We’re 3,000+ words into this film review now and none of this makes any sense, even to me. This has become a grim war of attrition, I’m less reviewing this film than I am laying siege to it. Follow my decent into madness with the earlier parts before venturing further.

Part I

Part II

Part III

“Have you ever felt the sadness of a slowly dying star?” ask the grunge-metal lyrics as we get, in a fitting homage to proper film making, an exterior shot.  A crane shot, no less, laying waste to my previous theory that this film was a one-person and his digital camera project entirely devoted to him getting to touch boobs.

Maybe it still is, maybe he’s just a heavy plant operator or something.  One crane shot does not a real movie make.

It’s a drone!  He’s got a drone!  And, man, is he milking it.  This isn’t just an over-long film with no editing, it’s a now an over-long film with minutes of footage of the exterior of a castle tower and a waterfall added.

Eventually, Bill reappears and gets out his mobile phone.  He’s phoning Colin, who’s demanding that he hand over the cream, or the notes on how to create it.  Bill, who’s really called Dick…Ha ha ha he’s Dick and he created the shark, so it really is a…Jesus fucking Christ.

After a brief chat about nicknames (which includes the word ‘Dickname’) Colin accuses Dick of being a renegade scientist who is doing nothing to help mankind, just being selfish.  Speaking for my personal 1/7,000,000,000th of mankind I actually prefer that Dick keeps his penis -> clay -> shark cream to himself, thanks.

Also, Colin’s rant may have carried more weight if there weren’t families of tourists wandering behind him, with a vague interest in what he’s doing.

And, apparently, that’s quite enough plot and men talking to each other. Where are the scantily clad women? Where is the heavy metal soundtrack?

Ah, they’re both back, as we cut to woman sunbathing in a bikini, in what looks suspiciously like the forest where Dick and Vanna had their picnic.  Co-incidence? Plot? Thematic development? Nobody wanting to waste time location scouting when they could be videoing naked women?  We may never know.

We’re treated to a full 80 seconds of this new woman lying around in her day-glo bikini, changing positions, lighting a joint – all in slow motion and with Nirvanabees droning on – before she decides to go swimming in a nearby lake, where something terrifying awaits her.

By amazing coincidence the music manages to go into a fast-paced guitar solo just as we get the shark’s eye perspective of it shooting through the water (carefully done by putting a camera in the water and splashing it round a bit) and then it strikes!

And, also by amazing co-incidence, manages to tear off the girl’s bikini bottoms as it does so.  What were the odds, eh?

There’s a brief battle, which sees the young lady triumph; unsurprising, really, it’s hard to imagine many people would put up with much shit from what is, basically, a suggestively shaped Coy Carp, let alone be doing with it having away with your bathing trunks.

Our heroine wisely decides to leave the water so, showing another facet of the film-maker’s art, the director switches to super-slo-mo as we follow her up the beach, in close up.  Once again we’re given a lesson in why films need editors (says the man writing an incredibly wordy blog on a film nobody cares the slightest about) as we’re treated to, literally, 47 seconds of nothing on the screen but someone’s bum.

Now I’ve nothing against bums, some of my best friends have them. Nor am I part of any campaign group that wants all bums removed from films, but 47 seconds in a film is a long time.  It’s a very long time to just look at a bum and listen to some middle-of-the-road metal.

Eventually she plonks her bum on her towel, seemingly unconcerned that she’s now got no shreddies on and there’s no sign of any other clothes around…maybe she’s expecting them to magically appear on her.  Why not, her shoes just have.  I hope the continuity director got fired for that shoes/no shoes gaff!  Hah, listen to me…”continuity director”. As if.

Shoes aside she decides to light up another joint.  Maybe it’s just me, but if my experience of the last hour had been:

1. Sunbathe
2. Smoke joint
3. Go swimming and get attacked by a penis-shaped fish
4. Have shoes magically appear

Then I’d think about, maybe, just maybe, not smoking any more joints for a while.

But smoke a joint she does, still in slow-motion! Is the fucking button on their camcorder sticky or something?  Honestly, all I can think of is Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade) in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace:

There is a lot of slow motion. The episodes were often running up to 8 minutes under. The only way to stretch them out was with slow motion. We tried to keep the slow motion away from dialogue as much as possible, but anything without dialogue was considered for slow motion.

Her joint, wise or otherwise, is rudely interrupted by somebody throwing a toy rubber shark at her head. She falls to the ground, the shark rolls off into the leaves next to her, then we’re treated to a close-up of her shaven lady bits as the shark inexplicably moves in to attack them.

We get a brief shot of her face, which -despite this not being a porn story- suggests that she’s incredibly aroused by somebody flailing at her mons with a monster found in the bins round the back of Seaworld, and then, very, very slowly the screen fades to black.

Another scene has ended.  Another battle is won, but still this endless war continues!

The review continues here