And the summer blockbuster is ... ‘Sharknado’?
So, a shark goes to a bar in Nantucket. No, seriously. A shark somehow wound
up at the front door of a pub in Nantucket, Mass., and no one has an explanation
for why or how it wound up there. Naturally, my first thought was, “Sharknado.”
I think I may be one of the few people left in the country who hasn’t seen the made-for-TV summer blockbuster, although I did record it last weekend.
For anyone out there saying, “Sharknado?”, it’s a SyFy channel movie about a huge storm hitting Los Angeles and, in the process, water spouts pull thousands of sharks from the ocean and lands them in flooded streets ... and on people.
As with most SyFy movies, it features B-list, and even C-list, actors whose faces you’d recognize and names you’ve heard, but are just this side of doing local used car lot commercials — Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills 90210”), Tara Reid (“American Pie,” “American Pie 2”) and other actors you probably haven’t heard of before.
My first clue that I may have missed something so monumentally awful that it shouldn’t have been missed came the night it first aired and Twitter was full of running commentary about it. Even Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel and the Oak Ridge Boys’ Joe Bonsal were tweeting about it. (Cantore wondered why they hadn’t cast him as the weatherman; after all, wherever there’s a weather disaster he’s there.) Folks were going crazy as they carried on running updates of what was happening, cracking jokes and generally having a ball.
Oh, they weren’t four-star reviews. They were making fun at something so terrible it was good in its own warped way. I’ve always been amazed at how much people can like something that’s so bad, sort of like the yahoos everyone keeps re-electing. Some movies and TV shows become cult favorites because they’re so bad and people love to laugh at them. Remember “Mystery Science 3000,” which took movies usually found at the bottom of a triple bill at drive-ins and poked fun at them?
SyFy is a great source of these kinds of movies since drive-ins largely have vanished from the countryside and it’s questionable if people would even spend $1.25 at Redbox to rent the DVDs. Along with better quality scripted series and “reality” series actually related to science fiction, fantasy and horror topics, SyFy now is renowned for its cheesy movies.
Movies like “Chupacabra vs. The Alamo,” “Bigfoot” (starring Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams), “Jersey Shore Shark Attack” and “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid” (SyFy’s big on “vs.” and giant creatures). Those are some of the better titles.
At least they’re keeping writers in work, and I bet they have some interesting conversations around the water cooler.
“How’s this, we have a giant shark that swims up the Mississippi to Memphis where it starts feeding on riverfront barbecue joints?”
“Or, what if we cross a shark with an alligator and have a bunch of bearded rednecks in camo trying to capture it?”
“Better — they use giant ducks for bait, only the ducks get loose and attack Baton Rouge.”
“Yeah, and then these vampires from Mississippi chase werewolves into Louisiana and run into the giant ducks, that have gone rabid and are gobbling down college co-eds.”
“And the college co-eds all work for Hooters.”
“Um, ... OK, but the rednecks have to lose their shirts somewhere along the way, and be really buff.”
“Wait, get this: The sharkgator makes it to the Mississippi River, where it encounters the giant barbecue shark, and the vampires and werewolves gang up on the giant rabid ducks, and the shirtless, bearded rednecks surround the lot of them.”
“Great! But, how do we finish it?”
(A few moments of silence.)
“A giant tornado comes out of Texas, sucks up the barbecue shark, sharkgator, the giant rabid ducks, the vampires and the werewolves, but the shirtless bearded rednecks manage to get into storm shelters and are saved.”
“But, what happens to all the critters?”
“Some land on Animal Planet, the rest on TLC and they all get their own reality shows.”
It’s been a long week, folks.
I think I may be one of the few people left in the country who hasn’t seen the made-for-TV summer blockbuster, although I did record it last weekend.
For anyone out there saying, “Sharknado?”, it’s a SyFy channel movie about a huge storm hitting Los Angeles and, in the process, water spouts pull thousands of sharks from the ocean and lands them in flooded streets ... and on people.
As with most SyFy movies, it features B-list, and even C-list, actors whose faces you’d recognize and names you’ve heard, but are just this side of doing local used car lot commercials — Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills 90210”), Tara Reid (“American Pie,” “American Pie 2”) and other actors you probably haven’t heard of before.
My first clue that I may have missed something so monumentally awful that it shouldn’t have been missed came the night it first aired and Twitter was full of running commentary about it. Even Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel and the Oak Ridge Boys’ Joe Bonsal were tweeting about it. (Cantore wondered why they hadn’t cast him as the weatherman; after all, wherever there’s a weather disaster he’s there.) Folks were going crazy as they carried on running updates of what was happening, cracking jokes and generally having a ball.
Oh, they weren’t four-star reviews. They were making fun at something so terrible it was good in its own warped way. I’ve always been amazed at how much people can like something that’s so bad, sort of like the yahoos everyone keeps re-electing. Some movies and TV shows become cult favorites because they’re so bad and people love to laugh at them. Remember “Mystery Science 3000,” which took movies usually found at the bottom of a triple bill at drive-ins and poked fun at them?
SyFy is a great source of these kinds of movies since drive-ins largely have vanished from the countryside and it’s questionable if people would even spend $1.25 at Redbox to rent the DVDs. Along with better quality scripted series and “reality” series actually related to science fiction, fantasy and horror topics, SyFy now is renowned for its cheesy movies.
Movies like “Chupacabra vs. The Alamo,” “Bigfoot” (starring Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams), “Jersey Shore Shark Attack” and “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid” (SyFy’s big on “vs.” and giant creatures). Those are some of the better titles.
At least they’re keeping writers in work, and I bet they have some interesting conversations around the water cooler.
“How’s this, we have a giant shark that swims up the Mississippi to Memphis where it starts feeding on riverfront barbecue joints?”
“Or, what if we cross a shark with an alligator and have a bunch of bearded rednecks in camo trying to capture it?”
“Better — they use giant ducks for bait, only the ducks get loose and attack Baton Rouge.”
“Yeah, and then these vampires from Mississippi chase werewolves into Louisiana and run into the giant ducks, that have gone rabid and are gobbling down college co-eds.”
“And the college co-eds all work for Hooters.”
“Um, ... OK, but the rednecks have to lose their shirts somewhere along the way, and be really buff.”
“Wait, get this: The sharkgator makes it to the Mississippi River, where it encounters the giant barbecue shark, and the vampires and werewolves gang up on the giant rabid ducks, and the shirtless, bearded rednecks surround the lot of them.”
“Great! But, how do we finish it?”
(A few moments of silence.)
“A giant tornado comes out of Texas, sucks up the barbecue shark, sharkgator, the giant rabid ducks, the vampires and the werewolves, but the shirtless bearded rednecks manage to get into storm shelters and are saved.”
“But, what happens to all the critters?”
“Some land on Animal Planet, the rest on TLC and they all get their own reality shows.”
It’s been a long week, folks.
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