*. A made-for-TV movie that premiered on the Syfy channel (and had a limited theatrical release), Sharknado has become something of a cult franchise, spawning five sequels as of this writing. The sixth film is titled The Last Sharknado, but one can’t be too hopeful. That promise has been broken before.
*. The premise has it that a freak weather system dumps a pile of rain, and a swarm of sharks (but no other marine life) on the streets of Los Angeles. As premises go you can see why it was a hit. It’s so goofy and over-the-top that it draws in the curious crowd. There’s also nothing much to it aside from what you’d be able to glean from the title. Not coincidentally it was first conceived of only as a joke movie title to be slipped into another film. So basically it’s click-bait. It sounds so dumb you just have to check it out. But you feel played and stupid later.
*. Kim Newman: beyond its “attention-getting title” it’s only “cynically thrown-together rubbish . . . not funny when it tries for snark, padded with family arguments and weather footage, and unexciting in its action/peril scenes.” That pretty much sums it up. Newman actually gives it credit for having “just enough footage of terrible CG sharks in a terrible CG tornado chomping on people to fill out a trailer suitable for attracting YouTube hits,” while I would say the only good thing about it is the title. And when you think about it, the title isn’t that funny.
*. OK, it’s crap, with no aspirations to be anything other than crap. The CGI is atrocious and the acting possibly even worse. The script is garbage, wasting our time with a clichéd story about a broken family coming together under extreme pressure. As Newman points out, there’s no comedy (though I think it’s partly to its credit that it does take its premise seriously, which the sequels wouldn’t). The action and gore are even duller than the scenes where the characters are sitting in a car talking.
*. What’s there to like then? Or if not like then at least find interesting? I’ll give you a couple of things. First off: Cassandro Scerbo’s ass. Yes, I’m serious. A lot of actors, male and female, use body doubles for various body parts. Butts are a common one, especially for butt shots of girls in bikinis. But Scerbo rocks a bikini in her opening scene. Well done.
*. The other thing that I found noteworthy is the way Scerbo’s character is shown as crushing on her boss (Ian Ziering) at the start of the movie, and then awkwardly transitioning to her pairing off with Ziering’s son at the end. I think this is just sloppy screenwriting, but it does have a weird schematic effect. It’s so crude and formulaic it almost feel like you’re watching an outline or draft for a (bad) movie, pushed out the door before anyone could fix basic problems with the script.
*. So it’s terrible, and I certainly don’t mean that in a so-bad-its-good kind of way. I agree with Newman’s charge of cynicism, but that was a bet the creators made and it turned out to be one that paid off handsomely. Contemporary culture seems to have an insatiable sweet tooth for the bad and the incompetent. Years ago Roger Ebert puzzled over why so many people wanted to watch movies that they knew were bad instead of ones that they thought might be good. He had no answer.
*. I guess it’s the same principle as junk food. Call me a grumpy old man (because I am), but one thing I’ve noticed is that with the Internet this kind of trash culture has metastasized. When was the last time something good or of value “went viral”? And this is very much the marketing model that Sharknado and its sequels pursues, as Newman and others point out.
*. What then is the cure for this disease? We might note that critics and reviewers, afraid of being left behind or missing the joke, were actually far kinder to this movie than audiences were. So don’t expect any help from our culture’s physicians.
Alex on Film 
That is on my nope list. Can’t make out what’s going on I. The picture, looks like a flying shark and a chap with a magic wand.
It’s a chainsaw!
Are they underwater?
Nooo! The tornados bring the sharks to them!
Ridiculous.
Well, yes. That goes without saying.
just now managed to see this, the chainsaw guy used to be in Beverly Hills 9,10,11,12 or whatever, he hasn’t really come a long way has he?
He found his niche. Actually, he’s pretty good in the second Sharknado movie. But this was it.
You are a grumpy old man.
And I never said I liked Trainspotting. Grisly English public schoolboys misunderstanding of Scottish culture. So you can stick your Iggy Pop song too. Up your GG with a wah-wah stick.
You are one of Ibsen’s lesser dramas.
You are one of Shakespeare’s problem plays.
You are the Ubiquitous Chip menu item that nobody ever orders.
You are a 1979 tv movie with Didi Conn and Jason Robards Sr.
You are a Bert Gordon film festival in a mulitplex.
Ypu are an experimental short film entitled Two Tomatoes on a Pan Lid.
You are an own goal. During a rain delay.
You are a baldy poltroon with no more right to live that a fetid stoat.
You are a sullen Scot who writes English like a fourteenth language, on a keyboard with half the keys missing.
You are a perverted Canadian Gollum in medical diapers who screenshots Julianne Moore on the toilet and considers this to be some kind of personal achievement.
You are an overpriced bag of chips stuck in the snack machine.
You are the last turkey in the shop on Xmas Eve.
You are, unfortunately, the last bit of nonsense I have to respond to as I go out to do the bins.
You live in the bins and hump your trash every day.
What is a ubiquitous chip?
Eddie knows!!
That doesn’t help.
https://www.ubiquitouschip.co.uk/
Thanks, I would have the Tweed Valley Fillet steak with mushrooms and garlic, but nothing else on it floats my boat.
I’d probably go with a salad. Seems a bit high-end.
Apparently it’s swanky, I like a bit of swank in a restaurant though, I’m a high end type of person.
I have to admit, I watched the first 3 of these films when they came to Prime. It was even worse than I was expecting.
And i had a blast. Everything was just so deliberately bad that I found it funny. For 3 movies. Then I came to my senses and didn’t bother with any more. Talk about about a close shave.
I thought the second one was the best. By the time the third came around they’d jumped the shark, pretty much literally. My notes on them will be coming up.
Oh, you’re going to review a bunch of them? How far did you get?
Only notes on the first three. Because those were the ones I had in my Sharknado DVD three-pack. Shark Week keeps on rolling.
You paid money to watch these?
I think it was $4.99 for three movies. I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Better than the Scarecrow Trilogy anyway.
What is the Scarecrow franchise? Never heard of it.
What is it? In a word: awful. In more words:
Thanks for the link.
Yikes. And yep, the title isn’t even that good. What a sorry story.
And there was so much more to come! That title apparently never got old. At least for some people. Great branding anyway.
Oh my word. Yeah, I had an experience watching this movie. It was bad. It was so bad that we (a male and female group) unanimously sat down the next day and watched Pride and Prejudice to LITERALLY reset our brains. We didn’t actually ban Mike from picking the movies ever again, but we really should have….
P&P would work as a palate cleanser, I think. Which version though?
We ended up watching both the 1995 and 2005 versions. 🙂