This blog covers Movies, TV, and other Geeky things...... Movie Reviews (over 3,400 movies rated so far) Countdowns of my top movies by year.... and much more.
The Sharknado franchise came to a wacky and strange time
travel conclusion last year. Ian Ziering not
wanting to fade from the public eye decided to move on to the zombie/natural disaster genre. Instead of just battling zombies
---why not spice it up a little with a Tidal Wave.Zombie Tidal Wave is a decent campy low budget
zombie flick.The problem with modern day Zombie films is
that post The Walking Dead –viewers are never going to connect with and care
about the characters in a zombie film as much as they did for that TV show. Basically,
with that series Zombies have already been done just about as good as possible.All these low budget zombie flicks are generally
not as good as the best episodes of the TV series - that being said they can still be a fun distraction if your expectations are not too high.
So, what is the point of watching Zombie Tidal Wave? Ian
Ziering has in my mind become the new king of cheesy and campy low budget fun.It is fun watching him with a Taser/Machete
electrocuting zombies that look like they have been dipped in Windex to save
money on zombie makeup. It was pure campy goodness.He has one
great fight with a Zombie that seems to know so wrestling moves near the end
that was enjoyable.
It started as a simple movie about a Tornado filled with Sharks. The original was SO Terrible that it was GREAT. It caused a phenomena and launched a franchise. Ian Ziering probably took the original Sharknado as much needed paycheck, little did he know that a few years later he would be the star of a franchise that would be on it's fifth movie with an ending that sets up a 6th film.
Sharknado 5 tries to take the simple concept of the original film and turn it into something much bigger. This fifth installment tries to establish a mythology behind the Sharknados. Until this film the Sharknados were just some weird random events (as far as we knew). Sharknado 5 establishes a mythic back story that ties the Sharknados back to the time of the Droids and Egyptians?
This installment falls into the same trap as the less than stellar second movie where there are so many cheesy cameos that it distracts from the movie itself. I spent more of the movie trying to figure out who the people with the bad plastic surgery were as the "celebrity" cameos rolled by. Fabio as the Pope?? Charo the Queen of England?? Greg Louganis as a part of some evil organization that is trying to get the Shark stone that was discovered at the beginning of the film in a parody of some scenes from Indiana Jones. This movie is a series of bad puns. "Sharks, why does it have to always be Sharks?" Ok so I laughed a little (Big Indy Fan). No longer a simple shark/tornado movie it is now part spy film with secret organizations.
The main plotline involves Finn's son being swept away in one of the Sharknados. Finn(Ian Ziering) and his now half robot wife (Tara Reid) spend most of the movie Jumping the Sharknado or into the Sharknado trying to rescue their son. The Sharknado opens some type of wormhole that dumps them in different spots all over the world. It makes the previous films seem somewhat sane with the level of absurdity. The third act of the film gets depressing as all of Finn's loved ones die. The movie ends with Finn wandering around a post apocalyptic world looking for survivors. Then all of a sudden Dolph Lundgren shows up and says that he is Finn's son. The film ends as a parody of Back to the Future with Dolph Lundgren getting Finn to get into his truck which is actually a time machine to go back and try and rescue everyone. I thought the ending was funny, but this Sharknado effort did more than just jump the Shark it rode the shark down a staircase while punching it.
Of course I'll be there for Sharknado 6. I have to find out what all this Dolph Lundgren time travel stuff is all about.
Have you ever wondered what happened Mr Belding from Saved By the Bell??? Or Thomas Ian Nichols from American Pie
Well Mr. Belding got old and fat and became a greedy Boss Hog type delevoper and Thomas Ian Nichols is living in a trailer park as a part shark movie. The developer characters greed leads him to hire some thugs to blow up the levee in order wash out a local trailer park. The levee blows and drowns the trailer park, but in the process also electrifies a killer shark and unleashes him on the white trash rednecks. Fellow American Pie Alum Tara Reid also makes a cameo.
