Cocaine Shark: Wild Ride or Dead Fish?
When Cocaine Bear hit theater screens earlier this year, I was stoked. The early advertising made it seem like something akin to Shark Exorcist or Velocipastor with a Universal Studios budget. When I finally sat down in my local cinema to watch it, I was not disappointed. As I was watching that coked-out bear tear dudes limb from limb, I knew there would be a wave of low-budget copycats. Now, just a few months later, we have Cocaine Shark.
In Cocaine Bear, we saw the effects of cocaine on an otherwise normal bear. With this flick, part of me hoped to see CGI sharks doing underwater key bumps or hoovering fat rails off of a dolphin’s tailfin. I got none of that, though. We don’t see a big-ass shark eating a brick of fish-scale cocaine, either. The plot does include some blow and a few other drugs. It’s hard to build a modern noir story narrated by an aging undercover narcotics agent without the narcotics.
Cocaine isn’t the star of the show, though. It’s only mentioned once or twice in the first half hour of the movie. Instead, the drug of this choice for this flick is a new chemical called HT-25. No, it’s not some groovy Shulgin compound. It’s a drug created from the glands of sharks.
Like in Deep Blue Sea, the scientific experimentation causes mutations in the sharks. But, instead of getting big as hell, they somehow become weird chimeras. While we hear about several creatures, the crab-shark hybrid is the one that takes up the most screentime.
The creature escapes and starts stacking up a body count of off-screen kills.
Cocaine Shark Is Kinda Fun
The trailer didn’t give me a great idea of what to expect from Cocaine Shark. So, sat down, imbibed enough ganja to enjoy a flick of this caliber, clicked play, and braced myself for madness. When I stumbled into a low-budget crime film, I wasn’t disappointed.
While this flick didn’t offer the cocaine-fueled shark attacks that I was craving, it did have a few perks. The plot full of double-crossing drug dealers and undercover cops was cool. The drug, HT-25, sends users on a trip that puts them in the mind of a shark for three or four hours. Later in the movie, we learn that the drug gives our protagonist, Nick Braddock, a connection to the mutated killer shark.
I went into Cocaine Shark expecting a few good laughs. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. However, the last minute or so of the movie made me absolutely cackle.
Not All Fun and Games
Cocaine Shark tells a story that was good enough to keep me sucked in, for the most part. However, there is plenty of padding here. The repeated “trips” from the shark drugs, some scenes and dialog that could have been cut, and a few other speed bumps made this movie feel longer than it was.
The leads, Natalie and Titus Himmelberger turned in the best performances in the movie. The chemistry between them carries even the most wooden moments. There are plenty of wooden moments, too. The rest of the Cocaine Shark cast was kind of the definition of hit or miss.
Then, there’s the “cocaine” shark. It’s a neat-looking puppet that is then badly added to scenes in post. It’s a damn shame, too. I feel like they did that crustacean-legged shark dirty.
Also, the monster kills a handful of people and the leads obviously bang a handful of times. We don’t get to see any of that. I didn’t really need to see the fuckin’, but at the very least, I was hoping for some creative on-screen deaths. Cocaine Shark doesn’t deliver many. However, the ones we do get are decent enough.
The Verdict on Cocaine Shark
Look, you can pretty much watch the trailer for Cocaine Shark and tell if it’s your kind of movie or not. If you dig modern, low-budget exploitation cinema and crime stories, you’re gonna like this. Just don’t get your hopes too high. Stream it on Tubi today or wait until Wild Eye puts it out on DVD on July 11th.
