SHARKNADO: A review of the 20 minutes I managed to watch before changing the channel.

SciFi Channel movies (I refuse to write SyFy) used to be awesome.  I still love ALIEN APOCALYPSE with Bruce Campbell.  In fact, outside of the EVIL DEAD trilogy it might be my favorite Bruce Campbell movie.  Sure it was made on a shoestring budget, the aliens looked like grasshoppers, and the acting sucked, but at least you felt like SciFi was trying to make a good movie.  Unfortunately, based on the quality of SHARKNADO, it seems that SciFi has forgotten the #1 rule of making a successful B-Movie.

B-MOVIES ONLY SUCCEED IF THE FILMMAKER SETS OUT TO MAKE A GOOD MOVIE.

This is the simple rule by which I judge all B-movies, and it has served me well for years.  For example, in the mid-nineties a slasher flick came out called JACK FROST.  The villain was played straight...even though he was a talking snowman.  The comedy was situational and occurred as a result of the insanity of having to deal with a killer snowman. Similarly, any deficits in production value are clearly as a result of a micro-budget movie...not because the director didn't care. The filmmakers had no budget and were obviously trying to make the best killer snowman movie they could.  The result is a movie I don't mind showing to people because it is a "party" movie.  You can laugh at the absurdity of the movie but still see the genuine skill...or attempts at skill.

Image source: comiccatacombs.blogspot.com

And then JACK FROST 2: ATTACK OF THE MUTANT KILLER SNOWMAN happened.

As soon as I hit the PLAY button on my VCR I knew something was off about the sequel.  The villain was played for laughs.  The gore was toned down.  The acting, which was pretty poor in the original, was now exaggerated to the point of parody.  Nothing worked.  The filmmakers saw that audiences found the original film funny, but failed to understand that it was the serious reactions of the characters being put in an insane situation that brought the humor into an otherwise B-picture.  However, with tongue planted firmly in cheek for the sequel, the filmmakers undermined the project and killed the franchise.

And so it is with SHARKNADO and all current SciFi Original Pictures.

Image source: Huffingtonpost

At no point in the time I was watching SHARKNADO did I feel like anyone cared.  Sight-lines were never right.  Shots didn't match up.  Green Screen photography was constant and obvious.  The special effects were terrible (unsurprisingly). Katrina stock footage was prevalent. Tara Reid.  Every scene felt like it had been made by someone who didn't care and actually believed people want to just see a bad movie because they like bad movies.

These yahoos probably think that Ed Wood was trying purposefully to make PLAN 9 bad movie.  No!!!  Ed Wood was trying to make a great movie....he just didn't have any talent.  It is his failure to make a good movie that makes PLAN 9 a classic.  Unfortunately for us, the makers of SHARKNADO not only lack talent, they lack respect for their audience.

SHARKNADO (The 20 minutes I watched): 1/10.

I dub thee SHITNADO.