This movie had some potential at the beginning. There is a cool one shot of the trailer park near the beginning where the camera travels through the trailer park showing all the wacky inhabitants fighting and arguing in true white trash redneck style. I wish they had just had the cast of My Name is Earl in this story. This scene was so good that it gave me high hopes for the film that it never reached. I could imagine a funny trailer park movie based on this cool opening scene that doesn't even involve a shark.
Rednecks are the last group that we are still allowed to make fun of in this politically correct world. I give the film some points for finding a new and interesting setting for a shark movie and shark movie plot. Trapping the sharks victims on top of trailers from a drowned trailer park with the added element of some villains on jet skis Water World style terrorizing the survivors.
The problem with the movie is it's small budget. The electrified CGI shark is cheesy. The action is at times underwhelming like watching Thomas Ian Nicols character making a make shift paddle out of his hand using duck tape (a hand paddle that disappears without explanation later in the film). The film features a decent showdown with Mr Belding at the end who is cruising around on one of those old school swamp boats with the giant fans.
The best scene of the movie is when one of the rednecks gets pulled into the water by the shark and ends up skiing behind the shark barefoot style.
I was going to rate this a 5 out of 10, but while writing this review decided that despite it being less exciting than I it could have been I need to give it some credit for its new original take on a killer shark movie--when so many other movies just copy the same general "Jaws Scenario" plot lines.
Apparently 5 heads are not better than 3. I'm never been so bored by a 4 Headed shark in my life. At least 3 Headed Shark Attack had some funny scenes that made it at least somewhat enjoyable. This movie gave me nothing---other than the standard "Jaws Scenario" scene --where they think the shark is dead -but it really isn't so they open the beaches back up again. I'll try something different with this bad shark movie review and just ask some questions.
1. Why does a movie called 5-Headed Shark Attack feature a shark with 4 heads??
Part way through the movie the sharks tail becomes another head for no explainable reason. So technically it has 5 heads at about the half-way point of the movie.
2. Why do they decide to hunt the 5-Headed Shark in a rinky dink fishing boat?
I guess they couldn't afford a bigger boat in the production budget.
3. Why have none of the actors in this movie ever taken an acting class in their careers?
Who needs actors when you have a title like 5 Headed Shark Attack. The acting is almost as bad as the screenplay they had to read. I felt like they were holding up cue cards for the actors to read from.
4. Once this 5-Headed Shark has already killed over a couple dozen people why don't they call in the military for help in killing the creature?
Because 2 cops and a couple of research students from the Aquarium should be more than enough to take on a 5 Headed Mutant Shark.
5. Why did they feel the need to skip the title 4-Headed Shark and go straight to 5-Headed Shark Attack?
....I feel like I missed a bad shark movie in the sequence. They really jumped the 5-Headed Shark with this turkey of a bad shark movie. If I didn't watch bad shark movies out of an obsessive need to complete the list in search of the SO BAD IT IS GOOD Shark movie.....I would say that I'd skip 6 Headed-Shark Attack when it comes out......But I'd be lying.
Up next more Shark Action as 5 More Bad Shark movies hit Syfy this week as it leads up to Sharknado 5.
Dam Sharks is just one of a slew of bad shark movies that
premiered on Syfy this past weekend as a part of their Sharknado block of
movies.The fact that the sharks are in a river is
briefly explained at the start of the movie. A storm is shown washing over a model that looks like a 6th grade tidal display. The fact that the sharks are building a
dam out of human body parts isn’t explained what so ever.The only reason for this behavior is
that it gave the producers the excuse to call the movie Dam Sharks.
The plot:
A company retreat is going on along a river. The CEO is
trying to cheer up some employees to distract from the fact that he is about to fire over 70 employees.The river is full of sharks so this company retreat is going to be a bloodbath.We get
scenes of people zip lining into sharks and getting attacked during team
building raft race.The movie is thin on
plot and has the standard CGI Shark footage.The logic of the characters in the film is as stupid as you would
expect. They are so dumb that they all deserve to die.
