Shark Week: Sharknado

It's real, motherfuckers.

It was only just last month that, for the price of a total loss of all credibility once and for all, Syfy bequeathed unto the world the masterpiece that is Sharknado. Sharknado is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. This made-for-TV film effectively preys on one of our deepest held fears and loathings: a shark tornado. Inclement weather that is so intense, that it cannot be scientifically explained beyond simply, "global warming". This gargantuan whirlwind of pure terror sucks up millions of sharks of all varieties and sends them careening across civilized land for miles, raining snarling, toothy death upon the hapless humanoids who are unfortunate enough to be standing anywhere within a ten mile radius of it. Indoors, on hilltops, in helicopters; there's nowhere that is safe from the horror.

Rumor has it the government is starting a new project for weaponizing Sharknados.

This is not some highly elaborate phantasm of your convoluted subconsciousness, this is Sharknado and it aired on public television Thursday, June 11th, 2013, where it quickly became the second most tweeted televised event in all of Twitter history (i.e. about seven years). The movie is pretty much as straight-forward as it appears. A giant tornado sucks up a bunch of pissed-off, blood-thirsty sharks and all hell breaks loose in the city of Los Angeles. Now, so far on The Aculeus's Shark Week, we've seen sand sharks, snow sharks, Supershark and even a goddamn Sharktopus but good God of all that is holy, Sharknado might just take the all-encompassing, bat-shit madness cake. You haven't lived until you've seen mediocre actors, armed to the teeth with shotguns, chainsaws, bombs and boobs, vying for their very lives against hordes of flying, flesh-hungry fish.

But it really is one of those movies that needs to be seen to be believed. I could talk about every individual scene from sharks swallowing a helicopter co-pilot, to needlessly bitchy ex-wives and their douchebag boyfriends, to setting a pool on fire, to bombing a hurricane in order to stop it, this movie really has it all. The acting as I mentioned above, is definitely sub-par but is actually better than what you'd expect for this kind of movie. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick the nearly emotionless screams and such but it wasn't so bad that it seriously detracted from the rest of the movie and it's certainly better than most of the other films we've seen so far.

What was much worse than the acting, was the writing itself. There's a scene where an attractive female character tells a 'heart-wrenching' story about how she got her scars (she changes the story every time... sound familiar?) which involves a boating trip gone wrong. But this ain't no Robert Shaw in Jaws and she concludes her tale with a line that goes something like, "That's why I hate sharks so much." I'm not sure if it's necessary to throw in some heated emotions towards sharks because what it comes down to is that this movie is comprised mostly of cutting back and forth between stock footage of sharks swimming in the ocean and horrendously CG'd sharks falling from the sky. Oh, and speaking of the CG...

It's so fucking hilariously bad that it's not even worth commenting on. Would you just look at that shot with all of the sharks falling from the sky? That pretty much sums up the entire movie. As I mentioned above, this movie was so fucking popular that it was generating 5,000 tweets per minute at it's peak and had well over 300,000 tweets total and had participation from several celebrities.

As you read this, Syfy is already well underway in their talks about a sequel, which I couldn't be more excited for because out of all of the movies I can think of, all of those unjustly, unresolved plots out there, Sharknado is absolutely the number one in deserving of a followup. What could be next? Is Crocosaurus going to get in on the action? Perhaps the survivors of LA will know that the only way to stop the shark menace is to summon Cthulhu? Maybe this time it will be a super tornado that threatens, not just the west coast but the whole world and humanity as we know it! Whatever the plot could possibly be, I have no idea how they plan to top the original masterpiece.

Sharknado is essentially the newest The Room. So while some people may question the science, or the morals of sensationalizing on a highly sensitive topic such as murderous flying shark-storms, I will sit tight for Sharknado 2 because seeing a grown man dive, chainsaw first into the belly of a shark only one time is simply not enough of an adrenaline rush for me.

This gif sums up the daily struggles of the working-class American.