"Maneater" an inept Killer Shark Movie™ and an inept movie all around

Maneater (2022)

In the pantheon of Killer Shark Movies™, it can take an embarrassingly terrible one to appreciate harmlessly dumb-as-chum shark-slashers like “Shark Night 3D” and “47 Meters Down: Uncaged.” Chum bucket, meet “Maneater,” a lazy, cheap end-of-the-summer creature feature without the necessary resources or a tongue-in-cheek, unapologetic attitude to be anything more than a so-bad-it’s-just-bad bottom-feeder. Even taking this purely for what it is, it is never enough of what it should be. Note to the makers of a junky-fun B-movie with a killer shark eating up an attractive cast: go ahead and be ridiculous, it’s encouraged, but be capably well-made at the very least. With "Maneater," they only got the “junky” part right.

What was supposed to be her weeklong honeymoon, heartbroken and freshly single pre-med graduate Jessie (Nicky Whelan) and her six old college friends (Shane West, Porsche Coleman, Kelly Reiter, Alex Farnham, Zoe Cipres)—some still acting like they’re 21 again—make the most of a vacation in Maui. Taking a booze cruise, led by the goofy Captain Wally (Ed Morrone) and his wife (Kim DeLonghi), to a private island for some snorkeling and fun in the sun, the group of friends happens to come across a great white shark that’s killing for sport. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same shark that killed the daughter of Harlan Burke (Trace Adkins) a week ago. Since the local sheriff can’t do anything, Harlan sets out to sea, of course, to hunt down the son of a bitch with a shotgun. But by then, Jessie and her friends are already on the menu.

Before segueing into B-roll out of a resort video, “Maneater” opens with a random scuba diver getting unceremoniously eaten by a badly rendered CGI shark. It's the opposite of Spielberg's masterful "let's not show the monster right away" school of thought. With this approach, there's no setup, no tension, and no promise for what's to follow. As written and directed by consistent filmmaker Justin Lee (who already has eleven prior writing-directing credits), the movie is never sure if we’re supposed to laugh along with it or at it. It has to know how bad it is, but one gets the feeling that the cast was led to believe they were shooting something like “Piranha 3D," which was played seriously by the actors but still reveled in the severed-penis lunacy with a knowing, gleefully profane sense of humor. Mind you, “Maneater” is no “Piranha 3D.” Hell, it’s not even “Sharknado 2: The Second One,” but Lee has the audacity to save a paraphrased line of dialogue from “Jaws" for his very last shot, and you know the one.

Country music star Trace Adkins is intended to be the badass savior and the heart of the story as Harlan Burke, but his chops aren't quite up to snuff beyond doing an impression of Robert Shaw's Quint or just being Trace Adkins in a fishing hat. It’s pretty obvious why the stunningly beautiful Nicky Whelan was cast, although no one even with the pedigree of Meryl Streep could sell some of the atrocious dialogue. For instance, in relation to the shark, Jessie says with a straight face, “It’s not a monster. It’s the devil.” Just wait until Jessie and Harlan have a serious back-and-forth about getting blueberry pancakes; it’s hilariously cringe-inducing. Jeff Fahey might fare the best in a useless bit role as Sam, a shark expert/professor on the island. He merely functions to remind us that sharks sometimes mistake humans as a food source. 

There's plenty of filmmaking incompetence to go around in "Maneater." In the case of character development, some actually does exist, albeit in the most laughably literal ways. On Captain Wally's boat, Jessie and her friends literally go around, explaining their histories together, and what they do for work. We won't even count the number of montages with friends laughing, cued to generic pop songs. As for the reason we're all here, the gory money shots can't be too bad, right? Besides one gnarly bit on a dock involving a rope, the shark mayhem is shockingly inept, executed with low-rent, extremely underproduced effects work of the most straight-to-video level. When a character comes face to face with the great white in the day of light, the shark itself is clearly different from the animated one, looking more like practical leftovers of Audrey II from “Little Shop of Horrors.” Then take the most simple shot of Harlan's boat approaching a dock. It looks as if it was crafted in Microsoft Paint, not to mention that same shot cutting to our onlooking survivor on land for a mere two seconds and then back to the boat, where Harlan has already miraculously docked and off the boat. That Harlan is just too amazing for words. Technical shoddiness like this is not just a niggling nitpick when the movie is almost consistently chintzy. It's as if director Justin Lee didn't get enough coverage, or he collaborated with the wrong animators, or he ran out of money (or never had enough to begin with). What should have been big dumb fun of a movie, “Maneater” is big on the dumb and very small on the fun. In fact, this is barely a movie.

Grade: D -

Saban Films is releasing “Maneater” (86 min.) in theaters on August 26, 2022.