*Italicized shark facts pulled from “Top 100 Sharks Facts” portion of Discovery Shark Week Website.*

Modern sharks breathe by ram ventilation, a process that forces water into their mouths and then processes it as they swim forward. When they’re idle, sharks use muscles around the mouth to pull water in and over their gills. Sharks that don’t have muscles strong enough to do the job must take shorter and less frequent rest stops.

Athlete-chieftain Malik (Sinqua Walls), shortly after he is informed of his girlfriend’s death by shark, having lost his right arm to a bloodthirsty beast some scenes prior, adopts a principle similar in objective to lex talionis or “eye for an eye”: the sharks took one of his, so he will take one of theirs.

Sheriff Greg Sabin (Donal Logue), on the clock, rather than looking out across the lake, seeing a flare shot off by the stranded undergraduates, and responding admirably, instead feverishly drums and strums away, his cruiser’s driver side door open and he inside, unaware, a heavy metal ballad emanating loudly from within.

Early on, what is at stake for Shark Night 3D’s viewership under David R. Ellis’ direction (Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, Snakes on a Plane, The Final Destination) is made evident: the film will operate within the parameters of the horror genre model, like so many creature-features before it, will adhere to those parameters no matter the sacrifice—character, pacing, and plausibility chief among those concerns for any auteur, beginning, middling, acclaimed, or otherwise. (more…)