Heavy Gore and a Fun Creature Can’t Save ‘Graveyard Shark’ from Getting Beached [Review]

It’s summertime which means one thing in the cinemaverse: shark movie season! We have already been served fin-ematic releases like Under Paris from Netflix and Something in the Water over the past couple of months, but Mad Angel Films adds one more helping to our “shark”-cuterie plate with their horror-comedy Graveyard Shark.

The Indiegogo-funded feature tells the story of cryptid hunter Abby Wescott (Stephanie Ward, Axegrinder 666) trying to uncover the existence of Graveyard Shark—an urban legend in the town of Willsboro Point who has been racking up quite the body count. Her investigation leads her to Captain Issac Seyburn (Berndele March, The Man with No Pants), who knows the creature’s backstory all too well and may be able to help in her quest. She assembles a team of current Graveyard Shark survivors to eliminate the baddie, but they first have to overcome their own personal fears, especially Abby. And that synopsis is as serious as it gets.

Graveyard Shark essentially feels like it’s a tale (tail?) of two films merging into one, or at least shifting between two-tones. At about the midway point, director Matthew A. Peters (Radiant Dark, Barely Coping) switches the gears of his film from taking the subject matter semi-seriously to pulling a 180° and going hard in the paint with comedy. Mind you, the humor consists of mostly sophomoric jokes of a sexual nature, but that this is not a bad thing at all! The comedy provides the film with its surprisingly memorable laugh out loud moments, and actually makes you want to stay around until the end to see if they can keep topping themselves in the WTF?! department.

In a film called Graveyard Shark, would you expect to see a mermaid sex encounter reenacted using a restaurant lobster tail or Bigfoot getting pegged on a hotel room bed? Did you know that Bigfoot is a “bottom”? Thanks to the filmmakers, we do now! How about seeing a baby shark-man’s birth followed up with a discussion about paying child support for said baby shark-man? What about learning the answer to the question “Does Graveyard Shark fuck?” (spoiler: oh he most certainly does). Well, these moments (and many other bizarre sequences) do in fact happen, but it’s too bad that some of these second-half gags don’t happen sooner because unfortunately most people will probably check out of this film early. There’s just too much plodding along in the first 40 or so minutes.

Besides the out-of-left-field comedy, the acting delivered by some of the stars is not that bad. Ward, who mainly carries the film with a majority of the runtime, is fantastic. And both March and Madisen Zabawa, who plays the promiscuous Sadie, really shine once things go completely off the rails. Plus, both the heavy amount of gore and practical special effects are great for such a low budget affair.

While you might have the vision of a SYFY-esque CGI ghostly shark cutting through tombstones with its shark fin, the in-title villain Graveyard Shark is actually humanoid in appearance, with its head resembling an old He-Man action figure. One of the characters in the film is named Teela, so maybe there’s a legitimate MOTU connection? The two-legged shark also looks like he could fit right into the Street Sharks crew (remember that cartoon and toy line?), as he flexes in his studded sleeveless leather vest that proves punk most certainly is not dead. Don’t read that description in the wrong way because he looks incredible considering the budget and is easily the film’s key highlight, as he should be.

While having some legitimately and purposely funny scenes, memorable sight gags and a really slick shark costume, Graveyard Shark sadly gets beached by running too long overall while taking too long to get to the good stuff. Even if you can forgive the restraints of the crowdfunded budget.

The film is available at Mad Angel Films’ official site in Blu-ray, DVD and VHS formats.