A French Shark Thriller Has Been Swimming Along Netflix's Top Charts
Earlier this month, horror master Stephen King took to Twitter (or X, as weirdos call it) to proclaim, "I thought UNDER PARIS would be a jokey movie, like SHARKNADO, but Twitter convinced me to give it a watch, and it's really quite good. The last 25 minutes were amazing."
"Under Paris" (which I recently recommended in my monthly streaming horror column) is Netflix's new French shark movie in which a shark suddenly appears in the Seine and starts making fish food of tasty humans. All of it is played pretty straight, but there's definitely a sense of humor to the material, and that was intentional, according to director Xavier Gens.
"The whole idea was to take what we observe in French society and from politicians and caricature some of it," Gens told Variety. "We mocked all of it, and in some cases didn't need to caricature that much. We really had fun inventing an alternate reality where we highlight human stupidity and show everyone making the wrong decisions!" Gens' mocking-but-serious shark attack movie seems to be going over well. The film currently ranks among Netflix's top 10 movies in the U.S., and according to the site FlixPatrol, it's burning up the Netflix charts in other countries as well. People want that shark action!
Under Paris is a Netflix hit
In "Under Paris," "After a dangerous shark nicknamed Lilith kills all of Sophia's research colleagues, the scientist (Bejo) gives up studying climate-related shark mutations. But five years later, an environmental activist named Mika discovers a massive shark lurking in the Seine just days before the World Triathlon Championships are hosted in Paris — and it's the same one Sophia was tracking. So the scientist warily dives back into her work in order to thwart catastrophe. Now it's up to Sophia, Mika, and reluctant police officer Adil to prevent a bloodbath before it's too late."
Right about now you might be asking, "Could a shark really show up in the Seine?" Honestly, I don't know. I also don't care. The movie does a pretty good job of making the idea work, even if it's not entirely believable. Ever since Steven Spielberg unleashed "Jaws" on audiences in the summer of 1975, filmmakers have been trying to recapture some of that shark movie magic. It's probably fair to say no shark movie (not even "Deep Blue Sea") will ever come close to replicating what "Jaws" did, and "Under Paris" isn't even in the same class as "Jaws." But it's a fun shark attack movie for the summer, and I'm not surprised that it's a Netflix hit.