Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		1.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 17, 2019

'Shark Attack' is currently only available as part of a two-disc, eight-film 'Meg-A-Shark' collection from Echo Bridge. The set also includes 'Toxic Shark,' 'Shark in Venice,' 'Malibu Shark Attack,' 'Hammerhead,' 'Shark Attack 2,' 'Shark Attack 3: Megalodon,' and 'Shark Zone.'

Shark Attack follows Marine Biologist Steven McKray (Casper Van Dien) to a coastal African village in search of an old friend and colleague, Marc Desantis. He teams up with Marc's sister, Corine (Jennifer McShane), and finds himself in embroiled in a conspiracy that runs deeper than the waters the sharks call home.

Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shark Attack was shot on film. The 1080p Blu-ray presentation certainly shows some wear and tear in the early stages. Pops and speckles, random vertical and horizontal lines, particularly over the opening title sequence, lend to the picture a worn, sloppy appearance. The image cleans up well enough thereafter and, despite a flat color palette with little punch or contrast, manages to offer a fair filmic image where light grain holds steady and detailing appears pleasant, if not a bit unassuming. Essential skin details, hair, clothes, and environments are sufficiently defined. There are some minor compression-related artifacts seen throughout, but such are usually not major distractors. It's a perfectly watchable image but certainly not one to excite the visual senses.

Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is awful, frankly. The opening sequence when a man is fed to some hungry sharks fails to find even modestly authentic detail and clarity. It's muddled, messy, and the same is true for random sound effects throughout. A car door slams shut in the 11-minute mark, and the effect sounds like a piece of tin dropping on the ground from 30 feet away. There's absolutely no definition to the effect, and the vehicle's squealing tires and running engine are likewise thin. A table being thrown over during a bar fight a few minutes later, splashing water during a shark attack at the 23-minute mark, a helicopter lifting off moments, later...just about every effect in the film is muddy and indistinct. Surrounds and the subwoofer barely engage with any meaningful output. Dialogue is positioned in the center, is adequately prioritized, and clarity is passable.

Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Shark Attack contains no supplemental content.

Shark Attack Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The movie is competently put together. It benefits from age, hailing from a time when movies like this were still assembled with some care for production values and performances rather than like so many to today's trash movies cobbled together as cheaply as possible with no concern for anything but the bottom line. The featureless Blu-ray is visually serviceable but its audio track is a borderline disaster. Genre fans should find this one to hold some value, but audiophiles need steer clear.