Ghost Shark is a Syfy Channel Original Movie released on August 22, 2013 starring Richard Moll. The director, Griff Furst, previously directed Swamp Shark for Syfy. Coincidentally, the film was released a month after Syfy's Sharknado
In the film, a great white shark is tortured and killed by fishermen, and its remains coincidentally fall on a cave once used as a sacred burial ground. This allows it to return as a ghost who can attack anywhere near water, no matter how little (even a bucket.) A group of teens from a near town learn about the creature and try to warn the people but are, predictably, ignored. They then decide to stop the attacks themselves.
The film includes the following tropes:
- Black Dude Dies First: subverted as Cameron is the third victim of the protagonist group
- Death of a Child: Three kids are killed during two ghost shark occurrences.
- Disproportionate Retribution:the sport fisherman and his daughter sadistically tortures and kills the shark,just because it ate their catch
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: There's a shark, and it's a g-g-g-g-ghost!
- Expy The animatronic shark in the film is a dead ringer for the animatronic shark in Jaws
- Fanservice Car Wash: The carwash scene. It features several young, attractive women in barely-there bikinis. This gets blended with
Nightmare Fuel when the ghost shark starts gobbling them up and we see one girl thrashing her legs as she gets yanked into a bucket of water and devoured. - The Farmer and the Viper: The guide actually tries to stop the fishers from killing the shark, yet he is not spared when the shark comes back as a ghost and kills the fishers.
- Fold-Spindle Mutilation: The mayor gets hauled into the toilet butt-first.
- Ghostly Animals: It's about a shark's ghost haunting a nearby town to where it died and was laid to rest. The shark is able to manifest in any source of water, no matter how small (including things like a bucket and a slip and slide).
- Hazardous Water: Any amount of water is sufficient to allow the ghost shark to manifest, even a Slip n' Slide.
- Idiot Ball: The mayor and police try to lure the shark in with chum, even though it's a ghost and ghosts do not need food.
- Mauve Shirt: In Mick's small amount of scenes he proves that he can't swim very fast nor can he climb out of a pool or onto a boat by himself. No need to mention he's the fattest character in the group of protagonists in a movie about a vengeful and hungry ghost shark however, he is actually the second victim of the protagonist group; Taylor is the first.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Obviously, a shark that is also a ghost.
- Police Are Useless: Naturally the police don't believe the story of a ghost shark but the trope is subverted in the third act both the mayor and the chief of police actually try to kill the shark after it kills Cameron but are both quickly killed in the process as neither of them are near the sharks corpse and are both on a boat surrounded by water despite both seeing first hand that the shark doesn't need to be in the ocean to kill people
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The shark was killed by humans and so wants to kill as many humans as possible to avenge its own death.
- Threatening Shark: A ghost shark that wants to avenge its death by killing as many humans as possible.
- Too Dumb to Live: The mayor and chief of police try to kill the shark with guns, even though it's obviously a ghost. Needless to say, the bullets just go right through it and it easily kills them.
