Shark Night 3D
Encyclopedia
Shark Night 3D is a 3-D
horror
-thriller film directed by David R. Ellis
. It stars Sara Paxton
, Alyssa Diaz
, Dustin Milligan
, Katharine McPhee
, and Joel David Moore. The film was released in Real D 3D and Digital 3D
.
, seven Tulane University
undergraduates – Sara (Sara Paxton
), Nick (Dustin Milligan
), Beth (Katharine McPhee
), Malik (Sinqua Walls), Maya (Alyssa Diaz
), Blake (Chris Zylka
) and Gordon (Joel David Moore) – drive to Sara's family vacation home on a secluded private lake near Lake Pontchartrain
. At a local bait shop, Sara encounters her old boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack
) and his redneck friend, Red (Joshua Leonard
). Dennis and Red make racial taunts to Malik and Maya, his Latina fiancee, but Sara diffuses the situation. Sara drives a speedboat recklessly to the vacation home, attracting the attention of Sheriff Sabin (Donal Logue
). He chases her, frightening her friends, but then happily shares a beer with them. He tells Sara he is happy to see her back after a three-year-long absence.
While Gordon tries to seduce Beth and Sara sunbathes, Nick, Blake, Malik and Maya go waterskiing. A shark pursues Malik and attacks him. Nick, Blake and Maya try to rescue him, but he swims back to shore – missing his right arm. When Nick swims out into the lake to retrieve his arm, he is stalked and pursued by the shark. Nick barely makes it back to shore. A pre-med student, he stabilizes Malik, then goes with Sara and Maya to take him to a hospital. However, blood dripping from Malik's wound attracts a shark that attacks the boat. Maya is knocked into the water and eaten. The shark then damages the steering column of the boat. It crashes into the gas pump in front of the boathouse, exploding, leaving everyone stranded. Sara, Nick and Malik barely make it to shore. Because their cell phones have no reception and the house has no landline, they cannot call for help.
Dennis and Red arrive and agree to take Beth and Gordon to the mainland. Nick refuses to allow Malik to be moved. On the boat trip, Red suggests the sharks have entered the lake due to a storm surge
from a hurricane – then offers a more ominous, vague theory that someone put them there. Dennis reveals that he and Red have put the sharks there and feed uppity college students to them. Dennis forces Gordon into the water; he manages to swim to and climb a nearby mangrove
tree but is devoured by a mako shark when it leaps from the water and picks him off the trunk. Red and Dennis then feed Beth to cookiecutter shark
s.
When Blake tells Malik that Maya was killed by a shark, Malik arms himself with a harpoon and ventures into the water to kill it. His bloody wound attracts a hammerhead shark
; he kills it but is further wounded in the process. Nick and Blake pull the shark to shore, and Nick realizes that it wasn't the shark that took Malik's arm. He also finds a camera attached to its belly. Blake decides to take Malik to the mainland on a jet ski. When Malik sees them being pursued by sharks and realizing that Blake can travel faster without him, Malik sacrifices himself. But Blake is killed when an enormous great white shark
breaches from the lake and plucks him off the jet ski.
Sheriff Sabin visits Sara and Nick. He gives them soup to calm them, and appears to use his police radio to call for help. Nick then passes out. When Sara goes to the kitchen to get a towel, she finds her dog has also passed out after eating the soup Sabin brought,revealing Sabin to be shady. Sara takes a knife and is about to attack Sabin when Dennis arrive and disarms her. Dennis and Red take Sara out on their boat, while Sabin takes Nick to the boathouse and prepares to dunk him into the lake where tiger shark
s await. Sabin reveals that he, Dennis and Red have been inspired by the Discovery Channel
's Shark Week
and Faces of Death
videos to film and make available to thrill seekers on the Internet live footage of people being eaten by sharks. When Sabin is distracted by the CD player, Nick frees himself then ignites an overturned can of gas. Badly burned, Sabin plunges into the lake and is eaten by the tiger sharks.
Dennis reveals he is still bitter at Sara for leaving him after their last diving date three years earlier. Sara was unnerved by two accidents that occurred that day: her sudden loss of air (and Dennis's apparent lack of concern), and her slashing his face open with the boat propeller when she tried to escape him. After throwing her dog into the lake, Dennis and Red lower her, in a shark cage, into the lake. A ravenous mako shark appears, but so does Nick, who tries to hold Red hostage and force Dennis to free Sara. Instead, Dennis throws a knife into Red, killing him. Nick and Dennis struggle in the water. The mako eats Dennis then attacks the cage. Sara's dog brings a spear to Nick, and he uses it to kill the shark and free Sara. Nick, Sara and the dog swim to the boat. Just as they think they are safe, the great white breaches the surface and lunges towards them.
took place in the fall of 2010 in Louisiana
around the Ark-La-Tex
and at Caddo Lake
in Uncertain, Texas
.
