Sharknado

Even if one is not a fan of Bad Cinema, every once in a while a movie comes along that sounds so epically, cataclysmically, awesomely bad that you just can’t look away. This movie has gained a cult following, having been shown three times at the SYFY Channel (and I am very glad they changed the name so that it no longer sounds like SF) and getting a larger audience each time. A friend of mine sees this as one more sign of the end of civilization as we know it, but I disagree. Lee and I had a good time laughing at the sheer idiocy on display here. It’s a popcorn movie, meant to be watched and laughed at by a group of friends, preferably with a large amount of alcohol or good grass. I believe that’s why people are watching it, and that’s why it was made. It’s just not possible that anyone, ever, took this seriously. Well, maybe ten-year-old boys. That’s around the age when I took movies like Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers seriously.

A series of giant tornadoes has lifted sharks into the air, from where they rain down on Los Angeles. I’m not talking ten or a hundred sharks. The sharks in the air are thick as flies on shit, and they adapt very well to this new, airborne lifestyle. When they land in the flooded streets (without damage to themselves) their first thought is not “How the fuck did I end up HERE?” but “Let’s eat all the people stupid enough not to get to high ground or the second floor!” Some of them are even adept at plucking people out of the air.

The final scene is so over the top that it just solidified my opinion that this was made just for gross-out yucks. A girl has fallen from a helicopter and been swallowed by a huge shark. Our Hero decides to kick some ass. He hurls himself into the air, chainsaw in hand, and dives down the shark’s throat. (How he knows this is THE shark out of the hundreds falling out of the sky is one of those questions you Just Don’t Ask.) Shark plops to the ground, and he cuts himself out. Then he reaches in and pulls the girl out. Though they are covered in gore, they are unhurt. New twist on the Jonah story, I guess.

Now and then there is actually some wit on display. Everyone remembers Roy Scheider’s famous line from Jaws: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” While dropping home-made bombs into the tornados to snuff them out (just small propane tanks and a flare, and why the hell didn’t the U.S. Weather Service think of that?), one of the people says “We’re gonna need a bigger helicopter.”