SANTA JAWS (2018)

For Christmas a teenage boy gets an ink pen that will (unknowingly to him) bring anything drawn with it to life. He draws a shark wearing a Santa hat. The next morning, the Santa shark eats the kids grandpa while they’re out fishing. Instead of calling 911, the kid tells his parents who tell him to stop lying and take away his phone. After that, the rest of the movie is just the kid and his dorky friends (and eventually his family) fighting the shark and never once calling the police even as they all die one by one. Fin.

As far as Christmas stories go, SANTA JAWS is more believable and less depressing than the Biblical Nativity Story, so it does have that going for it, but unfortunately, while the story also shows a few glimpses of imagination…the execution is fucking abysmal. Horrible dialogue, bland scenery and sets, Satanawful look to the entire thing (is that because it’s shot on a digital camera or something? Why do you look like such ass, bro?), literally not one single person on screen that isn’t part of the story…no cars driving by or people simply walking in the background, middle school play-level acting, zero nudity, zero gore, zero cheerleaders, ugly clothing, an ending that goes on for way too long, weak as hell special effects, multiple bad puns and jokes that kinda make me believe this might have been a comedy.

Comedy or not, SANTA JAWS is an amusing watch, if you’re into this kind of thing. Overall, it sucked, but I did enjoy it and have no regrets in watching it. Although I doubt I'll ever watch it again...unless I decide to explore just how shitty the subtitles are on the DVD. Jesus wept.

[Not part of the review: I’m very fascinated by this entire type of movie. Not killer animal movies, but this budget range of film that is obviously not going to be a masterpiece but somehow marketed well enough to make its money back. It’s endlessly fascinating. I really wish I knew more about it. If there isn’t already, somebody should make a documentary about it. I just love how there seems to be an endless supply of these weird, nothing movies. Then again, maybe I’m not real and I’m just dreaming all of this up as I slowly decay.]

[This really has nothing to do with the review, but on the IMDb page for SANTA JAWS it says there is a "Goof" where "During the fishing scene with Papa and Cody, Cody is holding his rod upside down." I including a shot of Cody fishing with his grandpa and the fishing pole is being held just like the grandpas. With the line roller thing on the bottom. There are two shots of Cody's rod (insert low effort penis joke here) in this scene and they both look like the screenshot included below.]

The subtitles on this DVD are nearly worthless. In this scene, the actor clearly says “Ho, ho, ho. You son of a fish.” and this is what the subtitles say.

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS (1989)

This shit didn’t click with me. Long-story short, there’s a fully-grown adult dude living in a clock tower at a large university in Los Angeles. He’s hairier than Cousin Itt’s left nut and spends all of his time watching a female student by the name of Cathy. Shit happens and he swings down on a rope to break up a fight involving her. Dude is taken into custody and instead of being place under state care, he’s released under the supervision of the university. Naturally, the school assigns a single student, Cathy’s boyfriend and full-time Steve Guttenberg impersonator, Alex to watch over ol’ boy 24 / 7. Makes sense.

I don’t know, I’m already bored with this review. Ends up the dude’s name is Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga (hardy-har-har, isn’t that funny?!) and the reason he was in the tower is because when he was a little child his father abandoned him, then his mom died and some people abused him and he ran away and was homeless forever. Wow, that’s a really great story for a comedy. Nothing funnier than life-destroying child abuse.

Okay pacing, weak story, zero nudity, zero gore, one joke that was later used in ZOOLANDER (the "center for ants" bit), a drink called "TEAM (Decaf)" (I have no idea what that is, some sort of coffee I guess), the dudes hump is never explained and barely even mentioned, no cursing, disappointing ending, a cop car arriving twice. Another thing that bothered me about this film was how boring the college setting was. Usually when a movie is filmed on a college campus you get to see some interesting fashions and people (or maybe even a dude with a clapperboard!), but in BIG MAN ON CAMPUS it was really bland. Even the mall scene was weak.

I’m sure there are tens of billions of thousands of people out there who love this movie, I just found the entire thing to be lifeless and dull. Also, Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga's voice was really annoying. Watch it if you want.

[This has nothing to do with the review, but this story was told again in the blu-ray extras. Like, the whole story is confusing because how much did this movie cost? And did it even make money? Why would somebody turn down a million dollars (in 1980's money) to not do something?]