The Black Demon

I honestly can't bring myself to say there's anything terrible about this movie. Not a bad at all, although there are sacrifices to be made. Don't go in expecting 2018's the Meg, because it's not. While it's true that the shark doesn't make up the majority of the screen time, the story (as loose and bland as it was) was interesting enough to keep my attention. The characters were kinda bland, but likable at least. The visuals and CGi actually looked very well done considering the budget looks much less than your typical summer blockbuster. The acting was overall pretty decent. The only real negatives I had was it essentially being just another typical "environmentalism-we're-destroying-the-planet" messaging type of movie, but I guess that's what we've come to expect now. I do wish there was more emphasis on things like the shark's origins and the whole concept of it messing with the character's minds and making them see things. At the end of the day, a big 'old shark and a few explosions, so good enough for me.

That headline is not a reference from The Black Demon. It's a question I have for the movie. To say it's all over the place would be a severe understatement. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Most people will watch this because they want to see a creature feature, but that plays a tiny part in this movie. Even it's themes and messages are so random and unconnected. The Black Demon opens with a scene that made me think, "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into." It seemed immediately bad even by B-movie standards. Then it does a few things that made me think, "Wait, this might be decent." There are some cool shots. I enjoyed the family dynamic and the little boy is hilarious. But then it drops right back down to being unbearably low-quality. The shark attack scenes are awful. Every "horror" element fails. We start to see how horrendous the acting is by the two leads when the scene requires yelling. My jaw literally dropped at a couple of the performances. Worst of all, it becomes unbelievably stupid. Throughout. I'll give one example from the very beginning. They plan a trip to a town but when they arrive, the hotel is closed down, as is most of the town. There are shady people lurking around. It's clearly unsafe. Instead of driving his family somewhere else, they get out and try to get directions to a restaurant from some shady people. They leave their car and follow them on foot to this restaurant, which also has shady people. And he leaves his wife and children while he goes to work for a few hours. It's the basis for how this entire movie happens and is, to the full extent of the word, moronic. (1 viewing, opening Thursday 4/27/2023)

This movie is really as bad as all reviews say it is. It starts already with the opening scene under water : it is absolute garbage, the director and cinematographer have no idea how to shoot underwater scenes, you can't tell what's going on and this happens each time they go under water. Somehow the protagonists end up on a abandoned oil rig surrounded by a ghostly superstition Mexican Megalodon of some sort, brought upon by the white man and the oil rig. I wasn't really paying attention when this part was explained because it took the pace out of the movie and was clearly "we are destroying the environment, global warming etc" nonsense, anyway the main cast make the most idiotic decisions and there is no plan, there is no goal, things just happen and then suddenly the movie is over (thank God !). The director has no idea how to keep tension; there is constant noise on the platform, presumably from the Megalodon doing ... something, we never get to see what it's doing because you only see flashes of this monster, where did it come from and what does it want ? We will never know. You don't feel any sympathy for the main characters, Josh Lucas is and always will be a B-actor and I was constantly wondering what this man was doing in a 100% Mexican produced movie, he is literally the only American in this flick. Anyway he plays an oil company inspector of oil rigs and arrives at this oil platform, completely unaware of where everyone is but then halfway the movie there is a plot twist that makes you go "huh ? Then why did he act like that in the beginning ?". As another reviewer already pointed out : the script was probably written by AI. Avoid at all cost.