Just when you thought it was safe to go back to video-on-demand platforms, to rent something good, comes the supernatural shark movie, The Black Demon. The film – from director Adrian Grünberg – stars Josh Lucas and Fernanda Urrejola, and tells the story of a family who come face-to-face with a Megalodan shark.
In the movie, Paul and his family are in Baja California, Mexico on a work assignment. Paul works for an oil company, who want him to conduct a safety check on one of their rigs, and it is up to him to decide if it needs decommissioning.
Upon arrival in the local town, Paul is met with hostility from the few residents that are around. He also hears talk of a demon, who some blame for the town’s recent misfortunes, and it becomes quite clear that none of the locals are big fans of the oil company.
Ignoring all the supernatural talk and the chatter about his employer, Paul sets off toward the rig, only to discover most of its crew have disappeared. Meanwhile, after a troubling encounter with the locals, Paul’s family follow him to the rig, where they all discover the reason why things have not been so good for the townspeople.
A Megalodan shark stalks the waters surrounding the rig, and it has been eating everyone in sight. And now that Paul and his family have ventured across the open sea, the shark has something new on the menu, and is about ready to feast!
There are good shark movies, there are bad shark movies, and then there are boring shark movies, and The Black Demon most definitely falls into the latter category. This latest attempt to breathe new life into this well-worn subgenre of the monster movie bites off far more than it can chew, and fails to make a splash.
The Black Demon is long, dull, and almost entirely shark-free. Oh, the shark does pop up from time-to-time, most likely due to some contractual obligation, but for a film which is about a mega-monster that eats a bunch of people, it spends a heck of a lot of time focusing on anything but the menacing sea creature.
For the vast majority of the movie, the picture is instead more interested in family drama and ecological disaster. This might not be a problem if the movie was simply about an oil rig, but if you stick a ruddy great big shark on the poster, then I expect to see a ruddy great big shark in the film.
No shark? Then no way.
The most frustrating thing about The Black Demon is you can see it is attempting to make some comments about humanity’s relationship to nature, which could make it interesting. But it falls short in its approach and all of its best material is surface level stuff, with no real depth or substance to back it all up.
The film also seems to struggle by having a very limited budget, which stops it from doing anything dynamic. There is no major spectacle in this movie, or any real action, and this turns it into a right snooze-fest.
What could have been something good, runs out of steam very, very quickly. This is less Jaws, and more Snores, and this simply isn’t good enough.
In the US, The Black Demon got a brief theatrical release in April, which resulted in a critical mauling, and the film dying on its arse at the box office. Over here in the UK, The Black Demon is skipping cinemas entirely and will instead arrive on video-on-demand platforms on June 19th, and DVD and Blu-ray from July 10th.
If this doesn’t tell you all you need to know about this movie, then I don’t know what else to say. But to wrap things up, it’s shite.
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