A jawless shark movie Cinemax
There are many reasons why we watch a particular horror film. It is likely that the film poster is not one of the main ones, although sometimes it can tell us something about the level of the film (think, for example, of a bad poster with amateurish design, which usually indicates a bad film and that everything in it is terrible). In the case of “The Black Demon”, I must say that the poster intrigued me a lot. So when we see it as a massive shark with extremely sharp teeth, coming to eat an unfortunate person.
Of course, my expectations were low after hearing Black Demon’s horrible reviews (a 3.7 out of 10 rating on IMDB, as of this writing) and limited box office success, with revenues of around three million dollars on a budget of around ten million. But this film is said to have been very successful on streaming, and it was available on television – obviously I won’t see a film with such an audience in the cinema – so I decided to watch it a few months later.
In other words: I have an inexplicable fondness for shark movies, including bad ones. In many cases, shark movies fall into the category of movies that are so bad they’re funny, or even amusing: because it’s a lot of fun to laugh at a shark that looks like a computer graphics accident, that behaves exactly the opposite of how sharks are supposed to act (and this is also true of the characters in the movie). This film doesn’t precisely meet those conditions, and it’s hard to call it a successful film. All information in “The Black Demon” reviews.
Don’t mess with the Tlaloc
It started off promisingly. The film introduced the “rules of opening” in its prologue. It turns out that off the coast of Baja California, one of the 31 states that make up Mexico, there is, according to local legend, a giant megalodon shark that comes up when called, or something like that, and gives people visions of death. This shark is called “The Black Demon” (in Spanish: “The Black Demon”), and in the rather sloppy opening scene, he kills several hapless fishermen. Quite implicitly, because we don’t see it.
The heroes of the film are members of the Sturges family. Paul (Josh Lucas, “A Beautiful Mind,” “American Psycho,” “The Purge Forever”) is an oil company employee who arrives with his family members on a trip to Mexico that is supposed to combine business and pleasure. Paul has to check the condition of one of the gas platforms. The rest of the time, the family members – wife Ines (Chilean actress Fernanda Urrejola) and two children, Audrey (Venus Ariel) and Tommy (Carlos Solorzano) – are supposed to enjoy themselves in the bustling coastal town, hopefully because he’s off on a simple mission of a few hours.
The problem is that the family discovers that the town is quite deserted and that the locals are harassing them because the gas rig is said to have awakened the shark, killing everyone it encounters. It turns out that man’s destruction of the sea angered Tlaloc, the god of rain, fertility and water in Aztec mythology. He sent the megalodon shark because only the sacrifice of flesh and blood could appease his rage.
In a series of blunders and puzzling decisions, Paul – who doesn’t believe this legend (if I understand his intention behind phrases like “Take your Aztec bullshit and shove it up your ass”) – sails alone to see the condition of the rigging and discovers that it is abandoned almost entirely abandoned. The exception is the two employees (veteran Mexican actor Julio Cesar Cedillo manages to stand out with a good role). The wife and children arrive at a bar to pass the time but need help from the locals, so the most logical thing is to go to the heart of the sea. In the end, as you can imagine, everyone will find themselves at the top of the abandoned oil platform, surrounded by the same workers, including a shark who will not let them leave.
Here’s the trailer for “The Black Demon,” which, as the poster says, doesn’t tell the real story here:
Okay, cool. But where is the shark?
So far, “The Black Demon” seems to have the potential to be a bad movie with a bit of a guilty pleasure. The main problem is that the presence of the shark is, as we said, very minimal. While, according to the poster, one might expect a massive shark with sharp jaws, throughout the film we barely see it, and we certainly don’t see in a menacing way the danger it causes or the people it kills.
It may be that the decision to “save” the shark’s appearance came from budgetary or ideological considerations, as we will see below. Still, there’s no doubt that it’s hard to expect a shark movie to work without a dominant shark, no matter how scary the legend about it is or how cool it looks on the poster. As a result, the film does not really succeed in creating an atmosphere of tension, and certainly not amusing for fans of the genre who like to see a shark tear apart unfortunate people. It’s like watching a “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie but discovering that in reality, the famous animatronics’ screen time is limited.
