Dodgy Film Club: #SHARKNADO @riotheatre

So the (social media) world has finally caught up with dodgy horror films. Does this make me a dodgy horror film hipster? I hope not, as I am not in the least bit put out that #SHARKNADO happened, I hope it means more ridiculous films are made!

A classic case of 'if you're not sold by the poster, there's no hope for you'

Even though I have had access to #SHARKNADO for almost a month, I held out and saw it in a theatrical release in my favourite indy cinema, The Rio Theatre, in Vancouver. Against my better judgement I didn't buy my ticket in advance but was lucky enough to snap up one of the few remaining tickets at the door, before a full sell out was announced and dozens were turned away.

Inside it is clear of the reach this low budget film has attained. To my right, two STANDARD METAL/FILM NERDS discuss the surge in attendence to such showings and sneer derisively at the trivia questions on the screen. ("Uh, Zombieland? Who couldn't know that's a scene from Shaun of the Dead?"). To my left, two middle aged women, looking more like they're fans of mash potatoes than Sharknados settle in for a Girls Nite Out!!! 

As for the film itself.. It's actually pretty standard fair for The Asylum, who have made such instant classics as Sharktopus and Two Headed Shark Attack. That is to say, there is some awkward 'character development', bad acting, lots of good looking girls and some vaguely interesting camera work to get through before we hit the real action and see some goooore!

This is a real still from the film, not a photoshop

When it does (eventually) move up a gear it is still a slow burning build up, with some brilliantly bad pun-heavy one liners and some pretty cool effects including a ferris wheel massacre. The sharks are of course terribly rendered but that doesn't stop everyone in the theatre raucously cheering each time one meets its demise via bar stools, pool sticks and gunshots from our surprisingly sharp shooting heroes.

 
Once it gets to the 'all or nothing, this ends NOW' last twenty minutes, sh!t gets REAL and the lolfactory explodes with amazing gore and ridiculous action sequences. I won't spoil the best part, or the ending, but the trailer does give away part of what goes down; 'We're going to throw bombs into the tornados!'

Afterwards the director did a skype interview live to the Rio and denied that drugs had been used in the dreaming up of the monstrosity. Sharknado 2: Sharkferno is a possibility, he says.