Shark Night

Shark Night is a 2011 3D action thriller from the director of Snakes on a Plane and released by Relativity Media and Rogue Pictures.

The story revolves around seven male and female college friends from Tulane University who spend a weekend at a lake house in Louisiana’s Gulf area. When their vacation quickly becomes a nightmare of shark attacks, they soon discover that the sharks are part of a sick, greedy plan on the part of several locals.

The animatronic shark effects were created by the same team who previously provided the animatronic shark effects in Deep Blue Sea.

Could also be titled Sharks in a Lake.

A similar film, titled Bait 3D was released a year later.

Tropes used in Shark Night include:

• 3D Movie
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted- Malik is the first one to get attacked by the sharks (losing an arm in the process), but he outlives about half the cast,
• Casanova Wannabe: Blake. The guy thinks applying spray-on tan everywhere, even his genitals, makes him attractive.
• Conspicuous CG: Whoooooooooooo boy.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: How much money and resources did it take to catch, transport and maintain multiple large, dangerous, exotic animals of various geographic locations? Much less the cameras and computers they were using.
• The Danza: Sara Paxton as Sara Houski.
• Deep South: All of the villains are highly stereotypical rednecks.
  • The Savage South
• Disproportionate Retribution: Sabin's reason for assisting with the scheme is that he's tired of being looked down upon by "rich kids". Which makes no sense because they never really belittled him over the course of the film.
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: The whole plot of the movie.
• Final Girl: Sara.
• Follow the Leader: Following the path of Piranha 3D and possibly hoping to get that film's critical acclaim in the process. It didn't work.
• Hair of Gold: Sara.
• Handicapped Badass: Even with only one arm, Malik still manages to beat the shit out of, and kill, a hammerhead shark.
• Hoist by His Own Petard / Karmic Death: Two of the villains are eaten by the sharks.
• Hollywood Nerd: The beginning of the film shows Nick to be wearing glasses and studying for his finals while his friends are playing Halo. He has extremely awkward social behavior with Sara, acting like he's never talked to a girl before in his life. He also has a toned body, can dive like an Olympic swimmer, and battles a Great White Shark.
• If It Bleeds, It Leads: One of the villains invokes the popularity of Shark Week as proof that people want to see violence, which he's more than happy to provide.
• Lighter and Softer: This was obviously intended to be a teen-friendly alternative to the R-rated Piranha 3D.
• Not Screened for Critics
• Obviously Evil: The rednecks. You can practically hear "Dueling Banjos" every time they're on screen.
• Product Placement: The film was cross-promoted with the Discovery Channel's Shark Week.
• Shout-Out: Of course, there's several to Jaws.
  • The opening kill is a Shout-Out to the opening kill in the first Jaws.
  • A shark is able to keep up with a speedboat, like the second Jaws.
  • A great white shark tears apart a shark cage like the original Jaws.
• The Stinger: As soon as the end credits are over we are treated to a rap music video performed by the cast and the crew.
• Scary Black Man: Malik puts on this image in order to scare Nick in the opening scene.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Malik, who's dying of blood loss, uses his body as a distraction so Blake can escape, only for a different shark to get him.
• Shark Mash - The film features not just one species of shark, but seven species
• Step Three: Profit: The bad guys have shot 46 of those snuff vids, (and counting) but apparently haven't actually sold any of them, yet.
• Stock Footage: The opening and closing credits feature stock footage of several species of sharks and one blink-and-you'll-miss it scene from Deep Blue Sea (specifically where the shark eats the parrot).
  • One clip is a rather famous shot of world renowned shark expert Valerie Taylor testing out shark proof chain mail with blue sharks. Valerie and Ron Taylor shot all of the live shark footage for Jaws.
• Snuff Film: The main villains are making these by feeding people to sharks with Frickin' Video Cameras strapped to them.
  • Who would pay for that when you can get it for free on Discovery Channel for a whole week every year?
• Vasquez Always Dies: Somewhat inverted- Tattoo-sporting rebel girl Beth gets reduced to a quivering ball of girlie fear after the first few attacks. She gets some of her own back by stabbing Red though, then she literally gets used for shark bait.
• What Could Have Been: In a similar manner to Snakes on a Plane, director David R. Ellis wanted to title the film Untitled 3D Shark Thriller.