Sharknado! Oh No, It's Back!

In the 1950's a new genre of films arrived on the silver screen. These were not exactly top notch films with "A" list stars; rather they were done in a, shall we say, cheesy manner. Poor special effects, less than known actors, low budgets and commonly new(er) directors.

The B Movies.

The Giant Claw, The Alligator People, Attack of the Crab Monsters, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, and the greatest one of all, Godzilla. Monsters from the deep, from outer space, from who knows where came crawling across our landscape to terrorize us, kill us, and eat us.

Well, it is no longer the '50's or '60's but I assure you: these B movies are alive and well today!

SyFy Channel has taken up the gauntlet thrown down over 50 years ago and is producing the B movie at an astounding rate. Multiple movies coming out annually featuring all sorts of beasties intent on nothing more than our annihilation, or at least inviting us to dinner.

Their dinner!

In general, I have not been too fond of these B movies, those that are filled with unknown actors who at best spent time on a High School stage, those poke fun at other movies in a satirical manner but I have found that, against my better judgement, I liked this stupid film. And I also have to say that the actors and producers of the film must be having a blast. I mean, really: a tornado (or series of tornados) which pick up a bunch of sharks and carry them onto dry land, dropping them helter skelter across the landscape of Los Angeles?

And they got paid to make this film? Man, what a ride!!

Released on SyFy channel on July 11, 2013 to an audience of 1.37 million viewers during the premiere, Sharknado quickly became a cult hit. It was shown a week later to an audience of approaching 1.9 million, followed by a third showing another week later with more than 2.1 million watching this now hit movie. From there it moved overseas and became a hit in Australia, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand.

The plot (such as it is) is that a waterspout over the Pacific Ocean picks up a group of man eating sharks and carries them inland, to Los Angeles. A surfer dude named Fin (love it!) sets out with friends to rescue his estranged wife and daughter. Along the way, sharks begin raining down on them time and again. Mass destruction and death occur due to these sharks falling from the sky and mayhem is at every corner.

The storm creates mass flooding and the sharks which have fallen are now swimming around buildings and homes attacking and eating people. Some of the "team" go up in a helicopter and try to halt the tornado/sharknado by tossing homemade bombs into it.

NOTE: THEY STOLE ONE OF MY IDEAS!!! I actually had a manuscript I was working on long before this movie came out which was about a tornado stormchaser who flew into the tornado in a C-130 Hurricane Chaser plane and sent a fire bomb into the midst of the tornado, exploding it and removing the elements which created the tornado in the first place. Like my idea for a commercial about Rogaine using the old song Cocaine as a theme, I had the idea and acted on it too late. Damn.

Anyway, they destroyed the sharknado, saved the soon to be ex-wife, his daughter and several others. Thus spawned a following of people who purchased the DVD, a video game, and who knows what else paraphernalia associated with the movie. Suffice it to say, the SyFy channel had a runaway hit and burgeoning film series on its hands.

Just over one year later, Sharknado 2 premiered to a worldwide audience of just short of 4 million viewers. Amazing! And although the critics generally panned it, with a 50 rating out of 100 on one site and a 59% rating on another, people still loved the nonsensical ridiculousness of it, the mindless humor/horror keeping people glued to the screen in fits of laughter.

But what got me were the number of stars who appeared in cameos in it. People who had basically begged to appear in this film in one capacity or another. People like:

Judd Hirsch, who appeared as a taxi driver (remember the TV series where he was a taxi driver?)

Jared Fogle, he of Subway fame.

Robert Hays as an airplane pitot (a la Airplane!)

Billy Ray Cyrus as a doctor

Daymond John as a panelist on Shark Tank

Even the epitome of the shark disaster films Jaws got in on the action. Names such as Martin Brody, his wife Ellen, Vaughn the mayor and even Quint appear in one form or another.

Oh, and the shark's first victim here? None other than Chrissy!

Others who appear as themselves include Matt Lauer and Al Roker; Stephanie Abrams; Kelly Ripa, Michael Strahan and Michael Gelman from Live with Kelly and Michael!.

The recognizable faces don't end there. Kelly Osbourne, Andy Dick, Downtown Julie Brown and Vivica Fox all make cameos in this funfest of stupidity.

