I recently watched several shark B movies that had the same amount of kills, gore, and explosions. I asked myself why did I enjoy one more than the other? I did enjoy all of them and to keep anyone from jumping on me thinking I didn’t like one of them the titles are being withheld to protect the writers, directors and producers.
The difference between the movies was simple and there’s no need to change the monster, gore, eye candy, explosions, or any special effects. Have a more solid story and make the characters realistic and likeable. One or all of the main characters can be clueless or arrogant, but they need to be likeable.
In the films I thought worked better the characters story was first then the shark/creature second. That way I got into the characters minds and wanted them to achieve their goal versus hoping the creature will destroy the most annoying person. Which don’t get me wrong is one my favorite things about B movies.
Make the movie believable. Yeah I know it’s a B movie, but in the real world don’t we see people come together in times of disasters and fight together? Let everyone put their strengths and minds together to beat the monster and not rely on a party guy to just happen to have napalm in his basement or the hot girl has a MacGyver father and can assemble a nuclear bomb with household items.
People naturally remember more negatives than positives. After my friends would rip on a movie, I’ll bring up the moments I liked a lot and were creative to remind them of the good material and occasionally they’ll change their opinion from crappy to so-so. There are plenty of B movies out there that are very successful and if you watch them again you will notice that you liked the characters and there was a story to pay attention to besides the creature, monster, antagonist, etc.
Lastly I have to reiterate that I will enjoy a film no matter what and my thoughts above are for the typical non B movie fan. Us B movie fans and filmmakers enjoy our creatures, raunchy comedy, and horror regardless but they may not. This is just my opinion and we’d love to hear your thoughts.
