New “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2” Images Tease Crazier, Bigger Sequel
Attention, all shark-attack-flick enthusiasts! One such flick, by the name of “Hot Spring Shark Attack!”, is getting its first sequel. You may be thinking: “I’ve never even heard of this movie before. How is it that a movie that I can’t even find on Wikipedia is about to turn into a franchise?” Well, as it so happens, the answer to this question is that the future of geothermal shark-attack horror may lie in your hands.
“Hot Spring Shark Attack!” – Low-Budget Japanese Shark Mayhem, Brought to America by Utopia
“Hot Spring Shark Attack!” (in its native language: “Onsen shâku”) is a horror comedy directed by Morihito Inoue (in his debut) and set in and around onsen: the natural hot tubs that serve as the main attraction of many Japanese resort towns. It’d be hard to imagine a more blissful setting for a horror movie, but rest assured that the guests’ relaxation is soon shattered by the revelation that Japan’s famous macaques are not the only creatures with which they must share the hot springs. This film premiered in Japan at the 2024 Tokyo International Shark Film Festival (where it won the Audience Prize), and in America at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.
“Hot Spring Shark Attack!” was distributed in North America by Utopia, a company that has been attached to a lot of interesting titles over the past five years. Such titles include the Vegas-based documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” (2020), the absurdist comedy “El Planeta” (2021), the horror film “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (2022), and, of all things, Francis Ford Coppola’s most recent epic “Megalopolis” (2024). Clearly, this agency has no wish to be confined to one echelon of cinema.
Just When You Thought You’d Be Safe If You Stayed out of the Onsen…
While it may have flown under the mainstream radar, “Hot Spring Shark Attack!” was enough of a success to make a sequel a welcome proposition. Moreover, this follow-up, titled “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2: The Great Kyushu Showdown,” will take the typical sequel approach of bigger equals better. Now, the shark-based peril will take place against the backdrop of the entire southern island of Kyushu, and not merely an onsen resort.
The teaser for “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2,” which dropped on December 6, likewise promises a film of great bombast: “Godzilla” by way of “Sharknado.” Epic music provides a pulse-pounding score to accompany shots of various faces (mostly human, save for one little dog) looking quizzical, frightened, or both, and a grizzled, eyepatch-wearing fighter brandishing a katana with a fearsome expression.
Lest anyone should have any uncertainty as to what has inspired such fear, perplexity, and defensive action, we then see the enormous fin of a shark as the monstrous fish plows its way through a town. We see a shoal of such predators swimming through sand (don’t ask) towards the latter-day samurai, who boldly stands his ground and swings his blade as they start leaping into the air. The teaser concludes with a tremendous explosion, because apparently, the sight of giant land sharks besieging a town just isn’t spectacular enough on its own.
A Sequel That Needs Some Financial Help
Like its predecessor, “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2” is being made via a crowdfunding campaign. The first film managed to accumulate 11.4 million yen; on Kickstarter, producer Masayuki Nagata explains that the number of financial supporters was uniquely integral to the finished film: “We turned to the common complaint of shark films – ‘the sharks take forever to appear’ – into a fun idea… for every new supporter who signed up, we added an additional shark to the film. The final cut ended up with an astonishing 432 shark [sic]”.
Since it was launched in February of this year, the campaign for “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2” has raised a very gratifying budget in excess of 30 million yen, well over twice that of the first movie. The film was shot between June and September, and is currently in post-production ahead of a Japanese release date in the summer of next year. Nonetheless, Nagata says, “additional funding is needed to bring it to perfection. We kindly ask for your support to deliver ‘HotSpring SharkAttack 2’ to audiences around the world in the best possible form.”
Conclusion
Do your horror-comedy tastes run to spectacles of “Sharknado”-esque absurdity, in which selachimorph abominations of CGI and plaster (judging from the teaser, the practical effects are as laughable as the computer-generated ones) wreak explosive terrestrial havoc without being the least bit constrained by their marine physiology? If so, and if you have some cash to spare, then “Hot Spring Shark Attack 2: The Great Kyushu Showdown” may be just the film you’ve been looking for – and vice versa.
