Sharknado

Sharknado
Directed by:  Anthony C. Ferrante
Starring:  Tara Reid, Ian Ziering, John Heard, Jasson Simmons, Cassie Scerbo, Israel Sáez de Miguel, Alex Arleo
Tagline:  Enough Said!
Format:  Personal Collection NTSC Region 1

 
 

 Sharknado!  What can we say about a movie about a bunch of sharks caught up in a whirlwind or in this case 3 whirlwinds?  Don't let my rating fool you it's impossible for me to throw a high rating at a film so obviously ripe with cheapness in everything from fx and writing, to acting and directing.  Where did the movie go right?  Overall delivery. 
     We have a man Fin Shepard played by none other than 90210's Ian Ziering and man talk about being spit back out at the bottom of the film industry.  When your doing SyFy movies you know you've hit bottom.  Of course we also have John Heard one of my favorite actors of all time running around so what can I say.  The film also stars Tara Reid from haha Days of Our Lives as Fin's wife April Wexler.  While I sit here poking fun at these actors it really wasn't as bad as bad can be.  I mean Dinoshark I had to stop because I couldn't handle the exceptionally bad acting of

Eric Balfour who obviously was having the sun shining on a dog's ass when he did the Texas Chainsaw remake.  And I can't forget Israel Miguel as the captain in the beginning of the film who was selling shark fins for shark fin soup to a corporate restaurant supplier of some kind.  He absolutely nailed the stereotypical movie ship captain and haad me in stitches all the way to his death. 

 I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from beginning to end but mostly it's a so bad it's good type scenario.  I mean some of the lines in this movie, "Looks like it's that time of the month!" and "My mom always told me Hollywood would kill me!" I think were my two favorites.  But you have to include the silly homages to Jaws with lines like, "We're going to need a bigger helicopter!"  And the character Nova's story about how her grandfather was eaten by sharks, "And the sharks took the rest.." was her final hilarious line much like the captain in Jaws. 
    The fx well the fx are absolutely horrid cgi but for me anyway I expect nothing else when watching a SyFy type of movie.  You literally HAVE to have bad cgi or it wouldn't be the same.  They really went to town on the gory chomping cgi effects all through it from beginning to end.  Well at first the sharks are just attacking everyone from the water and none of these stupid people ever stopped to say, "Hey sharks don't form groups of different species and attack one beach all at once?"  but maybe that's being picky.  I can tell you what's not being picky...the fact that no one on a beach screams and starts running when a person is being attacked in the water.  The people in this film did just that and in fact started trampling people in the process and throwing them off staircases.  Just total chaotic silliness. 
    I will tell you a big way this movie was successful and that was in advertising.  I mean lots of people love the ridiculousness of all the SyFy productions but this movie made it to theatres and simply blew up on facebook, etc.  I had a business representative come in for a meeting where I work and ask if I'd seen it yet. 
So bravo SyFy on a job well done in the advertising department. 

     We follow Fin as he tries desperately to get his ex-wife April and their children out of the Sharknado territory.  The daughter of course hates her father even after it becomes apparent that the man came to save her and her mother from a bunch of man-eating flying sharks and the floods that came along with them.  Fin has brought with them his regular drunk from the bar he owns played by John Heard whose best scene was when he took his own bar stool out from the back of the suv they were driving (why it was there no one will ever know) and broke through a window in another car to save a random woman's pet dog's life.  There was also his bartender Nova (Scerbo) who was spectacular during her action scenes shooting up the flying sharks with her shotgun.  I couldn't stop laughing it was like a clay shoot towards the end.  Finally Fin is getting his family out including his son who ends up falling in love with Nova in the end which was kind of weird considering that Nova was all up in Fin's shit before they stopped to pick up the son.  Sharks are flying everywhere and there's a nice amount of animated blood and gore tossed around to make the gorehounds happy.  Yes I hate cgi blood with a passion but this movie required it for novelty purposes.  I bought it and if your in the mood for a cheap Saturday afternoon movie I suggest you do too.