Sharknado (15)
Directed by: Anthony C. Ferrante
Starring: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, John Heard
Running time: 86 minutes
When a freak hurricane swamps Los Angeles, nature’s deadliest killer rules sea, land, and air as thousands of sharks terrorize the waterlogged populace.
Sharknado is a 2013 made-for-television disaster movie about a waterspout that lifts sharks out of the ocean and deposits them in Los Angeles. It is one of many B-movies commissioned by Syfy. As well as airing in TV it was also given a limited theatrical screening via Regal Cinemas and NCM Fathom Events.
This is a movie that really shouldn’t have worked. The concept itself is ludicrous, the acting is ok to horrendous, the CGI is appalling, the continuity editing non-existent, and absolutely nothing makes sense!
—–SPOILERS AHEAD!—–
The whole movie, in a nutshell, is:
A freak tornado hits Los Angeles, causing man-eating sharks to be scooped up in water spouts and flooding the city with shark-infested seawater. Surfer and bar-owner Fin (Ziering) sets out with his friends Baz (Jaason Simmons) and Nova (Scerbo) to rescue his estranged wife April (Reid) and teenage daughter Claudia (Aubrey Peeples). He succeeds, but April’s boyfriend is eaten by the sharks. The group meets up with Matt (Chuck Hittinger), the adult son of Fin and April, who is in flying school. They decide to try to stop the threat of the incoming “sharknadoes” by tossing bombs into them from helicopters.
As Nova prepares to throw one of the bombs, she falls out of the helicopter and directly into a shark’s mouth. Matt, who has fallen for her, is heartbroken. Baz is also lost in the storm. After Matt lands on the ground, a flying shark plummets toward the remaining members of the group. Fin jumps into its mouth with a chainsaw and cuts his way out. He emerges carrying an unconscious but miraculously unharmed Nova. Matt is reunited with Nova and Fin gets back together with April.1
We go from scenes where the city is flooded to bone-dry; sharks everywhere, to nowhere to be seen; weather dark and stormy to perfectly clear, all in the blink of an eye. We have weather patterns that ignore not only the laws of nature, but those of physics too. We have teenagers that can build bombs from parts found out there local DIY store. And lets not forget that we have sharks. Thousands of them, sir.
The thing is though that the more ludicrous the movie got …and, believe me, it got PLENTY ludicrous … the more that I seemed to enjoy it. This is a movie that is probably too bad to even earn a Golden Raspberry Award (I can see John J.B. Wilson shaking his head in shame just thinking about it) but I could stop watching it. Judging by the buzz across social media before, during, and after the screenings a lot of other people couldn’t either. People were live posting on Facebook and Twitter as each scene got sillier and sillier; they were turning a pretty bad movie into an amazing movie experience as they shared the laughs – sometimes laughing with the movie and sometimes laughing at it.
Ultimately this is a movie that should have been made, aired, and forgotten about in quick succession. Somehow, though, it is a movie that has garnered the type of buzz that Hollywood blockbusters can only hope to. It is a movie that has given Beverly Hills 90210 star Ian Ziering’s career a real boost, and it is a movie with a future as SYFY have already announced the sequel Sharknado 2: The Second One is scheduled to premiere in July 2014.
Most importantly it is a movie that gave us more ‘jumping the shark’ moments than any before, one of which made the whole experience for me: Ziering chain-sawing himself out of a Great White that has gobbled him up, and carrying an unconscious but miraculously unharmed Nova – who had just fallen out of a helicopter into the shark’s mouth in mid-air! – with him!
Should I have enjoyed this movie? Should I recommend this to my friends, and peers?
No.
Did I? Will I?
Hell yes indeed!
3 out of 4 Nerds
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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