IslandGuru Who payed the critics

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

TheLittleSongbird It is a very daunting task taking on more than one skill working on a movie, with Sam Qualiana writing, starring, shooting and directing. Sometimes that can work, on other occasions it doesn't, sadly Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Shark falls into the latter. It does try but everything just looked and felt like it was made in one big rush.The movie does look awful, it has a very drab and crude colour palette and it looks like it was shot on an unsteady hand-held mobile phone the entire time. Even worse was the special effects on the shark, to say that its crude puppet-like look looks fake is an insult to the word fake. The music throughout is one constant overly-loud and monotonous drone, while the worst of the repetitive and weakly structured script is horrendously stilted and the story- doing nothing with a done to death premise- felt very padded out and thin. Apparently according to one external review Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast was initially intended as a short film and it really does show in the execution of the story here. There's nothing interesting or likable about the characters, they are little more than stock cardboard cut-outs who do little and when they do something it comes across as annoying and predictable. The shark is no better, outside of how bad it looks it also exudes no personality or menace and the non-existent way the characters and actors react to their predicaments hinders it further. We know next to nothing about it either or its origins- despite executing it badly at least Avalanche Sharks tried to do that- and never once did it feel like it was a proper threat and we all knows that sharks are scary.Regarding the shark attacks, they are completely devoid of suspense and terror with in almost all of them the shark only shown briefly(and it's in the attacks actually when the shark looks the most like a puppet). Pretty much all you can see is the sprayed tomato-ketchup-like blood cheapened even more by the seizure-inducing camera work. A further reason why Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast is for me down there as among the worst shark movies is that you get no entertainment value from it whatsoever, shark movies like Sharktopus and Sharknado had novelty value and while far from great movies(guilty pleasures more like) they had a sense of goofy fun, know what tone to take and even poked fun at themselves with everyone playing along. But Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast didn't have that, I know you should not expect much from low-budget movies like this and not take things so seriously but it's difficult to do that when the movie itself makes the mistake of taking it too seriously.With Sam Qualiana's direction, he is to be admired for his ambition but his direction did feel very mundane and erratic, a good idea in the future(as a suggestion this is) is to take on less because it did feel like Qualiana was trying to take on too many things and had yet to have the experience to do so properly. The acting is very weak from everybody involved; they just looked bored and un-rehearsed. Especially bad are Andy Taylor who is incredibly irritating and CJ Qualiana who already has a morose character and plays him in a constantly one-note way. If there were any redeeming values they were the lovely scenery, which we would appreciate even more if the photography was better than it was, and the reasonably good sound quality. Other than that, overall Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast tries hard but its execution is embarrassingly bad. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Woodyanders A prehistoric shark of local legend begins eating the locals in a quiet wintry small town. Mike Evans (essayed with hammy brio by writer/director Sam Qualinana), the sole survivor of a past snow shark attack, leads an angry and armed posse who are determined to slay the beast. Writer/director Qualiana treats the gloriously ludicrous premise in a sidesplitting mock serious manner: The abundant cheesy gore (the CGI blood in particular is quite tacky), a hilariously obvious shark puppet, poky pacing, the monotonous hum'n'shiver synthesizer score, lousy (markedly less than) special effects, cardboard stock characters, a decent smattering of tasty gratuitous distaff nudity, crude cinematography, and the meandering narrative all give this exquisitely abominable baby a certain chintzy hokey charm that's impossible to either resist or dislike. The endearingly awful acting by the lame no-name cast further adds to this picture's considerable kitschy appeal, with stand-out stinky work by Michael O'Hear as the no-nonsense Prof. Jonathan Hoffman, Jackey Hall as the feisty Daphne, C.J. Qualiana as the morose Sheriff Donald Chapman, Kathy Murphy as the tart Wendy, Andrew Elias as nerdy cryptozoologist Lincoln Anderson, Andy Taylor as obnoxious macho redneck hunter Cameron Caine, and Robert Bozak as the jerky Mayor Shawn Overman. A complete crummy hoot.

Harlow_WU Wow! Just wow! I've seen scarier sharks inside sock puppets.As far as bad acting skills go this is up there with the worst porn.I once thought that Zombie Nation was the worst film I had ever seen but this makes that look like cinema gold.Me and my friends love a bad movie, they are great for a laugh, but this film is just beyond that, darlin'. Bad, I'm mean really bad, acting, bad direction, bad editing, bad script, bad hairstyles and facial hair that randomly change and no point commenting about the effects. I'm pretty sure this was filmed in someone's backyard.So, if you have trouble sleeping, watch this. You'll fall asleep in no time.Btw, did I mention how BAD the acting was!!!!

dailyplanetdude Okay, this isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but really had to force myself to watch the entire thing. I lost interest two minutes into the movie. Dialogue- stilted, off putting, uninteresting and flat. Characters- no real depth, these characters weren't even two dimensional, they were inverted. No on screen chemistry, talent or engaging characters to relate to. No one to cheer far. Cinematography- Horrible, the color saturation was horrid. It's as if it was shot from a cell phone. Actually, I've got to correct myself, i've seen better movies that were shot from an iPhone. This was just horrible all across the board. Acting, dialogue, characters, story, plot, execution/delivery of the story, no character arcs, nothing interesting.I actually enjoyed cute cat videos on youtube more than this. I imagine it was shot with a couple of friends, a couple of dollars and only a couple of hours, including the editing, retakes, and everyone's shooting schedule. what a piece of crap.