I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. SHARKULA is so bad that it’s good, at least for plenty of laughs. And it’s impossible not to watch to the bitter blood-drenched ending once you start.
Just when you think it’s safe to go into the water, it’s not…at least not when Count Dracula is “alive and living.” It seems that the curse of Count Dracula now lives on in the shark-infested waters of a tourist community, a perfect place for any thirsty vamp or hungry shark. But perish the thought, because what happens when the curse of Dracula is passed onto a great white shark? What happens is that not only do we have an abomination of nature with the birth of SHARKULA, but he’s feasting on tourists AND he’s got a cult of bloodsucking followers aiding and abetting his hunger and thirst. With blood-soaked dismembered bodies popping up, and hysterical sightings of a bat-winged shark putting fear and panic in all, several folks are determined to get to the root of the situation and put an end to the bloodsucking torment. But just how do you do that?
Written, directed and edited by Mark Polonia, I applaud his novel idea for SHARKULA and his attempts to tell a story and incorporate many elements of the Dracula mythology, especially since he succeeds at hitting the seminal notes, i.e., the characters of Mina and Renfield, and then killing Renfield for betrayal. This is right out of the mythology and many iterations on stage and screen. But beyond that, the problems mount; not the least of which is obviously no budget.
As for the film itself, the camp factor is deliciously hilarious. The dialogue is cheesy as hell. The acting is pretty much non-existent but for the character of Vladimir Constantine thanks to Jeff Kirkendall who so over-emotes and fumbles that you can’t help but laugh. Kirkendall is an odd duck and I’m still not quite sure what he was trying to do with his pronunciation of words.
And then there’s Kyle Rappaport as Renfield. Creepy and perverted as hell, right down to rubbing his face in the bra and panties of a dead woman who was dinner to Drac and Sharkula. Jamie Morgan is serviceable as the meek Mina.
The biggest issue with this film is Paul Alan Steele’s cinematography. Lighting throughout the film is consistently bad, but anytime there is movement of people, hair, the camera, etc., resolution is beyond poor. At least when nothing is moving, the image is a bit sharper and clearer. Stationery shots of the ocean look beautiful and are obviously shot on sticks outside with natural light. However, the beauty of some of the ocean shots begs the question of whether or not they are stock footage because color correction and grading is perfect versus non-existent with the rest of the film. Same with a beautiful sequence of a night-fire dancer paying tribute to Sharkula the Sea Demon. Stunning imagery that feels like it belongs in a different film. On the whole, though, the film has no perceivable visual continuity or grammar.
Sound design is equally poor with vacillating, yet hollow, ambient room tones and dialogue audio.
The DIY-style VFX of Sharkula along with dissolves of undersea glowing red eyes and shark chomping on dead humans is soooooo hokey and campy that you’ve got to love it and laugh. The head of a shark with bat wings and glowing eyes underwater is weird as hell, but damn funny.
The best thing I can say about SHARKULA, however, is the theme song. A total riff on Dick Dale & The Deltones. Perfect surf music from the 60s that’s fabulous and puts you in a beachy ocean mode.
I can go on and on about all the problems with the film, but suffice to say, while the quality of filmmaking “sucks” and the acting “sucks”, the story idea is actually intriguingly fun. But the shining star of SHARKULA is campy badness that is so damn good that you can’t tear yourself away.
Written and Directed by Mark Polonia
Cast: Jeff Kirkendall, Jamie Morgan, Kyle Rappaport
by debbie elias, 05/31/2022
