Sharknado

August 2, 2013

So now the rest of the planet knows what Joel McHale and I have known all along…SyFy movies are the shit! Oops, that was a typo – I meant to say, “are shit!”

Yes, social media was buzzing in the weeks leading up to the premier of SyFy‘s latest entry in the improbable animal/natural disaster genre…Sharknado. Not only was everybody twittering and facebooking Sharknado, I had the pleasure of hearing about it on not only my local news, but the Nightly National News. What the FUCK, Diane Sawyer?

Even with all the internet buzz, the viewership totals for the premiere of Sharknado were somewhat disappointing. Would Sharknado be another Snakes on a Plane? All buzz and no bite? But SyFy has an advantage that the big studios don’t have…a captive audience. They quickly decided to keep inserting Sharknado into the programming schedule until they hit paydirt on the third showing with a record 2.1 Million viewers. See, Sharknado was free (to those with basic cable, anyway), so no matter how bad the reviews were, most people will muddle through, just to say they did. I wonder how the midnight theatrical showings this weekend will fair? Seems like a mistake to me…

Back to the movie itself, the title says it all. It’s a motherfucking tornado full of sharks. The forgotten teen idols (a now vital part of the formula) are the rich douchebag from 90210 OG and trainwreck Tara Reid. They both lived through the movie, which was an utter disappointment. Another interesting addition to the cast was Jaason Simmons, who you may know from Baywatch, but I know from one of my favorite college-days films, Nowhere. He still has that “rapey” quality, doesn’t he?

The funniest scene in the movie wasn’t one of the insane shark attacks, but the one scene intended to be serious. It was that old movie convention, “Heartwrenching explanation of why I hate _____ so much.” You may remember the gold standard from Gremlins, with Phoebe Cates explaining why she hates Christmas so much. I was laughing so much that I almost fell off the couch as Nova explained why she hates sharks so much…of course, her grandfather was eaten by a shark…while she watched. Oh, the humanity! As much as that sucks, it’s a much more merciful death than dying of Lymphoma, like my grandfather did. Just sayin’ that cancer is shittier than sharks, mmm’kay?

So how does Sharknado stack up? It’s much better than Metal Tornado and Arachnoquake, but still not as good as classics like Sharktopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. I have high hopes for the next big release from SyFy – Ghost Shark. The Sharknado sequel has also been announced, which begs the qyestion…is it possible that this genre of movies is in danger of “jumping the shark”?

I’m truly sorry for the above sentence. I just couldn’t stop myself.