Horror Movie Review: Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)

Almost 20 years later, for no reason beyond the fact that shark horror is in vogue at the moment, we got a sequel to the fan-favourite Deep Blue Sea. The original was released in 1999 and is surprisingly popular even though it really isn’t very good. No seriously, go back and watch it, it’s not.

At best it can be called fun which is everything this sequel is not even though it tries very hard to copy events and sequences from the original.

The film stars Danielle Savre as Misty Calhoun, a shark conservationist, who is invited to come to a sea-based facility called Akhelios. It’s owned by pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant (Michael Beach) who wants to show her his work with bull sharks. In a totally unsurprising turn of events, Durant and his team have been genetically altering the brains of these sharks to make them smarter. Sound familiar? Get used to that as it’s going to happen a lot throughout Deep Blue Sea 2.

Anyway, Durant and his team alongside his shark trainers have made it possible to control the shark’s movements using a touch key which is demonstrated for Misty’s benefit. However, she is less then pleased by what is taking place on the facility.

That’s not important though as Durant only invited her so she could give her expert advice on the alpha shark, Bella. You see, she has been acting strangely and in a matter of minutes Misty concludes it’s because she is pregnant.

Much to the surprise of the facility workers which really calls into question their expertise. The film tries to play it off as the genetic alterations hid her pregnancy but it’s very hard to buy that or most of what follows.

The gang bring Bella into the wet lab to take some samples but things start going wrong. On the surface the remaining sharks manage to destroy the electrics and Bella is dropped back into the pool where the shock of it causes her to give birth.

As the labs begin to flood, the survivors are forced to try and escape all while be hunted by baby sharks. Yes, the major difference between Deep Blue Sea and Deep Blue Sea 2 is the size of the sharks. These little buggers are more like piranha though, which wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t already have several different piranha-based movies!

Deep Blue Sea gets nearly everything wrong. Whereas the first one had a fair amount of cheese in it, this movie goes for a more serious tone but with characters that are incredibly bland. A great example of just how under-developed they are involves a husband and wife pair. She is killed by the baby sharks in what could have and should have been an emotionally fraught moment but instead the only feeling it elects is boredom.

Well, that and laughter because of the sub-par CGI.

Deep Blue Sea 2 employs CGI for almost everything. The sharks, the blood and the gore but it fails to make any of it look convincing.

Then out of nowhere, it ends. While the credits are welcome purely because of just how bad the movie is, it just adds even less satisfaction to what is a pretty tepid experience overall.

Let’s just all agree now that shark horror has *ahem* jumped the shark.

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