Sharkenstein, Move Over Jaws...and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's almost-classic, Frankenstein, has a flaw or two, at least according to most literary critics. Jean de Richeleau, the great Parisian book critic says it best, "For Frankenstein to have claimed the moniker of 'classic,' an aquatic element needed to be inserted to give Shelley's far-fetched hallucination, an air of inevitability" (Traite de Litterature, 1955). The Polonia brothers obviously agree and instead of sniping at the novel's flaws, they did something about it...hence 2016's "Sharkenstein."

Hitler's Third Reich...an ambitious bunch of lunatics. The Fuhrer sends the SS over to a mad-scientists lab to steal his experiments on implanting human brains in sharks. The war is lost and present day finds Nazi mad-scientist Klaus (Jeff Kirkendall) eager to pick up those experiments. He has created a hybrid great white, mako, hammerhead, and blue shark. He controls the monstrosity by electrodes put into its brain. The thing starts feeding on swimmers and boaters. As tourists begin disappearing in mass, Beach Patrol Officer Duke (Ken Van Sant) is on the case. Enter three tourists, two almost hunks, Coop (Titus Himmelberger), Skip (James Carolus), and babe Madge (Greta Volkova)...they intend to charter a boat and go for a little three-hour cruise.

Klaus gets ambitious and orders his creation to continue feeding on boaters and beach-goers. Uh oh, our tourist trio abandon their broken down boat and swim to a seemingly uninhabited island. Yep, you guessed it, Klaus' laboratory is on this island. As Klaus readies to put the brain and heart of the Frankenstein monster into his created shark, our beset trio can only watch helplessly as they are now the prisoners of an insaniac looking to bring back The Third Reich.

Will Harbor Patrol Officer Duke figure out what is befalling the boaters and swimmers in time to mount a rescue of  Madge, Coop, and Skip?  Does Klaus have Hitler's brain saved anywhere and does he intend to transplant that into a shark? If Hitler would have devoted more funds and energy into the shark/brain transplant experiments than he did to his rocket program...would we all be speaking German right now? Gritty realism pulled right out of today's headlines is a Polonia brothers staple, and that is certainly the case in "Sharkenstein." Avoid the junk mechanical shark in "Jaws," and avoid the pitfalls of Shelley's almost-classic, and enjoy a real masterpiece..."Sharkenstein."