Coming to Shudder: Great White

Great White is shedding its VOD-only platform for Shudder subscribers this month. If you love Jaws, good news: Great White gives itself a reverent sheen of homage to Spielberg’s jaunt in its opening. But here’s the bad news: while it’s clear that this comes solely from a place of love for the film and the shark-centric animal attack corner of horror, it sinks pretty quick. It does know when to move away from homage to tell its own story, but it doesn’t have very much of one at all to tell which is the most disappointing thing about it.

The film follows a couple who run a seaplane tour in Australia, and upon getting a booking out of the blue from a wealthy couple scramble to make it their best tour yet. But once they fly out to a hidden beach to soak up the scenery, they find evidence of a predator that will not stop until they are hunted.

Couple dynamics are one of the things at the forefront here as well as a constantly teetering level of trust in one another, but the film can’t give us anything to care about surrounding Kaz (Katrina Bowden) and Charlie’s (Aaron Jakubenko) relationship together. The couple on the tour, Michelle (Kimie Tsukakoshi) and Joji (Tim Kano) are far more compelling. But their characters getting in relatively meaningful moments are too drenched in the film’s sense of pomp and, despite being easily more interesting than our main characters, are unfortunately forgotten in shockingly quick fashion. Great White is at its heart a simple shark story and it never fails to deliver on that. If there was ever intent for the audience to invest in its human characters it fails pretty miserably there.

Great White premieres on AMC’s Shudder network Thursday, November 11, 2021.

More details for the film can be found in the original press release below:

“GREAT WHITE” TO PREMIERE EXCLUSIVELY ON SHUDDER ON NOVEMBER 11, 2021

NEW YORK — October 18, 2021 — Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced that GREAT WHITE will be available exclusively to stream on the platform starting on Thursday, November 11, 2021. As a Shudder exclusive, the platform will be the only subscription service that will carry the film in the U.S. and Canada.

GREAT WHITE stars Katrina Bowden (Piranha 3DD, “30 Rock”), Aaron Jakubenko (“Tidelands”), Kimie Tsukakoshi (Riptide), Tim Kano (“Neighbours”), and Te Kohe Tuhaka (Love and Monsters, “The Dead Lands”). Written by Michael Boughen (Dying Breed), the film was featured directorial debut of Martin Wilson.

In GREAT WHITE, a blissful tourist trip turns into a nightmare when five seaplane passengers are stranded miles from shore. In a desperate bid for survival, the group try to make it to land before they either run out of supplies or are taken by a menacing terror lurking just beneath the surface.

 [this article was originally published on november 10, 2021 on celluloidconsomme.medium.com.]