Review of 12 Days of Terror

12 Days of Terror is a made-for-TV dramatic account of the 1916 Jersey Beach and Matawan Creek shark attacks that inspired both the novel and the movie Jaws. And that's what this basically is. The movie doesn't even try to hide that it's basically Jaws except being told through real historical events. People defend this movie by saying that because the events told here inspired Jaws, it shouldn't be criticized in this manner. But I'll say this (and this seems to be something I end up saying a lot now): write a script that doesn't make it seem so much like Jaws. I know it's possible. In the middle of the movie, we have a predictable romantic subplot with a nice guy who is too afraid to show his feelings for a pretty girl he once knew who is marrying this other guy who has a good standing in business and has a lot of money, blah blah blah. You gotta wonder, are these kind of movie girls really that heartless? The guy she's marrying isn't even a nice person, so you gotta wonder what she sees in him, other than being part of a business and having a lot of money. The nice guy, who is a lifeguard by the way, looks too good to be a 1916 type and I'm happy to find out I'm not the only one who thought the makers of this film tried to get someone who looks like Tom Cruise. The film repeats a lot of the plot elements from Jaws and you can tell which characters are copies of the ones from Jaws. A positive note is that the production design of the movie really makes it look like it is set in 1916. The shark looks o.k. too, when it's not a lame CG creature swimming in a river. A horrific chore and an insult to the film that inspired this. Will you shark movie filmmakers stop trying to remake Jaws? It's getting tiresome.