What was the Plot? Basically the same except now they were in New York City. The star of Sharknado, Fin and his ex-wife are in NY promoting a book: How To Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters (which was incidentally made into an actual book). As they fly into the city, sharks begin raining down on the plane, taking out an engine and somehow ending up on the plane itself. Naturally, the sharks do what they do best (attack people) and all hell breaks loose on the Eastern shore of the U.S both in the air and on the ground.

Subways flood, sharks attack, mayhem again. They try the bomb thing once more but to no avail (seems the storm is too cold) so something larger is required: how about a tank of Freon set of on top of the Empire State Building? Yeah! That'll do it!

Storm ends, sharks die, guy falls for ex wife, proposes, and all is well.

Or is it?

Debuting Wednesday, July 23, 2015 Sharknado completes the trilogy. What is going to happen? Who knows? Where will it strike? Texas? New Orleans? Disney World? Maybe even Washington D.C.? Is any place safe from these man eating tornado surfing beasties?

I fear not.

More stars begged once more to appear in this film, such as Mark Cuban, David Hasselhoff, Bo Derek, Jerry Springer, Robert Klein, Kathie Lee and Hoda, Rick Fox (NBA layer and actor in Holes), Chris Jericho (maybe he's going to wrestle a shark?), Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Middle), Michael Winslow (Police Academy), Grant Imahara (Mythbusters), Bill Engvall (Blue Collar Comedy), Jackie Collins, Harvey Levin (The People's Court) and even the Original Hulk, Lou Ferrigno. Matt Lauer and Al Roker, along with Stephanie Abrams (I love it when she says they are receiving over two inches of shark an hour rainfall) make their returns in the film as well. Suffice it to say, the cast has grown exponentially over the past three movies and who knows who we'll see next.

Maybe Penn and Teller will appear to make the sharks disappear!

All i can say is that I know my son and I will be seated next to one another next Wednesday, popcorn in hand, drinks on the table in front of us, and my trusty chainsaw ready to be started at the first sign of a storm!

Sharknado will begin at 4:00 PM CDT, followed by Sharknado 2 at 6:00 PM, then the premiere of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! at 8:00 PM. Join us if you dare in this utterly ridiculous film and laugh yourself silly at what occurs. And know we will be laughing with you. See you there!!

We laughed ourselves silly. The cast went over and above in the ridiculousness factor and I still hurt from laughing.

So, the premise was sharknados hitting Washington D.C. and reeking havoc. Fin was receiving an award when it hit and he had to save the President. From there, he was heading down to Orlando where his new bride (which is his ex wife) were vacationing. She is pregnant and Bo Derek is her mother.

Sharknados form up and down the eastern seaboard and people are dying left and right. Fin meets up with Nova, his old waitress and she has become this super-sharknado hunter, complete with an RV from hell. They find their way to where his family is and discover the sharknados are growing in size and strength. Anyone up to 100 miles inland is in danger, and Fin must save them all. But how?

Enter The Hoff. Turns out Fin is Gill Shepard's son, and Gill is an astronaut. Now comes the fun part. Gill gets Fin on board a super-secret military space shuttle and into space. Seems a little explosion like in Sharknado and Sharknado 2 won't cut it to destroy the storms; gonna take something much larger. They want to use the fuel tank from a space shuttle to blow up the storms.

But even that goes wrong. Just when we think civilization is going to fall to these bloodthirsty sharks, Gill saves the day once more. Seems he has the keys to the old Star Wars systems put into space many years ago. They light this thing up and destroy the storms, thus saving the world.

But then, in a dramatic moment, the sharks soar into space to take their revenge. Sharks are hitting the shuttle and destroy it. Fin, Gill and Fin's pregnant wife (who got trapped on board as she was saying goodbye to Fin when sharks attacked the shuttle on the launch pad) are lost in space. However will they get down?

I'm not gonna tell you!

You will have to watch it when it comes back out this Saturday, July 25th at 6:00 PM EDT. Watch it and groan with the gags, the silly nature, and the utter ridiculousness of it all. I promise, you will emerge having wasted a couple of hours but will have a smile on your face.

So how was it received? Well. apparently quite well. Over a billion and a half, that's 1.5 BILLION tweets about it took place during and after the first airing. Unreal!!