We here at Cine-Men have discussed bad movies in the past, but this one takes the cake, if not several cakes. It somehow completes the full paradoxical rotation from bad to good and back to bad again. We are talking about the Syfy channel original, “Sharknado.”
Surprisingly, the plot starts with a modern political issue: how global warming is causing oceans to rise and increasing the frequency of severe storms. Then, the movie metaphorically and literally jumps the shark when the beach is overrun with great white sharks devouring people in three-foot-deep water.
It only escalates from there. The movie goes on to depict the titular “sharknado” ripping through the coastal city of Los Angeles, causing havoc and hilarity like sharks randomly flying through windows, ridiculous amounts of blood loss, sharks flying up and through man hole covers and characters abruptly getting crushed beneath the Hollywood sign.
This film was released by a production company called “The Asylum” that specializes in producing low-budget B-movies and releasing them to television channels or video-on-demand services.
You may have heard of some of their previous works: “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus,” “Mega Piranha,” “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid,” and many more. “Sharknado” just happens to be the odd one out that picked up enough public attention to become a cult classic. It had celebrities endorsing it and restaurants advertising it. For all intents and purposes, it was a short-lived public phenomenon. With this it gained enough public attention to make the relatively unknown studio several millions of dollars and warrant five sequels.
My Take:
I mean, where to begin? There are so many things wrong with this dumb movie. Several main characters come and go with the wind, or for however long they could keep the actors’ union off the film set. Every single shark and weather effect are done with such poor CGI it just makes you laugh at the fact the actors are screaming at nothing.
Random plot points and solutions are pulled out of nowhere. For example, the main characters decide that to stop the tornado the only solution is to drop bombs into it from a helicopter. Then there’s the one infamous scene where the main character jumps into the mouth of a shark with a chainsaw! It feels like the actors were handed a piece of paper that said “Storm, Sharks, Drama” instead of a real script.
I would not be surprised if the writers revealed that they were all drunk, high or both when they came up with this concept. It boggles the mind to think that multiple people saw this movie and gave the go-ahead to release it.
And I loved it. I loved every single moment of it. There are so many ridiculous scenes played with such a straight face that I was in tears at some points. I am not joking, watch this movie. It will be the funniest 85 minutes of your life. It’s 10/10 viewing, and I will recommend it at every opportunity.
If you wish to join us for a movie viewing you can find us at McCormick room 3237 on Tuesdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. We hope to see you there!