Dumb Movie
Characters moment of the film
After several characters have made it safely to
shore after sharks attacked their raft they decide to walk down a trail to get to
the ranger station.Of course they reach a point where the ranger
station is on the other side of the river.So it is decision time.They can stay on the land on the road they are walking on or try and cross the log that goes across the
Shark filled river.Of course they choose to walk across the
log. Crossing a log over a river filled with sharks is the logical decision.I won’t tell you what happens –but it doesn’t
take the Scooby Doo Gang to figure out how this mystery turns out.
In summary: It
isn’t a good bad shark movie. It fails to
be a SO BAD It IS GOOD shark movie…. ButIf you like me you need to see every single cheesy shark movie that comes out....then you may enjoy it. My Movie page on Facebook is here
Throw out the all logic and any sense of a coherent story
and you get Sharknado 4. It feels like the writers and director sat around a campfire telling "Can you top this" scenes and then pulled them out of a hat and pinned them to a chalkboard. The story is an absolute mess—just like Las
Vegas after the Sharknado hit. But
somehow it doesn’t matter.If you are tuning in to watch Sharknado 4 you
should be well aware that you are not getting a quality plot.You are tuning in to see ridiculousness.You are tuning in to see Gilbert Godfried as
a storm chaser yelling at the camera about a Cownado.The Franchise is a parody of itself at this
point. It contains references to other films while throwing in random cameos of C list actors.
The Plot (LOL) (Or thin attempt at one)
Finn Shepard played
by Ian Ziering is basically the Angela Landsbury of Sharknados.Everywhere he goes a Sharknado shows
up.It is almost like they are following
him (like the Shark in Jaws 4).The movie starts 5 years after the previous
film with Finn attending the opening of a Shark themed Hotel that was built by
some Tech company that has figured out how to keep the Sharknados from
happening.Of course what would a Sharknado movie be without a
Sharknado???A Tornado/Dust Devil
starts up exactly when Finn’s older son is jumping out of an airplane with a
girl he just married. What follows is one of the most ridiculous scenes in movie history. In Sharknado there is no logic
or sense of reality at all and again it doesn't seem to matter.Sharknado is a lesson in absurdity.The concept of this movie series defies the
rules of film making.The first movie
was one of the best SO BAD IT IS GOOD movies –that just happen sometimes.Somehow it has turned into a franchise that
the Syfy Channel programs an entire weekend of Bad Shark movie programming
around.When you tune into Sharknado
weekend ---not only do you get Sharknado 1 -4 –you also get a batch of new
absurd Shark films.Atomic Shark.Dam Sharks, Ice Sharks and several more.(Stay
Tuned I’ll be blogging about those soon as well).
So my suggestion is watch Sharnado 4 if you enjoyed
the first 3. If you didn’t enjoy the
others ---you aren’t going to magically start liking them now.It is a completely silly, over the top,
nonsensical carnival ride....Total Cheese.....yet still enjoyable.
Zombie Shark was a boring bad shark movie. It had some decent camera shots here and there--but was just dull as a whole. Some friends decide to go to an vacation island for the weekend and end up getting attacked by sharks that are basically zombies. Other than the catchy name of Zombie Shark --they really don't act or behave any different than regular sharks, unless you count the fact that when they appear to be dead on the beach --they are actually just resting. This movie tries to have serious dialogue scenes featuring the characters in the film that occasionally bring the movie to a grinding halt. If you are making a movie called Zombie Shark --long character development scenes with characters talking about why their mom likes the younger sister better are just boring time wasting scenes that the audience could care less about.
The worst part of the movie is Jason London's "I don't really seem to care I'm in a movie acting." He looked like a boring office worker --just showing up on Monday morning that hasn't had his coffee yet. He brought this lackluster effort into every dull scene that he was in. There are no laughs in Zombie Shark and even when the sharks start biting people and turning them into zombies there is really never any true tension in the film. My opinion is to skip Zombie Shark and not be fooled by it's catchy title. There are so many better bad shark movies to enjoy.
