Director/Screenplay – Morihito Inoue, Music – Jinma Yuzuru, Special Effects – Yohei Kurokawa & Yusuke Mika. Production Company – Plan A.
Takuya Fujimura (Mayor Kanichi Mangan), Yuu Nakanishi (Mayumi Kose), Kiyobumi Kaneko (Detective Denbei Tsuka), Mio Takaki (Ayako Tsuka), Daniel Aguilar (Professor Morelli), Shigeo Osako (Prime Minister)
In the Japanese seaside town of Atsumi, Mayor Kanichi Mangan has begun an ambitious plan of constructing a hot springs resort using 3D printed building materials. Police detective Denbei Tsuka is dealing with a series of deaths around the town. With the aid of marine scientist Mayumi Kose, it is discovered that the construction has unearthed the Force Carilou, a species of shark that has a body it can squeeze into narrow spaces. This has allowed the sharks to travel up the pipes and emerge out of hot tubs. Sinkholes appear all over the town as sharks prowl the streets and devour people. The mayor organises an evacuation and tries to find a means to fight back against the shark menace.
The killer shark film began with Jaws (1975), which produced B-budget copies for a number of years. By the 2010s, this had evolved towards the Gonzo Killer Shark film. This began with Shark in Venice (2008) and especially Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009), which increasingly placed tongue-in-cheek and began to mix sharks with the most ridiculous things possible or create shark-related title puns. This reached its zenith with the bad movie hit of Sharknado (2013) and sequels.
There have been a great many shark films in a similar deliberately ridiculous vein – see the likes of Dinoshark (2010), Sharktopus (2010), Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast (2011), 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012), Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012), Jurassic Shark (2012), Sand Sharks (2012), Avalanche Sharks (2013), 90210 Shark Attack (2014), Raiders of the Lost Shark (2015), Roboshark (2015), Shark Exorcist (2015), Ice Sharks (2016), Piranha Sharks (2016), Planet of the Sharks (2016), Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016), Sharkenstein (2016), House Shark (2017), Trailer Park Shark (2017), Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark (2018), Ouija Shark (2020), Sky Sharks (2020), Noah’s Shark (2021), Sharks of the Corn (2021), Virus Shark (2021) and Shark Side of the Moon (2022), among others.. (For a more detailed overview see Killer Shark Movies).
Hotspring Sharkattack became a reasonable word of mouth hit and was even received a theatrical release. Audiences celebrated its wacky silliness and it was promoted as a new cult film. The big question for anybody (like me) who has watched a whole bunch of gonzo killer shark films is why this particular one? There have been so many in a similar vein – choose fairly much any of the abovementioned. For some of the better ones look at various of the Mega Shark and Sharknado sequels, Avalanche Sharks, Roboshark, 3 Headed Shark Attack (2015) and Sky Sharks. All of these hit the same deliberately ridiculous vein but remain down at the level of Syfy Channel releases, whereas for some reason Hotspring Sharkattack, which does no different, was given a theatrical release and was taken on board by audiences.
As is the case with many of the abovementioned, the visual effects are variable, although that can just as equally be regarded as part of the genre’s charm. There are all the entertainingly ridiculous scenes that we expect of the Gonzo Killer Shark film – sharks popping up in hot tubs; sharks prowling around in the streets and creating instant sinkholes; a romantic couple who go down a children’s slide just as a shark appears in the sandpit beneath and opens its mouth to swallow them. And the scene that had me cheering – sharks killing social media influencers.
Hotspring Sharkattack’s surreal climax involves the musclebound character known as Macho who joins the submarine mission going out in a swimsuit and punching out hordes of sharks en masse (all apparently while holding his breath). In the climactic moments, he faces the king shark, which turns out to be a giant-sized shark with a crown on its head, punches it as the submarine is swallowed whole, causing it to throw up whereupon they ignite the explosive mix and blow the sharks up.
Trailer here