Movie Review: Great White (2021)

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Great White is an indie horror film written by Michael Boughen and directed by Martin Wilson. It is about a couple who book a flight on a charter seaplane to Hell’s Reef. While there they get attacked by a shark and stranded with the pilot (Aaron Jakubenko) his co-pilot and his wife Katrina Bowden (Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Piranha 3DD), and their cook. They get attacked, the seaplane sinks and they subsequently all get stuck on a raft. There isn’t really a lot to dive into (get it?) in this film, so we will just make this one short and sweet.

When entering the waters of the horror genre with a shark film, it needs to have something fresh. There is a reason why there are so many of them out there. Whether its Ghost Shark, Sharktopus, Dick Shark, Avalanche Sharks, Santa Jaws, etc. they all have something that makes you want to watch, no matter how bad they will be. Something unique. Great White offers nothing unique.

This film has great production value. The cinematography was good. The score was good. The acting was good. Even the special effects were good. But none of these things are going to matter if you make just another shark attack film with no substance. And that’s what happened here. The writing was just lazy. The story was a cookie-cutter shark attack where almost nothing happens through most of the film. They spent too much time developing irrelevant characters and not enough time making something that is enjoyable to watch. Even the title “Great White” is about as basic as you can get. Why did this small charter flight need a cook? Why, when they found a dead body on the shore was their first thought to use his dead hand to unlock his perfectly-functioning phone and snoop through it? There were a lot of holes in this story.

Overall, we would not recommend this film. There are a million shark films out there that offer something unique or entertaining, and this isn’t one of them. Great White was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 7th and is available to stream on Shudder. Check out the trailer below to see more.