Here is my updated list that includes all 6 new 2015 bad shark movies that aired during Sharknado Week on Syfy channel
I was really disappointed by Sharktopus vs Whalewolf. This franchise keeps getting worse and worse. The Sharktopus in the first film was kind of a cool silly concept. The Octopus tentacles allowed Sharktopus to go on land briefly to make a kill. The first movie was fun. Now with Sharktopus 3: it seems they have just become extremely lazy. Beyond coming up with a new hybrid creature for Sharktopus to battle it seems like very little thought went into the rest of the movie. The best scene was a nurse in what looked like a sexy nurse outfit from Halloween being chased by the horrible CGI Whalewolf.
The plot: Sharktopus is on a killing spree again and Casper Van Dien is drunk on a boat just holding onto his last minute of fame. There is also a horrible storyline about a Nazi scientist (played by Catherine Oxenberg whose last minute has already run out ) experimenting on humans and turning an ex steroid abusing baseball player into a hybrid Whalewolf. The Whalewolf is awful and looks like a Scooby Doo monster.
It is part man/part wolf/part killer whale and is a badly animated CGI creature that isn't even remotely scary looking. It was like a terrible gore filled Scooby Doo episode without Scooby and the gang or a mystery or any story that you are invested in at all. I was waiting for Casper Van Dien to capture and unzip the Whalewold Costume and point out that it was Mr Withers all along. Unfortunately this wasn't a Scooby Doo episode. Instead it was a boring display of terrible CGI and bad jokes and cheesy action. The CGI was so terrible that I didn't even care when Whalewolf battled Sharktopus. Seriously Whalewolf is one of the worst movie monsters ever......and that is saying a lot.
Skip this bad shark movie (unless you are a sucker like me) . Watch Sharknado 3 or Roboshark instead. Even 3 Headed Shark Attack was more enjoyable.
The 1st Sharknado --was SO Bad that it was Good. It had terrible editing and its plot was a silly mess. Most So Bad they are Good movies never get noticed by the general public, but social media turned this one into a huge hit for Syfy.
The 2nd Sharknado --fell flat for me. It had huge hype as a result social media hyping it and making it a trending topic. The film itself couldn't create the same SO Bad it is Good vibe. You can't force the kind of bad the first movie achieved on purpose and the 2nd movie got hung up on its cameos. It was still a huge hit for the Syfy channel and extended Ian Ziering's 15 minutes of fame into the 21st minute.
When Sharknado 3 hit this week it has grown into a much bigger thing. Sharknado hit the Syfy channel as a part of Sharknado week. It came along with 5 new Bad shark movies in its wake. Instead of the Syfy channel dropping Bad Shark movie slowly all year long --we got 6 bad shark movies all in one week. Shark overload. Sequels to Megashark, Sharktopus, and 2 Headed Shark hit the airwaves. New bad shark movies like Roboshark and Zombie Shark also premiered. It was like an actual Sharknado hit the TV with Shark movies dropping out of the skies. The social media hype for this Sharknado was out of control.
The movie itself was just great. It wasn't So bad it is Good --but it was actually just enjoyable this time around. Ian Ziering is now a badass and his level of fame from this silly franchise may get him Bruce Campbell like cult status. The franchise is now totally self aware. Like I said with the sequel -you can't create so bad it is good on purpose--it just has to happen. They learned this lesson in Sharknado 3. This movie is even more insane and ridiculous than before --but now the silly and stupid plot is totally with purpose.
It doesn't fell completely pieced together after the fact in the editing room with no idea how the pieces fit together anymore. It has a start and middle and a finish. Thought went into this movie.
Sharknado was an absolutely absurd movie that had the feel of a Robert Rodriquez flick. It still had cameos every couple of minutes --but it didn't hijack the movie this time. The settings were well thought out and fun. Mark Cuban battling sharks in Washington D.C. as the president--was fun.
