Main cast: Josh Lucas (Paul Sturges), Fernanda Urrejola (Ines Sturges), Venus Ariel (Audrey Sturges), Carlos Solórzano (Tommy Sturges), Julio Cesar Cedillo (Chato), Jorge A Jimenez (Junior), Raúl Méndez (El Rey), Héctor Jiménez (Chocolatito), Edgar Flores (Crazy Eyes), and Omar Chaparro (Sidekick)
Director: Adrian Grunberg

Picture this: the waters off Baja is the playground of El Demonio Negro—The Black Demon—a megalodon of about 60 ft or so.

Naturally, American oil company inspector Paul Sturges just have to encounter this over-sized bag of teeth when he arrives at Baja to check on an oil rig. Even better, he decides to bring his wife and kids along with him for a vacation.

Now they all stuck at the oil rig with the workers Chato and Junior, while the shark prowls the waters around them. Oops, trapped. Well, serves these people right for abusing the travel allowances of his company for a free holiday.

Psych! Okay, the above does happen here, but the megalodon is actually barely in the movie when one compares the amount of screen time it has to the total length of the movie.

The early parts of the movie are about a family of stereotypes—bratty rebellious teen daughter, inquisitive son that has fingers itchier than they should be, clueless American tourist dad, and the mom being the only halfway-sane one of the bunch—running around in a neighborhood where the locals do their best to appear unnecessarily shady and surly.

There are no boats, no hotels, no signs that the small coastal town is like a, well, normal place, but Paul happily leaves his family alone to do his thing.

When the whole oil rig drama starts, the shark’s appearance is minimal. This is likely because the people behind this movie blew their budget hiring hot American superstar Josh Lucas to headline this thing. What? I’m sure they are banking on the audience being all groggy from boredom or alcohol that these poor sods mistake their leading man for Chris Hemsworth or something.

Instead, the morons on the oil rig run around, bickering about how the whole oil industry is somehow responsible for the existence of monster sharks and hence is bad, bad, bad. When they should be wondering how to get out of there alive, Inez instead starts screaming at Paul about how he could be in such a despicable industry that has “ruined the lives” of billions of people everywhere.

And then they all go back to freedom in a boat. I’ll leave everyone one guess as to how the boat is powered. I also imagine that they would then return home on something powered by petroleum or diesel. Yes, this movie is really making a convincing case that oil is really bad, people, how dare we all continue to live our lives in a way that continues to propagate the oil industry.

Tell me about it when movies are made without involving a single vehicle or device that is run on oil and gas.

Until then, these people can shut their pie holes and focus on making entertaining movies, instead of making propaganda movies in the dumbest ways possible and then slapping a big shark thing on the poster to fool people into watching it. Like Saint Greta would say as she wags her finger down at mere mortals from her private jet: “How dare you!”