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Sharknado

February 1, 2016
Film Reviews
8 Comments

Sharknado Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Jaason Simmons, John Heard, Ian Ziering, Diane Chambers, Julie McCullough, Chuck Hittinger, Aubrey Peeples, Robbie Rist,

Sharknado: a freak storm is sucking sharks from the ocean and dumping them into flooded Los Angeles! You don’t watch a film called ‘Sharknado’ for its plot, cinematography, or effects… that being said, it would have been nice if the film tried! The normal shots look quite good, but the added “speshul” effects are piss poor – even basic stuff like rain looks bad; why would you not use real water!?! No tension or suspense is built up at any point; shots are disjointed and poorly cut together – everything ‘important’ to the ‘plot’ is shot as a close up, and quickly cut in and out – giving you no sense of scale, time, or location. Even silly details like the gang being chased up the street by a wave, but finding the time to individually winch an entire school bus of (50!?) kids and their driver to safety. Worst of all, it didn’t make much use of the actual ‘Sharknado’ – focusing instead on sharks swimming in flooded areas or just landing on people. The biggest distraction from all the mess isn’t even sharks; it’s Cassie Scerbo; a leggy short-shorts surf babe with a bikini / mesh top, who spends most of the runtime cocking a shotgun – as a male, this is a feasible distraction (I can only imagine American men getting a little light-headed.) There’s a few good quips, championed by “looks like that time of the month” as the guys stare at gallons of splooshing bloody water – a period joke lol. Despite a promising concept and wild title, Sharknado is more of the same from the company that brought us stuff like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. It feels more like a weak drinking game or marketing exercise, than even a basic attempt to capitalise on the attention-grabbing title. Not the worst film I’ve ever seen, but could and should have been way better than it was.

Score: 3/10
B-movie Score: 5/10

Sharknado Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Jaason Simmons, John Heard, Ian Ziering, Diane Chambers, Julie McCullough, Chuck Hittinger, Aubrey Peeples, Robbie Rist

Shark Deaths

  • Compressed Air Canister
  • Pool Cue Stabbing
  • Bar Stool Smash
  • Shotgun (x4)
  • Chainsaw Split
  • Car Bumper Impalement
  • Pylon Blasting
  • Flaming Water (!!!)
  • Knife Attack
  • Internal Combustion

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

January 27, 2010
Film Reviews
2 Comments

Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus: three rogue marine scientists try to save the world from two huge prehistoric menaces. After the first 5 minutes you know there’s one big flaw in this – the budget. It’s stuffed with awful ‘action sequences’ (mostly shaky cam), painfully cheap graphics, an atrocious sound mix, a second-rate script, terrible establishing shots and the criminal overuse of several CGI scenes. In the movies defence, an SFX-heavy creature feature with a lot of destruction isn’t the easiest to make on a shoestring budget, but the laughable effects just ruin any possibility suspense and tension. It’s also edited together like a psychological thriller, for reasons that were beyond me. There are a few redeeming aspects: the music is pretty good, some simple shots are very effective and… erm… Debbie Gibson is a total babe!? The promiscuously colourful science montage and questionably raunchy scientists were nice touches. Not without its teachings, I now know that every area of a government complex has a man with a big gun and sunglasses in the corner, racists are generally “equal opportunity” and that scientists get all the pussy. It’s as imaginative as the title, so only watch this for purposes of Irony.

Score: 1.5/10