Cavalcade of Awesome

This week begins Discovery Channel’s 25th anniversary celebration of Shark Week. Shark Week has become an institution unto itself. I love it and I try to watch as much of it as I can every year. So, to help celebrate the 25th Anniversary, I decided to take a look at movies featuring sharks. More specifically, movie posters featuring sharks.

There are lots of ridiculously bad ass posters out there for shark movies. Some of the movies may even be complete ass, but the posters are awesome. So, let’s take a look at 10 of the most awesome.

I normally don’t do these lists in any order, but I’m going to put these posters in chronological order for you.

Let’s “dive” in.

The Sharkfighters (1956) – Man against Tiger Shark with just a knife and his wits.  What a great poster.  The title evokes images of men in actual fist fights with sharks.  Like street boxing matches.

She Gods of Shark Reef (1958) – Directed by the great Roger Corman.  Don’t get me wrong, because I love the sh*t out of this movie’s title, but I don’t think the title nor the blurb has anything to do with the actual story.  The movie makes no mention of “HIDEOUS STONE GODS”.

Jaws (1975) – Still one of the greatest.  I love this poster.

Sharks’ Treasure (1975) – This one has two great posters! I love how they make the “sharks” in the title possessive, as if the treasure belongs to ALL sharks.  And that first poster, the frogman is fighting that shark WITH A KNIFE.  Awesome.  The second poster actually put lips on the shark.  LIPS.  That’s weird.

Tintorera…Killer Shark (1977) – aka Tiger Shark.  Look at that shark monster in this poster.  It looks more like a dinosaur than a shark.  A Dino-shark, if you will.  I really like the lower vantage point of this poster.

Up from the Depths (1979) – This is about a prehistoric “shark” that is released from the ocean floor by earthquakes.  I put shark in quotes because it’s specifically stated that it’s a shark.  I guess it could be a dolphin?  Whatever.  The title brings to mind the theme song from the 80s Godzilla cartoon.

Great White (1981) – aka The Last Shark.  Next to Jaws, this may be the best poster in the list.  If you watch the trailer, it seems the shark uses explosives to blow people out of the water.

Night of the Sharks (1988) – Starring Treat Williams and a bunch of sharks.  Sounds to me like a formula for printing your own money.  However, watching the trailer, the sharks look like they are barely in the movie.

Sharks in Venice (2008) – Starring Stephen Baldwin.  Watching the trailer it’s like the sharks were an afterthought.  The execs looked at the finished movie and said, “Hey, what would make this horrible action movie starring Stephen Baldwin better?  Oh, I know, SHARKS.”  And now we have this movie.

Super Shark (2011) – Starring John Schneider and Jimmy Walker. I don’t normally like these CGI-crapfest posters, but the idea of a giant murderous shark jumping OUT of the goddam ocean to attack a tank is pretty spectacular.  Watch the trailer and wait for scenes from the mind blowing final battle between SuperShark and the tank that walks.  Yes, the tank WALKS.

2-Headed Shark Attack (2012) – Again, another CGI poster crapped out by a media company’s computers.  However, this image is pretty awesome. It actually looks like the 2 heads of the shark are pissed at each other.  Check out their eyes.  Instead of focusing on eating the skiers they are giving each other the “stink eye”.

This entry was posted on August 13, 2012 at 9:00 am and is filed under movies, pop culture with tags movie posters, movies, pop culture, sharks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.