Sharks landing on rollercoasters and water slides in Orlando - a silly good time. And Sharks in space is having to deal with David Hasselhof --really good cheesy stuff. I loved Sharknado 3 for all the right reasons and I can't wait for Sharknado week next year.
Enjoy Sharknado for what it is .......Good Cheesy fun!
I was really looking forward to Ascension based on the trailer. Ascension focuses on a Space mission that was sent to colonize Proxima Centauri. So for many of crew of this 100 year long mission their entire lives would be on this spaceship never touching land. The mission began back in the Kennedy era and the crew in style and form seems to be stuck in that era. It seemed like a good idea and the first night of this 3 night miniseries was actually pretty good. Here is a breakdown about what I thought of the miniseries Night by Night.
Night 1. The story of the first night revolves around the first murder aboard the ship which in year 51 of its journey. One of the top officers sets out to get to the bottom of this murder while the viewers get to explore the 1960's Mad Men type Playboy Club vibe of the spaceship. There is also a storyline about modern day in which someone is looking into this secret mission and whether it exists at all. The first night of this show was solid with interesting teases that something is going on with one of the kids aboard the ship She mentions that someone is watching them? The show ends with one of the murder suspects battling the officer and getting shot out of the airlock. This is where the first night ends with a huge reveal. The spaceship isn't in space after all. The entire ship is in a giant military bunker and the space journey is just an experiment run government. This was an excellent reveal and had me excited for the next night. Watching the character plummet into space and land in a giant stunt balloon was cool, unfortunately the show descended after this pivotal event. Night 2 After the huge reveal at the end of night 1 we settle into the concept that the entire space mission is basically the Truman Show like secret government experiment. It was a cool concept --but the show went downhill from there. On board the ship they are all having sex and trying to find a saboteur and the little girl seems to somehow know that something is wrong about the whole ship. The story on Earth with the secret government people is weak and deals with a consultant being sent in to report to superiors on the project, which was a dumb plot line that took away for the more interesting Ship storyline. At this point the show starts to become a lot less watchable. The girl that died is now a ghost and walking around the ship trying to show the young girl that seems to have psychic powers. Meanwhile we are supposed to care random power moves that are happening aboard the ship --which really don't matter to the story. The show doesn't really know what it wants to be at this point. Is it a Dallas or Dynasty or a sci-fi show? Night 3 By the third night --I was already starting to check out. The charm and interest of this 60's style space journey was falling apart into both inside and outside the ship. The government consultant decides to escape the project with the guy that had been "spaced" in a completely unnecessary storyline. The dialogue and acting of the power struggle for the government people running the project was just terrible. Meanwhile the Space ship's crew is dealing with a energy storm that was created by the "Firestarter" girl and her growing powers. The whole experiment keeps getting close to being exposed including a broadcast of Alf showing up on one of the monitors and one of the characters questioning this. It could have been a great series --turned into a really cheesy show by the end of night 3. The government agents decide to extract the girl that has developed powers. The acceleration of her powers is ridiculous. A good concept was basically ruined by some bad story choices and awful dialogue and acting. I started interested in what was happening on the ship and because the stuff on Earth was so terrible ---I ended up not caring much for the show at all by the end. I really can't see watching the show if is does get picked up as a series now.
Another low budget Zombie movie that lands with a big thud. This is about as a zombie movie can be.
It was really sad -because the movie started out with a little bit of potential as a group of friends are having a party and all of a sudden there is an announcement that a strange meteor shower is occurring in the skies. It was obviously going for a Cloverfield feel at the beginning . The main character wakes up after a night of partying to a city that has been bombarded by this strange meteors. The group of friends gather together and then another warning happens that the dust from the meteors is making people sick....and by sick we mean turning them into zombies. The movie that started with the possibility of being interesting --just gets worse and worse as it goes along. In a similar fashion as the movie "The Happening" which got worse every minute. This movie was just dull. I didn't care about any of the characters including the John Stamos wannabe lead.
