It’s still Christmas as far as I’m concerned and there’s no better way to keep the spirit of the holidays going like sitting down with a cup of cocoa, lovely friends and a festive movie. Unfortunately I write for TheArcade.ie and my ‘friends’ decided I should watch Sharknado! This is ‘Screen Savers’ and I’m going to need a bigger boat…
You’ve certainly heard of today’s absurdity. Ah yes, I am talking about the Sharknado. Written by Thunder Levin and directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, this 2013 made for TV movie surpasses even your worst expectations. Just by looking at the poster, you can tell this wasn’t made to be taken seriously and that it was badly made on purpose… But there’s a limit to what is bearable.
The plot is quite simple: after a freak hurricane floods Los Angeles, tornadoes carry sharks from the ocean onto the land, terrorizing and killing many of the local civilians. Let’s pretend we buy into this plot and go along with it. Sure, why not?
Now onto the part that’s hard to swallow: the movie portrays the sharks with such a bloodlust that it’s really hard to remember why you started watching the movie in the first place. They act more like zombies than sharks. If they see a human, they HAVE to devour it entirely or their purpose in life won’t be fulfilled. So much so that one even bites open a car roof just to try to get to the tasty humans.
I’m all for B movies and being creative with low budgets, but there’s ways to be smart about it and work with what you have. Bad acting was something to be expected, but the piss poor camera work and editing job in this is what really steals the show. The panned out stock footage of flooded streets doesn’t match in the least with the footage of the actors. The discrepancies are so much so, that you have to actively remind yourself the two pieces of footage belong to the same scene and the characters are in that scenario.
Bad CGI is also to be expected from something like this, and it usually adds to the charm of these types of films, but in all honesty this was just so bad that it hurt. I mean, we’re talking worse than Playstation 2 graphics here. I thought okay sure the graphics will be bad, but kept my hopes up thinking that maybe we’d get to see some awesome gorey practical effects and makeup. Boy was I disappointed when I saw all they did was throw fake blood on people and called it a day. Cue the guy with his leg buried in the sand so it would look like he was missing his limb:
I won’t give you any spoilers in case you’re a masochist and are considering watching this movie, but the way the story develops is beyond reasoning. The daughter of the main character has an emotional “Daddy why don’t you love me?” breakdown after the first thing he did when he caught sight of the storm is go make sure she was okay, amongst many other head-scratching moments in the film. But the cherry on top has got to be their solution to the whole shark storm situation. They don’t go and seek shelter and just wait it out, oh no. They want to destroy the tornadoes. Yeah… I had high hopes that this would be one of those movies where it’s so bad it’s good. I really did.
I guess what I really wish I could say is kill it with fire before it reproduces, but it seems we are too late and there are already 2 sequels with another one under way. How and why these were funded will forever remain a mystery to me! Now where is my big boat!
