Ouija Shark 2 (2022) Review
I’m not sure who wanted a sequel to Brett Piper’s Ouija Shark, but we have one. Originally shot under the much more eye-catching title of Ouija Shark VS. Tarot Gator, Ouija Shark 2 opens with writer/director John Migliore (Creature from Cannibal Creek, Poltergeist Encounters) reprising his role as Jill’s (Steph Goodwin) father to recap the events of the first film.
Once everyone is caught up we join Jill’s mother, and Anthony’s ex-wife Cressida, (Deborah Jayne Reilly Smith, Exorcism of the Dead, Late Night Double Feature) as she visits Illyana (Kylie Gough, Ouija Shark) the medium in whose studio Anthony died to try and contact him. He’s a bit busy at the moment though, trapped in Hell and fighting off evil gorillas in his quest to destroy the shark and its master Caldura (Simon Wheeldon, Konga TNT, The Friday Night Death Slot).
That leaves Cressida with no choice but to consult a necromancer. And coincidentally enough, Illyana’s estranged mother Terra (Lena Montecalvo, Frightvision, Gingerbread) happens to be one.
Migliore, who co-wrote the original film, was totally in charge here and almost immediately cranks up the ridiculousness to eleven. Death (Jay MacAulay, Autumn, Creature from Cannibal Creek) turns up to offer Anthony some advice and Caldura gets a musical number surrounded by women in bikinis. And all of that is before the ladies manage to rescue Anthony from eternal damnation, unfortunately leaving a way for Caldura and the Ouija Shark to follow him back to our world.
Perhaps most notably instead of using CGI this time around Ouija Shark is played by a stuffed toy filmed against cheaply animated backgrounds. And when Tarot Gator finally shows up in the film’s closing minutes we get a kaiju battle that looks like a pair of three-year-olds making their stuffies fight. The results were silly enough to make me laugh.
But if the monsters don’t meet until the very end of the film, what do you get for the rest of Ouija Shark 2’s running time? There are some scenes of destruction courtesy of the shark complete with cuts to obvious stock footage of disasters and extras, shot from the knees down, running around in front of a black background. Best of all is the guy in his window eating popcorn and commenting on the destruction.
Most of the plot though is an off-kilter story about family and connections as the estranged couple struggle to come together with each other. Jill, played by Sabrina Migliore this time, has a brief appearance that lets us know she’s not among the living either letting a surrogate parent/daughter relationship build between them and Illyana. Thankfully that’s done with more sarcasm than sentimentality.
While it’s hardly a film you could call plot-driven, Migliore’s script does give Ouija Shark 2 a bit more depth than the usual look at this bad effect, now check out this stupid joke, approach of many of these films. And that may be why I enjoyed it more than I usually enjoy films like this because there was something to it beyond the same self-referential mockery many films like Cocaine Shark and Toxic Shark deliver.
While it’s still probably not going to appeal to mainstream audiences, it should draw laughs from a wider range of viewers than the original or others like it. The increased creativity and increased target for jokes that result from it mean it’s a lot less repetitive and tedious than what we’ve come to expect from these kinds of films. I’d still recommend having some beer and/or edibles handy, but if you’re looking for something to turn your mind off and laugh at you might want to give Ouija Shark 2 a shot.
Wild Eye Releasing will unleash Ouija Shark 2 on Digital Platforms on July 25th. If you want more films like this, FilmTagger can probably summon forth a few titles.