Another problem with the film is that it needs to consolidate its style. It starts off as a generic shark movie from a subgenre that’s one of my favorites: people stuck in the middle of the sea, unable to communicate with the outside world (like Duh), when any attempt to leave risks ending in death. But during the journey, he changes direction a little. At times it behaves like an action film, in which the hero and other characters must find sophisticated ways to deal with a threat. In addition to obvious elements of survival in the face of nature, the film veers in several cases towards a ghost film, but these are short scenes and far from effective. And there is also folk horror, mainly with various symbols and statues.
The Black Demon: A Telenovela disguised as a horror film
It turns out there’s more than just horror here. In other cases, the style is reminiscent of a telenovela, perhaps even from Mexico, Chile, or other countries associated with the film or cast. This style is particularly evident in some of the inflated dialogue between the two adults in the group, with the woman’s accusations against the man and moral arguments of one sort or another (“You’re the animal. Not that thing outside”), scenes with a bit of exaggeration.
I think the actors tried to do the best they could with what they had to work with, but the movie seems to cross into telenovela territory at times (although I’ve never seen a telenovela!), and it doesn’t seem strictly related. There are some excellent points in the relationships between the children and between them and their parents, with the exception of the first meeting with the family in the car on the way to a trip. In this scene, the kids were so insufferable that I expected a huge shark to come out of the glove compartment and eat them to death. Some scenes show family members coming together and showing love, and some characters go through an inevitable process. Still, some of the confusing dialogue and behavior seems a bit random. The heroes’ decisions are quite confusing, including the sacrifice of one of them in the final scene.
There are several instances in which the film also examines a cynical style or humor that does not fit with its other parts, such as a repeated discussion over the color of the hero’s fancy shirt. These passages seemed forced, as if someone saw that the film was too “serious” and decided to add a little humor. The problem is that the film hasn’t decided whether it should be dark or funny; the combination seems artificial and doesn’t work. For me, a film that passes between the drops, like “The Black Demon”, is a little lacking.
The man is the monster blah blah blah
“The Black Demon” – evokes an ecological discussion, common in survival films. You don’t have to be a great ecology expert to understand that the film is trying to imply, and perhaps succeeding, that the real monster here is man rather than the shark. Human beings are the ones who destroy nature to get rich (allegedly) while ignoring problems to make themselves accessible. The film reasonably attempts to present Paul’s character as “stuck in the situation”, forced to ignore ecological failures and not get fired, but this only fuels the debate. “The Black Demon” is not the film that will make you think for hours about the damage man is doing to nature, because that’s what the Discovery Channel or the news is for, and it’s not a horror thriller. But raising awareness on a specific subject is also something.
For these reasons, we can try to understand why they decided to reduce the presentation of the shark. In other words, instead of a movie about sharks, we’re treated to an ecological parable in which man is the monster. This may sound good on paper, but you can see the disappointment of many horror fans, who were expecting here… well, a horror film.
It’s impossible to ignore the film’s choice to refer to the relationship between the rich, fun-loving white American and the Mexicans. This is not surprising, considering who the director is. Adrian Grunberg, a Mexican-American, has also dealt with tensions between these countries in his previous films (“Get the Gringo” with Mel Gibson, “Rambo: Last Blood” with Sylvester Stallone).
Here, the confrontation between the two camps is very present, with shots of locals who seem to come from the West as “the others”, dialogues which perpetuate the differences between cultures, and even choices which are not accidental, such as giving the company for which the hero works the name of American President Nixon. Although in the end the parties will see that they manage to cooperate, etc., these strong moments distract the film slightly from its meaning and contribute to making it scattered, busy and a little tedious.
Black Demon Review Bottom Line: Should You Watch It?
Ultimately, “The Black Demon” is far from being a good shark movie or a movie overall. It is seriously lacking, particularly in the presentation of the threat, and could have been much more enjoyable than it is. The positives: There were some interesting bits and I’ve seen worse shark movies. That’s something too.
