Every so often, we see a movie that’s so bad that it’s the best thing we’ve ever seen, and 2013’s Sharknado is one such film. In case you’re wondering what Sharknado is about, the title says it all: a wave of shark-infested tornadoes plagues Los Angeles, and it’s up to our heroes to save the day. Think of Sharknado as Jaws meets Twister, but if both films were haphazardly cut together while the editor was on bath salts. But we’re not here to write a hit piece on the movie, because Sharknado is not only downright terrible, it’s supposed to be!
Making a film that’s deliberately bad is no easy feat, but Thunder Levin amazes us with his writing, and Anthony C. Ferrante definitely understood the assignment. Though they play it straight, the film’s promotional tagline, “Enough Said!” tells us all we need to know. In other words, you’re not supposed to watch Sharknado with a critical eye, but rather sit back with your friends, throw down a couple of beers, and scream at the TV screen as you die of laughter. When a film falls into the “made-for-television science fiction comedy disaster film” genre, you should know what you’re getting yourself into. If you need a primer as to why Sharknado is the perfect “so-bad-it’s-good” movie, then we’re here to get into it.
Deliberately Bad
Rotten Tomatoes describes Sharknado as “proudly, shamelessly, and gloriously brainless,” stating that it “redefines the ‘so bad it’s good’ for a new generation.” And they’re right to say this. Normally, we’d say to ourselves that this particular film has no right boasting a 74 percent rating, but this film was created to defy the critic’s pen, and even they understood the assignment. Think about it, if you think a film about a shark tornado that chases its victims with no rhyme or reason like in a bad slasher film that was created to win an Oscar, then you’re living on a totally different planet.
And it’s not just the fact that there are one-dimensional characters, choppy editing, laughably bad special effects, or the gratuitous use of stock news footage that makes this film so great, it’s the fact that all of these things were done deliberately as if to say, “you want us to make a bad movie? Challenge accepted!” We see sharks where there’s no water, but we are willing to suspend our disbelief because we honestly want to see where the movie takes us.
Too Many One-Liners to Count
Sharknado follows Fin Shepard, an ex-surfer turned bar owner, as the storm of the century breaks out in Los Angeles. The premise is simple: the shark-infested tornado destroys his bar, and he needs to locate April (Tara Reid), his ex-wife, and his children, to protect them from the tornado before it’s too late. He’s accompanied by George (John Heard of Home Alone fame), and Nova, his bartender, as they take a harrowing trip across the 405 to save the day.
And throughout this misadventure, the dialogue is made almost entirely of one-liners. When Nova racks her shotgun in the passenger seat, Fin tells her it’s really hot when she does it. When Nova uses said shotgun to blow the heads off sharks at April’s house, it’s stated that the bloody water makes it look like it’s the shark’s time of the month. When Fin needs to pull students out of a submerged school bus surrounded by sharks, he cheekily says, “need a lift?” The only thing that’s missing is the dropping of the title through dialogue… wait, they do that too when they simply say “sharks in a tornado. Sharknado. Simply stunning.”
Cast, Crew, Audience Are All in on the Joke
Cast interviews reveal to us that the cast and crew knew what they were getting into when they signed on to Sharknado. Tara Reid (The Big Lebowski) went on record saying, “We were responding to absolutely nothing. We were laughing so hard. It was so ridiculous. It was really fun to see everything come together and see the film once the effects were added.” This was in response to the fact that there were no actual sharks in the film. Somebody from the crew would simply smack their car and yell shark, and then they had to react to it for the sake of cinema. In other words, they were all in on the joke.
And it’s clear that everybody was up for the task. Twitter all but melted down upon Sharknado’s release, and believe it or not, that was unexpected. Everybody involved knew they were onto something, but didn’t know that the film would be so well received. When you’re too close to a project, it’s hard to know what’s going to be successful. Anthony Ferrante even stated that they knew they “did something, but didn’t quite know what.” In other words, it was known from the get-go that they weren’t going to produce a cinematic masterpiece. They just wanted to throw mud at the wall, and see if it stuck. Considering that there are a total of seven (read that again, SEVEN) Sharknado movies, they clearly did something right; they captured lightning in a bottle (because sharks don’t fit in bottles), and the franchise became a SYFY staple.
Blatant Caricature of Disaster Movies From the Past
The ’90s were all about apocalyptic disaster movies, and some were quite good. Twister was iconic, Dante’s Peak, and Volcano tried to be rooted in reality, and things even got interstellar with Armageddon, and Deep Impact. These were all films that showed our protagonists getting together, against all odds, to stop some form of disaster from ruining their communities.
Sharknado follows all the beats of these films, but does so with its tongue in its cheek. We see people jumping away from an explosion in just a nick of time, one-liners being belted out before the person who says them is crushed by the Hollywood sign, and of course, we have Fin sawing himself out from inside a great white, completely unscathed as if it was a part of his daily life. While Jaws was a masterpiece that still makes us terrified of going to the beach to this day, Sharknado is so far removed from reality that we don’t have to worry about anything, which is probably where a lot of its appeal comes from.
Tornado Helicopter Shark Bombs
You read that header correctly. Tornado. Helicopter. Shark. Bombs. When Fin and co. decide that blowing up the tornado is the only option, Fin’s son, Matt, is ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good by flying a helicopter into the storm. During the climax of the film, we already know what’s going to happen at this point because every moment has led us here. But just like the iconically ironic “it must be some kind of hot tub time machine…” quote from Hot Tub Time Machine, the need to spell it out as blatantly as possible only adds to the comedy. And when Matt simply states, “Instead of letting live sharks rain down on people, we’re going to get in that chopper and throw bombs into the tornadoes,” we just want to hoot and holler at the TV screen because it’s just so delightfully stupid.
