Director: Mark Polonia
Release Date: 2022
Contains spoilers
One half of the Polonia brothers, you have to give Mark Polonia props for cranking out low budget film after low budget film since the 80s. Not that those I’ve seen are very good but grit, determination and perseverance are all there.
As you’ll guess, with this one we’ve strayed into the realm of a vampire shark. We’re also in a particularly poorly shot realm that had no effects budget – all things that will be discussed later.
The film starts with a cgi shark and then we see Dracula (Jeff Kirkendall, Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter, The Temptress, 3 to Murder & Bloodlust) being chased by an angry mob. He is cornered on a cliff. One of the villagers stabs him and we get an awful cgi spurt of blood… now post-production blood can look bad at the best of time, but this looked awfully cartoonish. Dracula falls from the cliff and into the maw of said shark.
We get alliance talk, a suggestion that a dark power wanted Dracula to survive – and later in the film we hear that Dracula turned the shark but became the servant of the shark (don’t get how that happens but… let’s just go with it). We get some scenes (that are interspersed throughout) of a fire dancer. Her reason for being there? Possibly supplicant to the shark but the quality of the filming compared to the main filming (along with them being night shots rather than the ‘day for night’ the film relies on) suggests it might be stock footage the filmmakers thought cool. The credits had a surf music theme with the repeated lyric ‘Sharkula’ that was fun.
In the modern day and we see John (James Kelly) and Arthur (Tim Hatch, also 3 to Murder, The Temptress and Shadow Track: Vampire Hunter) walking into Arkham, a small seaside town. They have been offered jobs with room and board by Vladimir Constantine (aka Dracula), which they will use to pay for college (clearly mature students). Now let’s talk photography. Just before this we got an establishing shot of a bustling port town, the photography crisp, the camera movement smooth and, I assume, stock footage. The principal camera work is jerky, the resolution poor and plagued with motion blur. It’s awful.
So, they get to the motel (the Bucket o' Chum) and meet Renfield (Kyle Rappaport). They discover they have to share a room and the town, by order of Constantine, has an 8PM curfew. Their jobs are shifting crates shipped in during curfew. Obviously, things start to go wrong – John, especially, is overly curious. He has also spotted Mina (Jamie Morgan) who works in the historical society and is the object of Renfield’s perverted lust and Dracula’s twisted love. We get women chained in the cellar (one sacrificed to the shark and one turned), with Dracula’s coffin down there. Dracula seems less than pleased with the power structure with the shark.
I mentioned the effects, especially the cgi. The practical zombie/revenant masks for the two servants of Dracula looked pretty good, all things considered. We get a tremendously crap bat (why Dracula didn’t transform on the cliff, at the head of the film, is probably overthinking it) and the shark is mostly a drawn (it appears) bat winged monstrosity and also a pair of glowing red eyes in the water (right next to each other rather than the laterally positioned eyes a shark would more likely have) and a (probably partial) rubber head for attack scenes.
The acting is generally over the top, especially from Kirkendall and Rappaport, and I suspect they had a real laugh with their performances. However nothing will set the world alight performance wise and some is less than great (though the dialogue is somewhat stilted to stagy also). This was never going to be a great film – it’s a no-budget vampire shark movie – but that apparent absolute lack of budget and the extremely poor photography and cinematography conspire to take this out of “so bad it's good” to “just plain bad”. 2 out of 10 is probably bolstered by how fun the “Sharkula” theme song was.
The imdb page is here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
As you’ll guess, with this one we’ve strayed into the realm of a vampire shark. We’re also in a particularly poorly shot realm that had no effects budget – all things that will be discussed later.
 |
| blood spurt |
The film starts with a cgi shark and then we see Dracula (Jeff Kirkendall, Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter, The Temptress, 3 to Murder & Bloodlust) being chased by an angry mob. He is cornered on a cliff. One of the villagers stabs him and we get an awful cgi spurt of blood… now post-production blood can look bad at the best of time, but this looked awfully cartoonish. Dracula falls from the cliff and into the maw of said shark.
 |
| fire dancer |
We get alliance talk, a suggestion that a dark power wanted Dracula to survive – and later in the film we hear that Dracula turned the shark but became the servant of the shark (don’t get how that happens but… let’s just go with it). We get some scenes (that are interspersed throughout) of a fire dancer. Her reason for being there? Possibly supplicant to the shark but the quality of the filming compared to the main filming (along with them being night shots rather than the ‘day for night’ the film relies on) suggests it might be stock footage the filmmakers thought cool. The credits had a surf music theme with the repeated lyric ‘Sharkula’ that was fun.
 |
| Arthur and John |
In the modern day and we see John (James Kelly) and Arthur (Tim Hatch, also 3 to Murder, The Temptress and Shadow Track: Vampire Hunter) walking into Arkham, a small seaside town. They have been offered jobs with room and board by Vladimir Constantine (aka Dracula), which they will use to pay for college (clearly mature students). Now let’s talk photography. Just before this we got an establishing shot of a bustling port town, the photography crisp, the camera movement smooth and, I assume, stock footage. The principal camera work is jerky, the resolution poor and plagued with motion blur. It’s awful.
 |
| Kyle Rappaport as Renfield |
So, they get to the motel (the Bucket o' Chum) and meet Renfield (Kyle Rappaport). They discover they have to share a room and the town, by order of Constantine, has an 8PM curfew. Their jobs are shifting crates shipped in during curfew. Obviously, things start to go wrong – John, especially, is overly curious. He has also spotted Mina (Jamie Morgan) who works in the historical society and is the object of Renfield’s perverted lust and Dracula’s twisted love. We get women chained in the cellar (one sacrificed to the shark and one turned), with Dracula’s coffin down there. Dracula seems less than pleased with the power structure with the shark.
 |
| Dracula and the shark |
I mentioned the effects, especially the cgi. The practical zombie/revenant masks for the two servants of Dracula looked pretty good, all things considered. We get a tremendously crap bat (why Dracula didn’t transform on the cliff, at the head of the film, is probably overthinking it) and the shark is mostly a drawn (it appears) bat winged monstrosity and also a pair of glowing red eyes in the water (right next to each other rather than the laterally positioned eyes a shark would more likely have) and a (probably partial) rubber head for attack scenes.
 |
| Jamie Morgan as Mina |
The acting is generally over the top, especially from Kirkendall and Rappaport, and I suspect they had a real laugh with their performances. However nothing will set the world alight performance wise and some is less than great (though the dialogue is somewhat stilted to stagy also). This was never going to be a great film – it’s a no-budget vampire shark movie – but that apparent absolute lack of budget and the extremely poor photography and cinematography conspire to take this out of “so bad it's good” to “just plain bad”. 2 out of 10 is probably bolstered by how fun the “Sharkula” theme song was.
The imdb page is here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
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