In 2025’s Lone Star Shark, a married couple (played by Olivia Clari Nice and Michael Tibbets) drive out to a secluded Texas lake so that they can spend the day relaxing on the water and maybe doing some fishing. What they don’t know is that a group of hunters and gamblers have arranged for a shark to end up in the lake. Soon, the husband and the wife find themselves stranded in a small boat in the middle of the lake with a hungry shark keeping an eye on them.
This wasn’t a bad idea for a film. Yes, the idea of unleashing a shark in a lake is a bit ridiculous, but this is a short, low-budget movie and it has every right to ask us to suspend our disbelief for 65 minutes. Olivia Clari Nice actually gives a pretty good performance, and the idea that people all over the world were watching her struggling to survive was both creepy and disturbingly plausible. I also liked that the film was actually shot on location in Texas. I always appreciate when I can watch a movie and say, “Hey, I’ve been there!”
Unfortunately, the lake itself looked pretty small. A good deal of the film’s suspense is meant to come from the idea that the married couple is stranded in the middle of a lake and they can’t swim to shore because there’s a shark following them. But the lake itself was so small that it looked like they could have just jumped from the boat to the shore without even having to get wet. If they did get in the water, they would probably only have to take two steps before being back on dry land. In fact, I would debate whether or not they were even in a lake. It looked more like a pond.
Apparently, there are a few sequels to Lone Star Shark. I look forward to watching them this October! I just hope they found a better lake.
