Baldwin and Johannson star in Italian/ Buried Treasure / Blue Planet style documentary: Sharks in Venice

I thought I was high-brow there for a minute but it turns out I was incapable of leaving Xtravision without this movie in my low-brow mitt. Just look at the cover. How could I not?

A lesser known Baldwin ( Steven ) plays David, an oceanographer/archaeologist/seasoned diver who travels to Venice with his girlfriend Laura ( Vanessa Johannson - Scarlett's ugly older sister - hate that ) after his father dies in a mysterious "boating accident" while he was diving in the canals. But of course David knows a shark attack when he sees it. The nice ( or are they? hmmm) Venetian police allow David and Not Scarlett to engage in their own investigation, sure why wouldn't they? Lo and behold it turns out there's buried de Medici treasure under them thar canals. A swarthy mafioso gangster type put a load of baby killer sharks down there to protect the treasure ( crafty! ) and now they are giant and killing divers and tourists alike. The gangster is constantly surprised that every diver he sends down there to find the treasure gets eaten ( Not so crafty. ) . Cue Not Scarlett getting kidnapped by said gangster so David is forced to dive for the treasure to save her, sharks or no sharks. Will he survive? Will Not Scarlett survive? Is this film so bad it's the best thing ever? Yes. Yes it is.

I don't want to ruin every amazingly terrible thing in the movie ( I'd run out of interweb) but for example: the one piece of stock footage of a shark attack is rehashed every single time anyone goes diving. There is NO continuity. At one point you clearly see David getting his leg bitten off. You see the leg floating through the water. But 2 scenes later he walks out of hospital not a bother on him, which is nice. To spice things up, as if it needed it, the particularly dodgy CGI shark that randomly picks off unsuspecting tourists from gondolas and the likes, is absolutely ENORMOUS. One tourist shark death scene with a drunk Italian couple is so amazingly bad ( CGI and acting ) we rewound it just to make sure it actually happened. ( it did, thankfully.) If you like things that are good, I would avoid this movie. But if like me, you like things that are SO bad they are hilarious, get thee to a moving image rental emporium quicksmart.

The production company, Nu Image, who made this gem also made films called Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, Raging Sharks, Shark Zone, and the Shark Attack trilogy (with variations like Mega Snake, Octopus, Crocodile, Spiders, and Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep) and thanks to the last minute gondola eating by the giant CGI psycho shark I can only hope David and Not Scarlett will be back for Sharks in Venice 2: Revenge of De Medici...

-Guest Post by kt80