The consistent utterance of Dominique Swain’s character to herself of “Crap on a Cracker,” just about sums up Jim Wynorski’s latest turkey that mixes “Con Air” and “Tremor.” No doubt tailor made for airing on late night cable television, “Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre” is a goofy PG-13 crime thriller with a bunch of land roving sharks that apparently make their victims explode upon contact. This is the kind of movie cable television dreams of. It stars a host of gorgeous women, many of who scamper around in conveniently handy bikinis, and whose prison garb are short shorts and clinging tank tops. They also never actually have sex or drop F bombs.
Set in Arkansas, a small chain gang (tasked with removing stumps from the woods—apparently) run by two officers, and hosting five really busty and hot prisoners, find themselves in the middle of hostage situation when the lesbian lover of one of the prisoners holds the officers hostage and attempts to break her out. Along for the ride is the group of prisoners, all of whom either want to play along to escape, while others resist, and want to serve their sentences quietly. Christine Nguyen is the Nic Cage of the group who wants to serve her sentence to get home to her son, and feuds with Honey, the leader of the escape, who is anxious to flee the authorities.
Things are made difficult though when a fracking operation unleashes a slew of land bound sharks that swim in an underground ocean located underneath the thin layer or land. Despite only having guns in tow, the women are able to find a house in the woods with a hot tub, fitting bikinis, and even an armory oddly hidden in an air vent, for some reason. I guess since Wynorksi has to push the movie forward as much as possible, a lot of convenience pop up with the characters still basically unable to survive this siege of land sharks. The group is ultimately forced to work beside each other to make it in to an underground cave and on to the highway. From there, there’s your usual run and gun nonsense, along with a lot of clumsy dialogue and forced sub-plots that go nowhere.
Most of the performances range from over the top to inadvertently comical, including Dominique Swain who grunts and growls every line of dialogue and spouts out catchphrases like her life depends on it. There’s also a sub-plot with Traci Lords as a cop investigating the disappearance with her partner. They serve zero purpose to the overall arc, save for some odd moments including Lords’ character stopping to admire a vintage coke bottle she finds in the swamp. Despite the narrative making little to no sense, “Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre” has value mainly because it’s a short and sweet piece of trash with endless eye candy.
The Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory features an audio commentary from director Jim Wynorski and actresses Cindy Lucas, and Amy Holt, all of whom humorously recall working on the film. There’s also a photo gallery, and the original trailer for the film.