The Black Demon is another shark attack movie and is directed by Adrian Grunberg. Boise Esquerra is the mediocre screenwriter who inflicted another mediocre scary shark script upon whoever was just curious enough to try it out. Josh Lucas is in the lead role as an inspector for an oil company who decides to bring his family along with him to visit an oil rig just off the shores of Mexico. Fernanda Urrejola and Julio Cesar Cedillo are included in the cast.
Lucas plays a pleasant enough family man named Paul Sturges, who brings his family to Mexico so he can enjoy a vacation at the same time he checks on a company oil rig. He is alarmed to find the town he stops in to be somewhat deserted and the people rather subdued. He of a local legend concerning a demon that has been roused by the drilling, which he dismisses. He finds it a little harder to ignore when he finds the rig in shambles, and he and his family end up trapped by the circling presence of megalodon shark that has been on a killing spree for some time before Paul’s arrival. Apparently, this film is based on some lore of a demon shark in Mexico. It just ends up delivering another not-so-subtle message about ecological irresponsibility.
Josh Lucas is a reasonably talented actor and does what he can with a script that just feels a little phoned in. The cast put in an admirable effort to make this mildly convincing. The visual effects were pretty good, and there are a couple of moments of real suspense. I sort of favor films that take place in some isolated structure with a terrifying whatever picking people off. Oil rigs are pretty good settings for this genre. I have no real issue with the performances and some of the technical efforts in this one, but the story was just a bit too familiar, and the characters sometimes had trouble getting to their point when sharing some discovered secrets.
I find that I am getting a repetitive reaction to the movies I have seen lately. Yet again, this is not really that terrible of a film, but the formula is little too familiar. The cast is just compelling enough to make this watchable at least. Also, really big sharks chomping on boats and people does tend to get the blood going in a somewhat enjoyable way as long as it’s just a movie. It’s another film that has some minor moments of nearly being entertaining and interesting, but it just doesn’t quite make it.
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