In my first post on shark horror, I wrote about “naturalistic horror,” which puts us firmly in the terrain of the shark, in a world relatively indifferent to humans (except as food), in which the good guys don’t necessarily come out on top (or even alive), and death is random. In this post I want to write about something very different, what we might call “humanist horror.” In this variant, sharks come into our terrain, events (including death) seem governed by human rules (a few unsavory jerks or insignificant extras are eaten), and the good guys come out on top. These films tend to be horror-comedy—and really not that scary.
The hallmark of these films is that they eschew the existential dread invoked by sending humans out into the ocean—into the shark’s world. Instead, they bring the shark to where we live.
