The Black Demon
Directed by Adrian Grunberg
Written by Carlos Cisco and Boise Esquerra
Starring Josh Lucas, Fernanda Urrejola, Julio Cesar Cedillo, and Jorge A. Jimenez
Rated R
Running Time 1 hour and 40 minutes
In theaters now

by Charlie Brigden, Staff Writer

It's hard to screw up a shark movie. Yes, most of the pictures that are usually characterised as being of the cinema du requin are generally chum, but in even the worst of them, you can usually find something to have fun with, be it fun kills or at least a sense of humour. But not The Black Demon.

The Black Demon is the kind of picture where an American visits a previously thriving foreign location, only to find it's a ghost town. In this case, it's a coastal town in Mexico's Baja California, and the American is Paul Sturges (Josh Lucas), a bigwig from an oil company who has come to inspect a local rig a few miles away. He's also brought his family, who he figures will have plenty to do in the popular resort. Bad choice. The only people living there now are gang members and the elderly. Oh and the local legend of El Demonio negro.

Paul experiences the legend first hand when he jets out to the rig, although he has to switch rides halfway through because the first boat driver ominously won't go any further. His decision turns out to be smart because as soon as water taxi #2 drops Paul off, the poor driver is instantly chewed up by El Demonio negro itself, a gigantic shark with jet-black skin. Luckily, Chato (Julio Cesar Cedillo) and Junior (Jorge A. Jimenez), who are both oil workers that stayed on the rig because it's falling apart so badly, can tell Paul all about El Demonio negro. There's some obfuscation about whether this is a religious deity coming for revenge because of the damage the rig has done to the local area but it's explained simply that it's a Megalodon, aka Otodus megalodon. As most people will know, Megalodon was a giant shark that chomped on whales in prehistoric times and is a popular subject for shark movies where they want something with a bit more bite than your average great white.

Back on dry land, Paul's family are harassed by one of the local gang to the point where his wife Ines (Fernanda Urrejola) embarrasses their head honcho by beating the shit out of him. Pissed, the thugs essentially chase the family out of the town, with their only option going out to sea. So they decide to get a boat to the rig, which puts them right in the firing - or chowing - line of the Meg. Daughter Audrey (Venus Ariel) discovers that mysterious things are afoot when she falls into the water by the rig and sees hundreds of severed limbs in the water, which would give anyone a panic attack. It's a neat visual trick and one of the few memorable things about the film, as it turns out the shark makes you hallucinate to confuse you before it attacks (I'd argue it's more likely to be all the oil leaking from the rig, myself).

So you have Paul and his family and Chato and Junior stuck on this trepidatious structure while they figure out a way to escape. Unfortunately, that means that unless they encounter a boat full of tourists, the body count is going to be fairly low, another no-no when it comes to shark cinema. When it comes to death, obviously. A Megalodon's sex life is its own business. Inevitably, this also means that Junior is not long for this earth. Indeed, he's tragically chomped while he and Paul mess around with the rig's diving bell.

It's possible that the film could leverage this doom and gloom with humour; maybe not something approaching the level of SyFy or The Asylum's self-referencing parodies, but a tiny bit of levity might have helped. But no, The Black Demon is incredibly serious and po-faced throughout its agonising run time, with two elements conspiring to make it such a terrible tonal shambles: actor Josh Lucas and the musical score.

Lucas is dreadful, with his character not one for one second coming across anything more dimensional than a sheet of A4. He's weirdly unbothered about the damage the rig has done to the environment - at least until it turns out he's complicit - and goes through these odd moments where Paul seems to undergo a momentary psychotic break and get incredibly aggressive against the person he's with. I guess it's not easy when you have this little to work with, but still, yikes.

The music is hilarious. By that, I mean overbearing and obvious from the first second. It's almost like a running joke where the filmmakers are trying to see how much they can get away with, and it feels like every scene is scored with the musical equivalent of wallpaper paste. And yes, they do a variation on the Jaws theme too.

The shark itself is fine. I mean, okay, it's not - it looks incredibly fake in every moment and looks like the CG was rendered at the lowest resolution they were able to get away with, probably because of the cost. I'm not sure of the budget of the film, but it has to be low. Super low. The rest of the cast isn't bad considering, especially Cedillo, and they do the best they can given the state of the script.

The Black Demon is not a good movie. It is not a fun "so good it's bad" flick either, it's just bad. It's stupid and poorly made and feels like it's been cheaply thrown out after they roped Lucas into the film with a free holiday to the Dominican Republic. To be fair, the scenery looks beautiful. But the film is very ugly and if nature takes its course, it should give rise to a new local myth. The legend of La Mierda negra: The Black Turd.