror at Tenkiller deserves to be mentioned whenever possible. RiffTrax managed to make Lycan Colony watchable, which is not a small achievement and may in fact qualify them for some kind of federal grant. But the boys have also been defeated before. We can all recall the RiffTrax of Frankenstein Island, assuming our minds have not buried the memory for our own protection.
So where does Ouija Shark land? Happily, on the positive side. This is not a classic RiffTrax. It is not something I would hand to a newcomer. It is not one of those magical releases where the movie and the riffing fuse into one perfect bad-movie organism. But it does land firmly in the territory of the sensible chuckle. There are some very funny bits here, and Mike’s reaction to the first appearance of the ghost shark is almost worth the price of admission by itself.
The boys do what they can with the obvious material. They dig into the acting. They dig into the lead actress, who looks like a troll wearing the T-shirt of the band that performs the movie’s closing song. They dig into the fact that this is a cheap shark attack movie that does not bother to take place at the ocean, a lake, a swimming center, a flooded basement, or really anywhere a shark might plausibly appear without first needing directions from Google Maps.
With the material given, I cannot imagine a better set of riffs. Unfortunately, the phrase “with the material given” is doing a lot of work there.
The problem with Ouija Shark is not merely that it is cheap. Cheap can be fun. Cheap can be charming. Cheap can be Suburban Sasquatch. The problem is that Ouija Shark has long stretches where absolutely nothing happens. Not funny, not bizarre, not hypnotic, just nothing. People walking down a garden path toward the camera for what feels like geological time. Scenes drift by with no energy, no tension, no momentum, and no apparent reason for existing beyond the need to reach feature length.
And when that happens, even Mike, Kevin, and Bill can only do so much. You can feel them pushing against the dead air. The RiffTrax version actually makes the emptiness more noticeable because now you are watching professionals try to make something out of a movie that often refuses to provide even the basic courtesy of visible madness.
Still, they mostly succeed. Not triumphantly, perhaps, but honorably. They drag Ouija Shark into watchability, which is more than the movie managed on its own.
So here is the important warning: do not use this RiffTrax to introduce someone to RiffTrax. That would be cruel. You need to be hardened for this one, like James Bond at the end of Casino Royale. You need to have survived some things. You need to have endured Rollergator. You need to have faced Suburban Sasquatch. You need to have looked into the abyss of Frankenstein Island and had the abyss look back with Cameron Mitchell’s agent on speed dial.
But if you have already done your time, if you have the scars, if you know exactly what you are getting into when a movie calls itself Ouija Shark and then somehow still under delivers on both the Ouija and the shark, then damn it, put on the big-boy pants and get yourself some Ouija Shark.
Just do not bring an innocent bystander unless you are prepared to apologize afterward.
