Well, first off, that’s what I tend to do. However, on top of that, I was also stirring because I was watching SyFy’s latest original film, The Night Before Halloween. I was excited because The Night Before Halloween was full of Degrassi actors!
For instance, Jahmil French played the nerdy but cool Dave Turner on Degrassi. In The Night Before Halloween, he plays Kyle. Kyle’s a teenager with a curse. Basically, unless he can trick someone into killing another person, a supernatural creature will kill him on Halloween night. It’s a bit like the It Follows curse, except that the curse isn’t passed on by sex. Instead, it’s passed by fooling someone else into committing murder. In other words, transmitting The Night Before Halloween curse is a lot less fun than transmitting the It Follows curse.
On Degrassi, Justin Kelly played Jake Martin, a handsome and lovable stoner. In The Night Before Halloween, Justin Kelly plays Adam, who is handsome and lovable and probably likes to get high, even though we never see him do so in the film. Adam, unfortunately, is friends with Kyle. When Kyle tricks Adam in taking part in a prank that leads to the electrocution of Beth (Natalie Ganzhorn), Adam finds himself being pursued by the monster. Can he and his girlfriend, Megan (Bailee Madison), survive?
On Degrassi, Alex Harrouch played Leo, the abusive boyfriend (and briefly, husband) of Alli. In The Night Before Halloween, Harrouch plays a much more sympathetic character, Wyatt. At first, Wyatt is likable and nerdy but then Kyle tricks him into helping to kill Beth. Leo is the first of the friends to understand what has happened but, when he tried to inform his friends, they ignored his calls and texts. So, as Leo puts it, he made some new friends, with names like Benny and Oxy. Leo has had to do some terrible things to survive and he’s been left a haunted shell of his former self.
The final member of this group of friends is Lindsay. Lindsay is played by Kiana Madeira, who does not have a Degrassi connection but still does a good job in her role. Lindsay may start as a skeptic but soon, she’s willing to do almost anything to get rid of the curse.
Anyway, of all the It Follows-inspired films that showed up on SyFy this October, The Night Before Halloween was definitely the best. It was well-acted and directed and the supernatural monster (which usually manifested itself as a swarm of flies) was creepy. Best of all, the film fully embraced and explored the question of how far people would go to survive. In The Night Before Halloween, the only way to escape the curse is to betray someone. While you may not be surprised when the friends start to betray each other, you’ll still never guess just how far one of them is willing to go. You may even find yourself considering just how far you would go to save your life.
The Night Before Halloween is a very well-done SyFy shocker. Even if it didn’t have the Degrassi connection, it would still be one to track down.
There are some shows like Stranger Things, Lonesome Dove, or True Detective whose audacious vision is pushed ever forward by the rugged genius of its writing and directing staff, Channel Zero is NOT that show.
On its best day, Channel Zero is burgers and fries, but on its worst days, Channel Zero is like stale bread that has become horribly crunchy, difficult to digest, and every bite reveals unending torpor. This particular episode is not terrible just for this series, but might be the the worst episode of television. Because it is becoming ever more awful, it could get to be fun to watch like an Ed Wood film. Since it has some mediocre episodes, it’s not Halloween Resurrection levels of crap overall, but it was awful. There was a quasi-torture scene without suspense, a now hand sucking tooth-monster, and not much else.
Gary takes Mike to a house under renovation. It turns out that Gary wanted it to be his dream house, but it didn’t work out for him. Gary ties up Mike and questions him about the dead kids from yesteryear and Gary gets visitors: Tim and Brenda. They want to beat Mike up to find out why Mike killed their friends and relatives – in the most slow moving way possible. Mike keeps saying that it’s the Candle Cove show…blah blah blah. At one point, Tim pulls a gun and fails to create any suspense….at all, but Mike does gets shot in the arm …. off camera.
Jessica is talking to Mike’s Mom -MM. She explains that she had an emotional affair with Mike and then he cut it off. She figures out Mike is being held at their never to have dream house and heads over there with Deputy Amy and MM. They stop Tim from killing Mike and Deputy Amy takes Gary’s gun, but doesn’t seem to arrest him. Why do that? It could have raised the stakes, led to a struggle, or anything.
Flashback- Eddie lures the Bully Kid to the crow’s nest and uses the Tooth Monster mojo to get the Bully Kid to jump off a cliff.
