Watched: 02/21/2025
Format: Amazon
Viewing: First
Director: Brett Kelly
There's a fine line between doofuses futzing about with video equipment and outsider art. Ouija Shark (2020) may inadvertently cross that line from time-to-time. Maybe. In little 1-3 second bursts, you may experiencing art, in-between wondering why you're watching this movie.
The movie and TV business is a weird beast. For the past 20 years, it's been true that you really don't need money to make a movie. You just need time, something to capture your movie with, and a computer. Also, you require people who will keep showing up for your movie, or remain wherever you are long enough to do their scenes.
In a world where people complain that Hallmark movies look cheap - what they mean is "this looks cheap next to Mission Impossible", which has roughly 100 - 200x the budget of most Hallmark films. That's not an exaggeration. So, yes, they do look cheaper.
But a Hallmark movie spending $1 million has approximately $1 million more than a *lot* of movies you see winding up on Amazon that are like Ouija Shark. And what's amazing is - so many people think it would be fun to make a movie, the world is now littered with Ouija Sharks. Ie: People who get some friends together and make a movie, by hook or by crook.
Starring random Canadians, this movie is about an hour long, really, if you cut the lengthy title sequence. It's about a young woman who goes swimming at a lake, where she finds a ouija board underwater.
She leaves to meet up with friends - listed as high schoolers in the film's description, but all clearly 8-18 years out of high school - and they try out the Ouija board. Apparently it contained the spirit of a hungry shark.
The now released shark spirit just starts eating people. Sometimes they explode, and sometimes there's just a gentle "pop" and they disappear.
The shark is played by a hand puppet super-imposed with After Effects, and it is adorable. And the best actor in the movie.
What's funny about these movies is that they're essentially the feature-length equivalent of the sort of nonsense we filmed in the dorms in college, and the acting is about as good. It's just friends of the producer and it's unclear if there's a script or they're just making things up (hint: they're just making things up). So to pad the run time, there's a lot of walking, standing around and looking at things, phone calls taking place to make sure exposition happens... it's just a weird format, and super common in zero-budget movies.
And I get it, these people are just having fun. But you don't have to do that. You can have scenes, and dialog.
Often, as in this movie, they also seem to have convinced women to wear not-much-clothes, and (a) they're willing to ask something of their friends I just wouldn't, and (b) apparently their friends are game for this sort of thing, which I cannot think of anyone I hang with who would be this free-wheeling. Well, maybe Randy.
And there's always one guy who really believes in this project beyond the point of reason - and in this case it's writer/ co-star John Migliore, who works in a no-budget Dr. Strange sequence at the end where he uses magic to fight the ghost shark in the afterlife/ on the astral plane, and you can't help but think "wow, I did not expect to see this today".
it was moments like this that made me think: this is kinda brilliant
Anyway, I just linked the best scene in the move there above, so I just saved you a rental fee.
SPOILERS:
I forgot to mention, this movie reveals that the release of the Ouija Shark was all part of a conspiracy that went straight to the top, perpetrated by a certain, orange-hued executive politician. Absolutely wild.
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