The dark mystery of the ocean is the perfect setting for the horror genre. The most popular is that of the shark attack features with big ones like The Meg and the most iconic of them all JAWS. The latest, The Black Demon brings a Mexican legend to life starring Josh Lucas, Fernanda Urrejola, and Julio Cesar Cedillo from Rambo: Last Blood director Adrian Grünberg. Could this film do the legend justice or will it fail to get above water?

 

The Black Demon follows Oilman Paul Sturges whose idyllic family vacation turns into a nightmare when they encounter a ferocious megalodon shark that will stop at nothing to protect its territory. Stranded and under constant attack, Paul and his family must somehow find a way to get his family back to shore alive before it strikes again in this epic battle between humans and nature.

 

I love any film that throws sharks to the forefront, especially if they are wreaking havoc on everything around them. Given the idea of this film I was pretty excited to see how it was handled and on the surface it works mostly. Unfortunately there are lot of decisions that take it out of the film it could have been. It teeters between trying to be really serious and fighting the cheesier elements that would no doubt make it work better.

 

I wasn’t wanting anything cheesy and was glad they were trying to go all in, but it is also really pushing the environment agenda and it forces it to get a bit jumbled. I love that they infused the ideas of the oil spill and environment along with the Hispanic culture, but they didn’t lean enough into the shark side to keep it exciting enough to always want to stay with it. The performances are fine, but there is some pretty bad dialogue in this script that just doesn’t work.

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There wasn’t enough shark aspects as I was hoping for, but what is here delivers. It is over the top at times which was fine by me, but I just wanted them to go all in with the insanity. There wasn’t enough shark aspects as I was 

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