Bullet Points: Avalanche Sharks

There are a few obligations that a movie titled Avalanche Sharks has towards any of those who have taken it upon themselves to give it an hour and a half of their attention. First off, let’s see some G-D sharks chomping down on clueless skiers and snowboarders. Secondly, there needs to be some sort of avalanche. Does the avalanche cause the sharks to become unearthed or is it an avalanche of sharks? Who cares. Just include both an avalanche and at least two sharks. Thirdly, and most importantly, show me some spring break coeds with very little affinity for clothing. Is that too much to ask for?

Synopsis: It’s Spring Break at Mammoth Mountain and all of the winter enthusiasts are in for the craziest week of their lives! An ancient Native American curse has returned to wreak havoc on the young and horny mountain dwellers and this curse can’t wait to take a big ‘ole bite out of these ill-dressed-for-winter coeds.

• Let’s Get This Out of the Way: The only cast members that I cared about at any point were Kate Nauta and Eric Scott Woods. You may remember Nauta as the femme fatale from The Transporter 2 and I believe Woods was a major player on the television show Charmed. That was the one with all the hot witches on it. Woods and Nauta succeed where every other actor or actress in the film fail; they made me care whether they lived or died. Isn’t that the point of an actor in a movie like this? Sure, some of the characters are there only to be killed in various ways, but for any character that gets more than a few minutes of screen time they should at least bring up some sort of emotions from the viewer.

• Now, On to the Bad: Everyone else sucked! The main guy, who I will not name, was supposed to be a Marine but his hair was way too long. It’s a small detail but one that is so easily fixable by just asking that one guy that you know who used to be in the Army back in the early 90’s. Screwing up small shit like that is my ultimate pet peeve.
• Asylum?: How on Earth is this not an Asylum Production? It has all the makings of that studio. They love to make movies about sharks, that’s for sure, and the addition of avalanches immediately made me think of the cheap-ass, kill for thrills that the SyFy Network goes for these days.
• Casting Process: I would have loved to be in the casting room as all of these beautiful women strolled in wearing the tiniest of tiny bikinis, hoping for the role that would get them noticed and maybe into their very first network show. Was there a script to read from or just a pole in the center of the room with a boombox in the corner playing Buckcherry?

• Marine Toughness: After Eric Scott Woods’ character is attacked by a shark, leaving a pool of blood across the gleaming white snow, the tough guy Marine says to him, “we’ll get you a band-aid for you boo boo.”
• I Blame the Washington Redskins: Dan Snyder, you bastard…The Native American curse that caused the shark attacks many years ago has returned (for some reason) and the question that came to my mind was “Why would the tribal leaders choose sharks?” Why didn’t they choose something more deadly in the mountainous region? Maybe a mountain lion or a grizzly bear. It seems like the choice of the sharks was made by they most creative tribal elder.

• The Sharks: Sharks are the perfect killing machines. They can smell blood from miles away. They can bend their bodies in incredible ways like some 13 year old Chinese gymnast and they can grow to ridiculous sizes. Big enough that they thought of them forcing you to “need a bigger boat” doesn’t seem out of “left field”. But even with all of these attributes, sharks are about as deadly as a busload of pre-schoolers when they’re on land. Nothing will humble a shark more than laying on the dirt dying like a little bitch.
• A Mammoth Waste of Time: Instead of making these terrible movies, these studios should just get together and do a Twilight Zone style show were they’re only 40 minutes long or so. Sitting through them for an hour and a half can be a real chore but maybe a shorter version wouldn’t make me want to leap head first into an ocean reef.