When is a killer shark movie not a killer shark movie? It’s not when they hide the shark for most of the runtime… there have been killer shark movies that hide their terrible visuals and it’s still a killer shark movie. How about when it’s really a finger-wagging message movie about Big Oil where the shark is an afterthought?

The Black Demon is about an oil company executive on vacation in Mexico with his family. Somehow they all wind up on an off-shore oil rig that’s falling apart while a megalodon (hi Meg!) lurks about trying to eat people.

Nothing against horror films as analogies. Godzilla who? The Host what? And if this giant shark was mutated due to a chemical spill or irradiated by whatsits, that’s be great. But I think the shark is just a metaphor with fins… it just happens to be there, possibly as an avenging spirit for an oil spill or something.

It hardly matters when the vast majority of the movie is about the family and the deep dark secrets of an oil rig. And not, you know, the killer shark. Sure, Big Oil acting snaky can be a fine sub-plot or inciting incident, but not at the expense of the killer shark. Even a killer shark that looks this mediocre.

To be fair, I’ve seen killer sharks that look a lot worse than this one. And I’ve seen cheaper overall productions. This movie largely looks decent (ignoring the shark), has a good score, good sound, and fine actors. There’s actually a better movie lurking in this pretty bad film. The script betrayed everyone… that and the CGI budget.

So not a recommendation but if you want to subject yourself to a bad shark movie, you could easily watch worse. You could also watch something that’s worse but is also campy… which this movie is too serious to be. So maybe that’s another hit on it. Be more fun, monster fish movie. Be more fun.

Score: 68