You'd think a film called Psycho Shark (aka Jaws in Japan in its native country) would at the very least have some solid shark action. But sadly, you'd be mistaken. There's an ocean, and some underwater cameras, but maybe a total of ten seconds of shark "action" spread out over only two scenes, one of which is a dream. The later scene is a solid WTF moment, but it hardly makes the journey there worth it. So what does Psycho Shark have to offer? Lots of recycled footage, a half-assed found footage angle, a super underdeveloped story about some sort of cult (I think?), and a lot of young women in bikinis ogled by the camera - kind of to the point where it's uncomfortable. But counterintuitively, there is zero nudity. And hardly a shark to be seen.
It's just a bad, bad movie. The story is not clearly explained, but from what I can gather: Two young women (Mai and Miki) go on a vacation on a very isolated section of the beach. No one else is really around besides the innkeeper (who lends them a video camera to "create some memories," - although the underlying message is "I will steal this and sell it to perverts") and this guy Kenji, who Mai gets a crush on. While Kenji and Mai are out doing their romantic thing, Miki finds a video tape of three other girls who also liked to videotape themselves frolicking in the ocean and zooming in on each other's breasts. So we get to watch the three friend footage while the main Miki/Mai/Kenji story unfolds. They sort of run parallel to each other, but don't worry - Psycho Shark does nothing interesting with it.
The whole film is just poorly constructed. Scene after poorly shot scene goes by with no advancement of the plot at all. It seems like there is more padding here than actual movie. Random footage from both sets of girls' videotapes are cut into the movie for no reason, and you end up seeing the same footage over and over again. There are even a couple of instances where Miki just fast forwards through footage we've already seen at least twice... I was wishing I could do the same. Honestly, if you have to show a character fast forwarding through footage, maybe you should just edit it out of the movie?
To make sure you know it's supposed to be a horror movie, they throw in unrelated shots of the three-girl group getting... bloodied? You don't know how, and it isn't really scary. It's more confusing than anything. I guess it's explained in the end - but it's a sign of trouble when you need to constantly splice footage of your climax into your film at random to keep it interesting.
The non-found footage stuff (i.e. the parts of the film that are not from the girls' video cameras) is really poorly shot. You get obviously (or incredibly stupidly) framed wide shots with no edits. It just feels like the actors are improvising and it will eventually get edited into a usable scene. But there is no editing. And sometimes the shot just lingers for an uncomfortably long time on nothing. On the whole, it's very amateurish, and unfortunately not even in an enjoyable way.
There is a little bit of okayness here and there. Some of the subtitles end up with enjoyable translations - my favorite, when one of the girls is talking about Kenji, says of him: "he has a cool face and is my type." That sounds natural. Also, there is a small bit of good horror stuff during the big reveal - this is the one spot where the found footage gimmick justifies itself. And when you finally get around to seeing the shark in the final moments of the film (you know, the thing the movie is named after), it's so goddamned silly that it's hard not to smile. But it's definitely not worth sitting through the film to get there.
So don't be fooled, shark fans! Or good movie fans! Move along, there's nothing to see here.
I would definitely not recommend this film.
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