The film was originally titled Shark Night 3D, but Ellis has stated he would rather have the title be Untitled 3D Shark Thriller. However, in March 2011, Box Office Mojo indicated that the title had gone back to Shark Night 3D.
reports that the film holds only a 16% approval rating from critics with an average rating 3.2/10. The consensus is "A joyless excursion into the water that doesn't even produce good gore or nudity thanks to the neutered PG-13 rating." The film has a normalized
score of 22/100 on Metacritic
, indicating generally unfavorable reviews. The positive reviews praised
the film for providing "dumb fun."
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
-thriller film directed by David R. Ellis
David R. Ellis
David Richard Ellis is an American film director and former stuntman.-Life and career:Ellis was born in Hollywood, California. He began his career in the film industry as a supporting actor in juvenile roles; his big screen debut was in the 1975 Kurt Russell film The Strongest Man in the World...
. It stars Sara Paxton
Sara Paxton
Sara Paxton is an American actress, model and singer. She grew up in California and began acting at an early age, appearing in many minor roles in both films and television shows, before coming to wider renown in 2004, after playing the title role in the series Darcy's Wild Life and Sarah Borden...
, Alyssa Diaz
Alyssa Diaz
Alyssa Elaine Diaz is an American actress. Diaz is best known for playing the role of Jasmine on the ABC Family show The Nine lives of Chloe King as well as Celia Ortega on the daytime soap opera As The World Turns from February 9, 2005 until her final appearance on August 10, 2005 when her...
, Dustin Milligan
Dustin Milligan
Dustin Wallace Milligan is a Canadian film and television actor known for his role as Ethan Ward on 90210.-Life and career:...
, Katharine McPhee
Katharine McPhee
Katharine Hope McPhee is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, model, and television personality. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show American Idol in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up.Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records...
, and Joel David Moore. The film was released in Real D 3D and Digital 3D
Digital 3D
Digital 3D is a non-specific 3D standard in which films, television shows, and video games are presented and shot in digital 3D technology or later processed in digital post-production to add a 3D effect....
.
Plot
Set in LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, seven Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
undergraduates – Sara (Sara Paxton
Sara Paxton
Sara Paxton is an American actress, model and singer. She grew up in California and began acting at an early age, appearing in many minor roles in both films and television shows, before coming to wider renown in 2004, after playing the title role in the series Darcy's Wild Life and Sarah Borden...
), Nick (Dustin Milligan
Dustin Milligan
Dustin Wallace Milligan is a Canadian film and television actor known for his role as Ethan Ward on 90210.-Life and career:...
), Beth (Katharine McPhee
Katharine McPhee
Katharine Hope McPhee is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, model, and television personality. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show American Idol in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up.Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records...
), Malik (Sinqua Walls), Maya (Alyssa Diaz
Alyssa Diaz
Alyssa Elaine Diaz is an American actress. Diaz is best known for playing the role of Jasmine on the ABC Family show The Nine lives of Chloe King as well as Celia Ortega on the daytime soap opera As The World Turns from February 9, 2005 until her final appearance on August 10, 2005 when her...
), Blake (Chris Zylka
Chris Zylka
Chris Zylka is an American actor and model.Zylka was born Chris Settlemire in Warren, Ohio. He took his mother's maiden name as a stage name. Zylka began his career with a guest appearance on 90210 in 2008...
) and Gordon (Joel David Moore) – drive to Sara's family vacation home on a secluded private lake near Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second-largest inland saltwater body of water in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana. As an estuary, Pontchartrain is not a true lake.It covers an area of with...
. At a local bait shop, Sara encounters her old boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack
Chris Carmack
James Christopher "Chris" Carmack is an American actor and former fashion model.-Early life:Carmack was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Derwood, Maryland. He has two siblings, a brother and sister. As a young boy, he enjoyed participating in all types of sports: baseball, basketball,...
) and his redneck friend, Red (Joshua Leonard
Joshua Leonard
Joshua Granville Leonard is an American actor, known for his role in The Blair Witch Project.-Early life:Leonard was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Joann, an operator of a children's theatre, and Robert Leonard, a theater professor. He was raised in State College, Pennsylvania...