The problem with such low budget movies like this is how implausible they are (and I'm not talking about the meteors turning people into zombies). The title I saw this movie on the Syfy channel under was Apocalypse LA and to call this an Apocalypse is a slap in the face to the word. If this event just happened there would be a lot more people running around in the streets trying to escape, but because of the films pitiful budget this isn't possible. Instead we get a movie with about 6 characters in Los Angeles being chased by no more than 2-3 zombies at a time. Most of the movie takes place in what looks like abandoned parking garage --and empty alleyways. Characters stupidly one after another end up sacrificing themselves to lack luster zombies. The lack on people in Los Angeles during on End of the World type event was just laughable and annoying. Watching the 2 characters that make it to end of this pointless zombie movie running down the middle of an empty street --being chased by a couple of zombies is just an insult to zombie movies. And they make it to the beach at the end??? Is the beach supposedly safe??? If I had seen this before we had recorded our recent Zombie movie podcast---it may have made my worst Zombie movie ever list.
Skip this one The movie was made worse by the fact that I watched an episode of The Walking Dead immediately afterwards --which blew it away.
Up next I'll be watching World War Z (which I had skipped because of the over the top CGI in the trailers---but now want to check out after Andy and Russell's comments on the film in the podcast.
The Beast of the Bering Sea 2013 4 out of 10 The Bering Sea Beast.More like the Boring Sea Beast.It is basically a shark movie, but instead of sharks the main characters end up battling Sea Vampires.And by seas vampires what I mean is some Manta Ray looking creatures that look like they are made out of tar thanks to the cheesy digital effects.
These sea vampires that come from the sea –can fly and waddle around on land as well as they tryto suck the blood out of the humans that disturbed their underwater cave while dredging for gold.The acting, dialogue and effects are cheesy, but not to the point of being enjoyable.The music was actually decent and added to scenes that would have been dull based on the visuals alone.It was just hard to be even remotely scared by this silly looking monster that wrapped up their victims like a scene from the original Clash of the Titans.There was a scene where a baby one burst out of one of the characters chests just like in Alien. All in all this is no Sharknado .... Not even close. Movie Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Super-Fantastic-Terrific-Page-of-Movies-TV-and-Entertainment/178708865473822?hc_location=stream
I'm always making lists of my Top movies of the year or my favorite action movies or favorite comedies. After a couple of really bad movies lately I thought it was time for a worst of least. So below is a least of the movies that were at the bottom of the last 10 years. These movies achieved the status of worst movie of the year (out of the movies I saw for those years).
The Worst movie of 2013 so far goes to Blast Vegas 1 out of 10
This movie was absolutely terrible and came fresh on the heels of Sharknado (a so bad it was good gem). There is nothing good to say about this terrible film......But I wrote about it anyway in a previous blog
The Worst movie of 2012 Jules Verne's Mysterious Island 0 out of 10
If you thought Blast Vegas was terrible wait until you see this dreadful movie that blasphemously has Jules Verne's name on it. This one got a 0 out of 10 which is very rare. For my thoughts on this turkey....go here
This movie that tries to steal some of Marvel's Thor thunder is definitely not the Thor you are looking for........Let's face it ---it isn't the Thor anyone was looking for.
The Worst movie of 2010 Gulliver's Travel 1 out of 10
This movie cemented for me the fact that I'm not a fan of Jack Black. He has starred in 3 of the worst movies I've ever seen. As a supporting character in a movie he is ok. As a lead NOT SO MUCH. For more on this movie that currently sits as the worst movie I saw in 2010.....go here.
The Worst movie of 2009 Transmorphers :Fall of Man 2 out of 10
Transmorphers -------Less than meets the Eye" a truly terrible movie...Like Almighty Thor ---the thought process on this one only went as far as the rip-off title.
