Horror Movie Review: Sharks of the Corn (2021)

What’s a good run time for a ‘comedy’ horror about sharks in a cornfield, a shark-obsessed serial killer and a shark-worshipping cult that satirises current social issues? 60 minutes? 70 minutes? 80 minutes at a push? How about 105 minutes!?

Yes, Sharks of the Corn comes in at a mind-numbing hour and 45 minutes. You will feel every minute of that runtime too.

Written and directed by Tim Ritter, Sharks of the Corn is an unfocused mess that is neither a good comedy or a good horror movie. The movie is desperate for you to laugh at its cheesy, low-budget silliness. Something that would be possible if its idiotic story-telling was entertaining in any way.

The jokes, the satire, the parodies… they all fall as flat as the effects, characters, story and acting. Simply put, it’s a real struggle to find anything of merit in this movie.

A small American town has problems. The local cornfield is awash with killer sharks that attack anyone that goes into them. To make matters worse? A serial killer is also on the loose and he likes nothing better than killing women with a set of shark jaws. Are his murderous actions, the appearance of the corn sharks and the shark-worshipping cult related? Will anyone be able to stop him and the sharks’ rampage?

Does anyone care?

It’s utter nonsense but in the least entertaining way possible. The lack of coherency in the story is enough to make anyone turn this rubbish off but to make matters worse, the random jamming in of pointless other threads and attempts to be funny make it all the more painful.

It’s not surprise that the acting is subpar but the fact that the characters are so vapid is particularly galling. Your bloody movie runs for 105 minutes and you couldn’t find time to give these people some substance?

Then we have the effects. Something you would expect to be bad and Sharks of the Corn certainly delivers. What it fails to deliver though is blood and guts. An unforgivable decision as at least buckets of the red stuff would have memorable and worth talking about.

The thing is, people will say that you should know what you’re getting yourself in for with a movie like this. However, they are wrong. We expected trash, we expected low-budget silliness and poor effects, we expected bad acting and a basic story. What we didn’t expect was less than all of this wrapped up in such a lengthy package.

105 minutes long!