). Dennis and Red make racial taunts to Malik and Maya, his Latina fiancee, but Sara diffuses the situation. Sara drives a speedboat recklessly to the vacation home, attracting the attention of Sheriff Sabin (Donal Logue
Donal Logue
Donal Francis Logue is an Canadian actor perhaps most famous for his role as Sean Finnerty in Grounded for Life.-Personal life:...
). He chases her, frightening her friends, but then happily shares a beer with them. He tells Sara he is happy to see her back after a three-year-long absence.
While Gordon tries to seduce Beth and Sara sunbathes, Nick, Blake, Malik and Maya go waterskiing. A shark pursues Malik and attacks him. Nick, Blake and Maya try to rescue him, but he swims back to shore – missing his right arm. When Nick swims out into the lake to retrieve his arm, he is stalked and pursued by the shark. Nick barely makes it back to shore. A pre-med student, he stabilizes Malik, then goes with Sara and Maya to take him to a hospital. However, blood dripping from Malik's wound attracts a shark that attacks the boat. Maya is knocked into the water and eaten. The shark then damages the steering column of the boat. It crashes into the gas pump in front of the boathouse, exploding, leaving everyone stranded. Sara, Nick and Malik barely make it to shore. Because their cell phones have no reception and the house has no landline, they cannot call for help.
Dennis and Red arrive and agree to take Beth and Gordon to the mainland. Nick refuses to allow Malik to be moved. On the boat trip, Red suggests the sharks have entered the lake due to a storm surge
Storm surge
A storm surge is an offshore rise of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically tropical cyclones and strong extratropical cyclones. Storm surges are caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea...
from a hurricane – then offers a more ominous, vague theory that someone put them there. Dennis reveals that he and Red have put the sharks there and feed uppity college students to them. Dennis forces Gordon into the water; he manages to swim to and climb a nearby mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
tree but is devoured by a mako shark when it leaps from the water and picks him off the trunk. Red and Dennis then feed Beth to cookiecutter shark
Cookiecutter shark
The cookiecutter shark , also called the cigar shark, is a species of small dogfish shark in the family Dalatiidae. This shark occurs in warm, oceanic waters worldwide, particularly near islands, and has been recorded from as deep as . It migrates vertically up to every day, approaching the...
s.
When Blake tells Malik that Maya was killed by a shark, Malik arms himself with a harpoon and ventures into the water to kill it. His bloody wound attracts a hammerhead shark
Hammerhead shark
The hammerhead sharks are a group of sharks in the family Sphyrnidae, so named for the unusual and distinctive structure of their heads, which are flattened and laterally extended into a "hammer" shape called a "cephalofoil". Most hammerhead species are placed in the genus Sphyrna while the...
; he kills it but is further wounded in the process. Nick and Blake pull the shark to shore, and Nick realizes that it wasn't the shark that took Malik's arm. He also finds a camera attached to its belly. Blake decides to take Malik to the mainland on a jet ski. When Malik sees them being pursued by sharks and realizing that Blake can travel faster without him, Malik sacrifices himself. But Blake is killed when an enormous great white shark
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...
breaches from the lake and plucks him off the jet ski.
Sheriff Sabin visits Sara and Nick. He gives them soup to calm them, and appears to use his police radio to call for help. Nick then passes out. When Sara goes to the kitchen to get a towel, she finds her dog has also passed out after eating the soup Sabin brought,revealing Sabin to be shady. Sara takes a knife and is about to attack Sabin when Dennis arrive and disarms her. Dennis and Red take Sara out on their boat, while Sabin takes Nick to the boathouse and prepares to dunk him into the lake where tiger shark
Tiger shark
The tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, is a species of requiem shark and the only member of the genus Galeocerdo. Commonly known as sea tigers, tiger sharks are relatively large macropredators, capable of attaining a length of over . It is found in many tropical and temperate waters, and is...
s await. Sabin reveals that he, Dennis and Red have been inspired by the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
's Shark Week
Shark Week
The Discovery Channel's Shark Week, which first aired on July 27, 1987, is a week-long series of feature television programs dedicated to sharks. Shark Week is held annually, normally running in July or August. Shark Week was developed to help the average person have a greater respect for sharks....
and Faces of Death
Faces of Death
Faces of Death is a 1978 mondo film which guides viewers through explicit scenes depicting a variety of ways to die and violent acts....
videos to film and make available to thrill seekers on the Internet live footage of people being eaten by sharks. When Sabin is distracted by the CD player, Nick frees himself then ignites an overturned can of gas. Badly burned, Sabin plunges into the lake and is eaten by the tiger sharks.
