Bad Movie Tuesday: Dolph Lundgren and the Curse of the Shark Lake

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Movies, Films and Flix has a long history with Dolph Lundgren movies. I started the site in 2010 and wrote ad nauseum about terrible Dolph Lundgren films. In hindsight, the posts weren’t any better than the movies. but I enjoyed writing pithy reviews about real and fake Lundgren movies. When I saw the promotional material for Shark Lake I knew it would be the perfect film to help me reintroduce Bad Movie Tuesday to the populace.

Shark Lake tells the age-old tale of a shark harassing the people who live around Lake Tahoe (filmed in Mississippi). The movie starts with a car chase involving the police forcing exotic animal dealer Clint Gray (Dolph Lundgren) to drive straight into a lake. The bull shark in his van (100% true) escapes, and five years later people start dying. From there, we are introduced to some terrible actors who spout hackneyed dialogue while scantily clad women are killed by a shark. Shark Lake could’ve been a contender but instead falls back into pure stupidity and feels like a beautiful idea (Dolph wrestling sharks) was wasted and replaced by everything that makes a movie bad. Also, I’m pretty sure they stole my idea for the fake film Squid Lake (Listen to the pod, it gets weird).

Shark Lake is a really weird movie. It wants to be Sharknado, but it also tells the tale of a redeemed animal collector. It isn’t dumb enough to be fun, and it is too dumb to be a cohesive movie. The shark(s) are superfluous and the performances are hindered by a script that hurts the soul. Lundgren’s character isn’t done any favors because he is set up as a terribly negligent father who deserved jail time and shouldn’t have a chance of being in his daughter’s life. Also, there is a really odd relationship between a cop and a smart scientist guy that leads to some very disconcerting dialogue involving handcuffs.

Shark Lake is the kind of film that doesn’t go far enough to make anything enjoyable. There is a tiny amount of blood and the director never pushes the bikini clad portion far enough. Shark Lake is a PG-13 rated “dumb dumb” fest that only features one person getting their leg bit off whilst gliding over the lake.

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Don’t watch Shark Lake. It is not fun, and the idea of Dolph Lundgren wrestling a shark is far better than the movie. The budget was reportedly $2 million and I have no clue where that money went. The movie looks like it was shot in two days and nobody learned their dialogue ahead of time. If you are looking for a fun yet terrible shark movie I recommend the classic Sharks in Venice.

Sharks in Venice is amazing. You need to watch Stephen Baldwin phone it in.