Sharknado (2013)
“Oh crap…look at all those sharks!”
or…Surf, Sharks, and Storms in Santa Monica.
Ok, imagine Bikini Valley Car Wash with flying sharks…got it? All right, you’re ready for Sharknado.
The movie begins with some shark fin poachers who sail into a swarm of 20,000 breeding sharks worked up by shark hormones and the first ever hurricane to hit the Pacific (I know, I know, settle down Mr. Meteorologist - I watch the Weather Channel too and know they don’t have hurricanes there - just enjoy the ride).
Anyway, things don’t go well for the poachers.
Flash forward to aging surfer dude Fin (what else), played by Ian Ziering (Zombie Tidal Wave), who runs a bar on the Santa Monica pier with his wannabe girlfriend Nova (Cassandra Scerbo), even older surfer dude George (John Heard - Home Alone), and Australian aging surfer dude Baz (Jason Simmons from the old school Bay Watch).
After a few drinks and some snappy surf banter, Team Fin comes face to face with the shark swarm (remember them?) as it slams into Southern California, riding wild waves, groovy water spouts, and tricked out tornados.
The next hour is a crazy quilt of girls in bikinis, flying sharks, explosions, chainsaws, shotguns, and more disaster movie tropes than you’ll find in Irwin Allen’s bathroom.
Lest you think this is all silliness, Sharknado includes the high-quality science teaching points you expect from SyFy.
A few things I learned watching this:
Sharks can fly
Sharks can breath air
Flooding your gas tank will cause your car to explode
You can blow up a swimming pool with a half can of gasoline and a book of matches
You can blow up a tornado by dropping a propane tank into it
You can be swallowed by a shark, drop 500 feet through the air, be cut out of the shark, and be ready to go dancing later that night
Stay in school kids. Science will save the say.
So what’s the verdict on this movie?
I’m tempted to say “This is a disaster movie with teeth,” but I’d be taking this flick more seriously than the people who made it. The sharks look like stuffed toys; the violence is somewhere between pro-wrestling, an EC horror comic, and a bad Saturday Night Live sketch; and the cast decided to stop even pretending to act in the last 20 minutes of the movie.
But it is crazy, goofy, fun.
You can catch Sharknado HERE.
Three out of Five Fins.
🦈🦈🦈
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