A shark movie with no tension or thrills is like a Jim Wynorski flick with no nudity. Unfortunately, Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre is both. Yet another Sharknado-style exercise in trying tedium, Sharkansas offers nothing of value beyond the title, which is admittedly amusing while also pushing it. Mind you, I’m open to Wynorski’s work; the problem is his heyday of The Lost Empire, The Return of the Swamp Thing and Transylvania Twist is long, long gone.
Because of fracking, underwater walls have burst open, loosing prehistoric sharks into the Natural State’s lakes and swamps. Being cooped up for presumably millions or thousands of years (pick whichever better adheres to your religious worldview), the spiky and finned creatures are starved, and humans do the body good. Investigating the resulting beheadings and such is a detective played by Traci Lords (whose role in 1988’s Not of This Earth remake for Wynorski and producer Roger Corman began her transition from porn to the mainstream). She mostly shouts.
Meanwhile, a few bouncing, busty, pneumatic lady prisoners are unlocked from their cells for a day of hard labor outdoors and near water. Essaying the parts of this belly-chain gang’s members are Instagram model Skye McDonald, Dinocroc vs. Supergator’s Amy Rasimas Holt, Piranhaconda’s Cindy Lucas and, as the subject of many an Asian slur doubling as derisive nickname, Bikini Frankenstein’s Christine Nguyen. The front-and-center star is the poor man’s Lolita, Dominique Swain, as the vinegar-dispositioned Honey. At one point, the girls find time to hot-tub (a Wynorski staple) and one of them makes a batch of peaches and chili beans for their dinner. Apparently, that ungodly culinary mix is a real thing, which appalls me far more than the movie could dream of engaging me. As these things go, the CGI sharks look more realistic than Lucas’ breasts.
Sharkansas is not funny, although it thinks that it is; a guy asks one of the women, “What do you do when you’re not fleeing prehistoric ass?,” and she answers, “Five to 10.” All that’s missing from that punch line is the squeezing of a rubber bulb horn for waka-waka-hey emphasis. Speaking of punctuation, the last line uttered in Sharkansas is also its most uttered: “Crap on a cracker!” (Cracker not included.) —Rod Lott