sharknado mostly sucks

i was intrigued to learn that sharknado came out on netflix recently, so i decided to see what all the buzz was all about. i went into it with high expectations from hearing everyone express so much enthusiasm for it, but unfortunately, xiao long was not impressed.

admittedly, there were a few fantastic scenes in the movie, such as when the guy uses a chainsaw to brace for impact from an open-mouthed shark falling from the sky, and ends up being swallowed by the shark and chainsawing his way out with a friend who, to her misfortune and fortune, was swallowed alive and whole by the same shark.

it was also excellent when the guy shot a shark out of the sky from a long distance with a hand gun.

beyond this, sharknado's total lack of sincerity made it difficult for me to really enjoy this film--this movie was intentionally bad, and possibly even a parody of itself. how can i mock it when it is already so self aware? i don't actually believe that the director thinks you can shoot something out of the sky with a handgun, and knowing that, i can only say "WHAT!" so many times. but it's still tempting--why, WHY is the house flooded and has a shark in it if the driveway is water-free? if anything, the reactions to sharknado made me realize that as bat shit crazy as some people are, at the core of things we all do agree on how a few things in the world are and should be. a good test of mental hygiene test would be to show someone this movie and gauge their reactions to it: if they see no inconsistencies in the world of sharknado, then they surely are bat shit crazy. but for us, those sane ones, glaring logical inconsistencies cause such outrage and hilarity as sharknado does.

but the writers know this too, so i feel kind of manipulated. if you go beyond the these quirks, and the ridiculous premise of shark-filled tornadoes, there is really nothing there; the dialogue is terrible, the plot is conventional. really, the only good thing about this movie is that a man flies through a shark with a chainsaw, but i have already mentioned that, and that was the climax of the movie anyhow.

now i'm not going to argue that all terrible B horror movies are made in the utmost sincerity, i think a lot of writers/directors probably knows that they are at least slightly ridiculous (unless you are the director of troll 2, who claims that he made a good movie), but in the best ones the jokes are more subtle, the "world" of the movie is better developed, and the characters are more interesting. in these movies it seems like the writer/director actually cared about the product they were making--that it had some aspect of their artistry in it.

i guess...i don't really know what to think about sharknado. on one hand it must be genius, because it hit the right chords with so many people, and is brutally honest about it's stupidity, but on the other, it's really the pits. numbness and apathy are worrisome.

by the way, if you want to watch a truly terrible horror movie, check out "rawhead rex", the 1986 terror of the irish countryside. as my friend put it, "someone took the time." for better or for worse...