Dennis reveals he is still bitter at Sara for leaving him after their last diving date three years earlier. Sara was unnerved by two accidents that occurred that day: her sudden loss of air (and Dennis's apparent lack of concern), and her slashing his face open with the boat propeller when she tried to escape him. After throwing her dog into the lake, Dennis and Red lower her, in a shark cage, into the lake. A ravenous mako shark appears, but so does Nick, who tries to hold Red hostage and force Dennis to free Sara. Instead, Dennis throws a knife into Red, killing him. Nick and Dennis struggle in the water. The mako eats Dennis then attacks the cage. Sara's dog brings a spear to Nick, and he uses it to kill the shark and free Sara. Nick, Sara and the dog swim to the boat. Just as they think they are safe, the great white breaches the surface and lunges towards them.
Cast
- Sara PaxtonSara PaxtonSara Paxton is an American actress, model and singer. She grew up in California and began acting at an early age, appearing in many minor roles in both films and television shows, before coming to wider renown in 2004, after playing the title role in the series Darcy's Wild Life and Sarah Borden...
as Sara Powski - Dustin MilliganDustin MilliganDustin Wallace Milligan is a Canadian film and television actor known for his role as Ethan Ward on 90210.-Life and career:...
as Nick LaDuca - Chris CarmackChris CarmackJames Christopher "Chris" Carmack is an American actor and former fashion model.-Early life:Carmack was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Derwood, Maryland. He has two siblings, a brother and sister. As a young boy, he enjoyed participating in all types of sports: baseball, basketball,...
as Dennis Crim - Katharine McPheeKatharine McPheeKatharine Hope McPhee is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, model, and television personality. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show American Idol in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up.Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records...
as Beth - Chris ZylkaChris ZylkaChris Zylka is an American actor and model.Zylka was born Chris Settlemire in Warren, Ohio. He took his mother's maiden name as a stage name. Zylka began his career with a guest appearance on 90210 in 2008...
as Blake Hammond - Alyssa DiazAlyssa DiazAlyssa Elaine Diaz is an American actress. Diaz is best known for playing the role of Jasmine on the ABC Family show The Nine lives of Chloe King as well as Celia Ortega on the daytime soap opera As The World Turns from February 9, 2005 until her final appearance on August 10, 2005 when her...
as Maya - Joel David Moore as Gordon
- Sinqua Walls as Malik
- Donal LogueDonal LogueDonal Francis Logue is an Canadian actor perhaps most famous for his role as Sean Finnerty in Grounded for Life.-Personal life:...
as Sheriff Sabin - Joshua LeonardJoshua LeonardJoshua Granville Leonard is an American actor, known for his role in The Blair Witch Project.-Early life:Leonard was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Joann, an operator of a children's theatre, and Robert Leonard, a theater professor. He was raised in State College, Pennsylvania...
as Red
Production
Principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
took place in the fall of 2010 in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
around the Ark-La-Tex
Ark-La-Tex
The Ark-La-Tex, Arklatex, or ArkLaTex is a U.S. socio-economic region where Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma intersect. Some prefer the more inclusive Arklatexoma...
and at Caddo Lake
Caddo Lake
Caddo Lake is a lake and wetland located on the border between Texas and Louisiana, in northern Harrison County and southern Marion County in Texas and western Caddo Parish in Louisiana. The lake is named after the Southeastern culture of Native Americans called Caddoans or Caddo, who lived in...
in Uncertain, Texas
Uncertain, Texas
Uncertain is a city in Harrison County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 150. The City of Uncertain was incorporated in 1961 as a Type B, General Law City with a mayor and five aldermen on an at large basis...
.
The film was originally titled Shark Night 3D, but Ellis has stated he would rather have the title be Untitled 3D Shark Thriller. However, in March 2011, Box Office Mojo indicated that the title had gone back to Shark Night 3D.
Reception
Shark Night 3D received very negative reviews from critics. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that the film holds only a 16% approval rating from critics with an average rating 3.2/10. The consensus is "A joyless excursion into the water that doesn't even produce good gore or nudity thanks to the neutered PG-13 rating." The film has a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
score of 22/100 on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, indicating generally unfavorable reviews. The positive reviews praised
the film for providing "dumb fun."