Hooptober Neun (2022) - Film #1

I love ridiculous things happening in films, I really do. That’s a big part of the reason I’ve been meaning to watch Sharknado. I’m well aware it’s low budget, C-movie standard fare, but so often that ends up hitting the right buttons for me.

The main problem here is the effect work. This sort of junk worked amazingly well when the bulk of the effects were practical. The explosion in CGI usage has made it so that Sharknado style concepts are more likely to get made, but unfortunately they’re less enjoyable than they may previously have been.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some fun here, but the murky, blurry CGI is very distracting. Some of the action is wonderfully daft, and some of the abrupt shark attacks are delightful. The ending smorgasbord of shark action is brilliant, I just wish that the film was this action packed more consistently (and again, used more practical effects).

It’s no surprise, but the standard of acting is generally pretty poor, and it’s not helped by the clunky script. The film could really have done without the focus on family dynamics, but I do like the fact that one of the main characters has a ludicrous back story that leads to them having a vendetta against sharks. Unfortunately, most of the exposition and dialogue only serves to slow the pace here, especially given the poor quality of these scenes.

There are some real issues with the threat too - it only seems that others are impacted by the sharknado when the main crew shows up. Other than that, people are existing relatively normally. When they get into the city, cars are driving both ways at a standard pace, the shopkeeper is still working and people are still in the swimming pool at the care home.

Amazingly, I still found this easy to watch, but I can only imagine how much I would have liked this with practical effects and maybe a little more thought. The insanity of the concept itself is enough to keep this at least engaging.

So, will I watch the rest of the series? Almost certainly.

Highlights: Shark vs. Chainsaw; Arm vs. Shark; Shark vs. Chainsaw, pt. 2.