Shark Zone

(4.08) - Danger Zone (1996)
(3.58) - Operation Delta Force (1997)
(3.23) - Merchant of Death (1997)
(3.23) - Out for a Kill (2003)
(3.17) - Orion's Key (1996)
(3.13) - Operation Delta Force II: Mayday (1998) (TV)
(3.01) - Operation Delta Force 3: Clear Target (1998)
(2.83) - Octopus 2: River of Fear (2001)
(2.20) - U.S. Seals (1999)

He also directed a film which he didn't write:

(2.30) - Traitor's Heart (1999)

Based on the IMDb Bottom 100, US Seals is rated the same as the 13th worst movie of all time, Traitor's Heart 19th worst. The 100th worst movie of all time, Arthur 2, is rated 3.6 - better than 9 of the 10 films listed above.

So keep your expectations low, m'lads.

This film involves underwater treasure being guarded by a school of great white sharks, and some Russian mob guys who really want that treasure. I suppose that a shark film is not a bad career choice if nine of your ten movies qualify to be among the worst 100 of all time, and you are planning to film an English language movie with only four English-speaking actors. You don't have to write any dialogue for underwater scenes, and you can get the actual shark attack on film simply by taping shark footage off The Discovery Channel. (Or in the case of this movie, you can tape whale footage and pretend it's a shark.) Stock footage works fine because everyone looks alike and sounds alike underwater.

Here are four examples of the very convincing special effects. (L) A shark breaks through the hull of a ship and chows down on a woman. Note that no water enters the ship as part of this process. The shark itself also seems rather dry. Maybe it's a land shark? "Candygram". (LC) Worst miniatures ever. (RC) Worst CGI montage ever. The shark in the pool is partially transparent. (R) The shark's body double is obviously an Orca, not a shark.

DVD info from Amazon

no widescreen
no features
but it does look pretty good!

Ah, the joys of low budget filmmaking. Part or most of Shark Zone was filmed in Bulgaria. I suppose when they were there they had a shortage of actors who could portray Americans, and I'm guessing that one of the guys who was supposed to show up did not, because an American actor named Alan Austin plays two of the major roles in this film. No, they aren't brothers or identical cousins or anything like that. The characters aren't supposed to look alike. They just do. There are only five characters in the movie who can speak English without a heavy accent, and Mr Austin is two of the five! I guess he's making up for lost time by doing two roles per movie now, because IMDb says he didn't work at all from 1987-1999.

The Critics Vote

no reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. No score yet, but you can expect it to be in the 3s.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a D, or maybe an E. Not worth watching. The photography is remarkably vivid and colorful, however, despite the poor special effects, and the Bulgarian coastline looks great. Looks like the San Francisco area.