The latest film in the series that follows Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering), April Wexler (Tara Reid), their friends and family and a bunch of over-the-top celebrity players is called "Sharnado 5: Global Swarming."
The title alone should warn you that it is not Sharkspeare. You don’t have to watch the series from the beginning to “get it.”
The ridiculously campy series, which has gotten progressively more ridiculously campy, is about a tornado of sharks who crave human flesh and somehow breathe out of water.
To put it bluntly, it is probably not the sort of thing you'd ever see at the Neon movies.
That doesn’t mean it is not worth watching
A man who made it unsafe to go into the water agrees.
I asked Carl Gottlieb, the co-writer of my all-time favorite movie "Jaws," about Sharknado when he was in town last week for an event at Wiley's Comedy Joint.
“Sharknado is funny. I enjoyed the concept,” Gottlieb said. “I appreciate pictures like Sharknado more than I appreciate knockoffs where a bear terrorizes a town. Killer squirrels. Rabbit monkeys…”
In a world of 1 million reboots and remakes, Sharknado can only be accused of copying itself — having really silly story lines and throwing nods to classic movies like “Jaws” and “Twilight Zone: The Movie.”
There are tons of mockbusters and knockbusters, but they cannot hold a candle to Sharknado.
The series might be really stupid… scratch that, it is really stupid. But for the most part, it is really original.
The made-for-TV, sci-fi horror comedy lives in an alternative reality where sharks of all kinds would just as soon swallow you whole as they would swim in the deep blue ocean.
Sharks can swim in space and a burning shark carcass can sometimes deliver a pregnant woman back to Earth.
That woman can then saw herself free of said shark carcass and deliver her newborn through the hole.
Nope, it is not a mashup of Jaws and "Muppets From Space."
I’ve seen all the movies and cannot tell you exactly why there’s one, let alone multiple sharknados. I think it has to do something with scientists on a boat, really bad computer graphics and a lot of running.
Or perhaps there is a deeper meaning about global warming, humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels or capitalism run amok… nah.
In a world of global warming, humanity’s reliance on fossil and capitalism run amok it is nice to have a little escapism every once in a while.
Go sharks!
About the Author
