Bullet Points: The Black Demon (2023)
The Meg 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Jason Statham can pretty much make a movie about fighting anything and my interest will be piqued. It also means that whenever a big movie is due to be released other, smaller budgeted films, will try to jump on that bandwagon. I hadn’t heard about The Black Demon until I saw a poster for it randomly on Twitter and for some reason I decided to dive into yet another movie about a killer shark.
Synopsis: Stranded on a crumbling rig in Baja, a family faces off against a vengeful megalodon shark.
- Legend: The film starts with a narration about how the Black Demon is a real Mexican legend that has been passed down from generation to generation.
- First Kills: Shark movies have to kill someone and when there are children around and not too many characters to be the chum in the water, you have to throw some radom dudes there to get eaten. There were probably more opportunities to do something like that here but the film sticks to a minimum and we don’t get many unwanted guests randomly boating out to the rig. We also don’t see much of the shark. It’s was something of a happy accident in Jaws that the film turned out so well with the limited screen time of that shitty animatronic shark. That was also directed by Spielberg! Shark movies like The Black Demon probably need a little more visuals of the beast.
- Family Matters: 90’s sitcoms always had such great names and it fits here because Nixon Oil employee Paul (Josh Lucas) has a really good reason to be coming out to the rig and later we get another good reason why his family would follow him out to said rig. This film relies heavily on the fact that there is a massive shark eating anyone who comes near that rig and also that he doesn’t want his children eaten by that damned shark. The crappy part about movies doing something like this is that you pretty much know that the kids won’t get eaten so you’re just waiting for mom or dad to take the fall.
- Black Gold: The promise of all that sweet oil money led Nixon Oil to fuck up the ocean and now the local town and anyone near it is pissed. Paul is a company man, no doubt. It has made him very successful over the years and allowed him to give his family all that he’s wanted but he still seems surprised by just how bad the situation has become.
- Rig men: A couple of the men from the rig have been hiding out there ever since the shark took over the waters. That’s where we get most of our backstory from and it also gives us some very strange dialogue and motivations. They should probably be more pissed but they’re not. They should probably be more scared but they’re not. There are a lot of things that don’t quite add up when you factor in the situation their characters have been in.
- Plans, plans, and more plans: You would think that being trapped out there for some time would give you plenty of time to come up with some plans to get out. I guess not. Paul and his family arrive and the dudes are just chillin’. The family’s presence gives them some extra motivation and, oh yeah, they also find a bomb on that rig!
- The gods are pissed: The film threatened to turn into an Earth vs man man climate change film but all of a sudden went another direction and became about Aztec gods who are wrathful and pissed that we fucked up the climate. Not what I expected and something that was a welcome sight as this could have been a very forgettable film.
- Kill more people: I still want my giant megalodon movies to have more people getting eaten. Sorry.
- You gotta do what you gotta do: When you’re family is stuck in the ocean on a rig that is about to explode…ok, you know the rest. I hope I never find myself in that type of predicament but you can never expect everything to work out perfectly. Especially in a movie such as this. Not only is this a massive prehistoric shark, but it’s also the pissed off natural fist of a deity. Double whammy.
The Verdict: The Black Demon is a true mixed bag. Shark movies are a dime a dozen and there are loads of bad ones for every good one but I don’t think this one fits in either category. It has its moments where it feels like it tries to be different from every other shark movie but it never touches the really good creature flicks in terms of the tension needed for a movie where the antagonist is a monster. In fact, one way this movie changes things up is by having the shark be more a wrathful avenger instead of just an out of control monster. It’s different, no doubt, but it didn’t feel right to me and made for some odd dialogue for the characters. No matter, it’s a decent creature flick and not a complete waste of time. Still waiting for The Meg 2, though….