Tim goes into the woods and is killed and buried by random kids. This happens almost entirely offscreen because this show wouldn’t want to interfere with a bathroom break. If you have the stomach flu, are a compulsive knitter, or need to take smoke breaks, this is the show for you.
Brenda goes to the Evil Teacher who feeds the Tooth Monster. Evil Teacher kills her with a hook for some reason and then hosts a cocoa drink party with the children who killed Tim. Is this unnecessarily ambiguous, over the top, and dumb? You Betcha!!!
Mike is back home. His mother has a nightmare of the tooth monster sucking Mike’s fingers. YEECH! Then, his daughter, who lives 452 miles away, appears outside of MM’s house. He asks, “How did you get here?” They cut to the Tooth Monster who I guess was going to say Kayak or Travelocity, but the episode ended so we will never learn how Mike’s daughter got there or if she got the lowest rate possible.
What can I tell you other than, I will stick with this show until its inevitable cancellation and is replaced with American Ninja Warrior Baking Championship or some such shit.
If you’re in high school and you’re planning on skipping prom so that you can go hang out at the “anti-prom” (which is being held in a creepy old cabin) and drink beer and smoke pot and maybe have unprotected sex … well, then you’re probably guaranteeing yourself a lot of great memories. But, even with that in mind, don’t do it at Shadow Creek.
Seriously, just the fact that it’s called Shadow Creek should be enough of a clue that you need to avoid the place. It’s always possible that Shadow Creek was named after the famed explorer, Jean LeShadow, but it’s even more likely that Shadow Creek is in some way haunted.
And if you arrive at Shadow Creek and everyone is sitting around a campfire and telling a story about a murder that happened at Shadow Creek many, many years ago, that’s probably an indication that you should have just gone to the regular prom. I mean, you might not have as much as fun at the regular prom as you would at the anti-prom but at least you would be hanging out with the rich kids and you wouldn’t run the risk of getting brutally murdered.
However, if you stay at Shadow Creek even after the campfire ghost story, one thing that you must NOT do is get offended over something and then run off by yourself. And if you come across another cabin — especially if that cabin has a corpse in front of it, don’t go inside. Don’t go anywhere near it.
That’s the main lesson to be learned from Shadows of the Dead, which, last Saturday, became the latest film to premiere as a part of SyFy’s 31 Days of Halloween. Shadows of the Dead was an occasionally atmospheric, occasionally effective, and often rather silly horror film.
Shadows of the Dead opens up with the anti-prom at Shadow Creek and then goes on to follow several teenagers as their stalked by a shadowy monster. I have to admit that I was never quite sure what the shadow monster was exactly. (A lot of people on twitter speculated that it was Lost‘s smoke monster.) The movie established that it could only attack people when they were alone and when they were in the dark. Apparently, after attacking, the monster would enter its victim’s body and stay there until it eventually decided to burst back out. As a result, we got a lot of scenes of people literally exploding. It got messy after a while.
But oddly, the Shadow Monster’s powers tended to change from scene to scene. Essentially, the monster could do whatever was needed to move a scene along. As well, the monster was pretty much invulnerable until the film needed to end, at which point it suddenly became vulnerable. There was no real consistency to this shadow monster but then again, Shadows of the Dead is not the type of film that demands consistency. The monster had its frightening moments and its ever-shifting powers led to some nicely surreal moments. Ultimately, your enjoyment of this film will depend on how seriously you take it. (Needless to say, taking it seriously in any way would be a mistake.)
That said, the most interesting thing about Shadows of the Dead was how much of it appeared to have been lifted from It Follows. Considering that the same can be said about The Crooked Man, it appears that It Follows has emerged as the new template for low-budget horror movies.
Gentle Readers, it’s time to take a break from my stand alone film reviews and get something we can all sink our Teeth Into (you’ll get the pun later). It’s the Syfy Channel’s return to their awesomely dramatic roots. I will begin by writing that they delivered! If you dig suspense, good writing, and intricate plots, this show is not a bad bet.
Cold Open: A nightmare. Mike Painter, America’s Child Psychologist, is being interviewed by an asshole. The host pries deep into Mike’s private life and how his twin brother disappeared, several children were murdered in 1988, his blood type, and pictures of his colon – ok the last two were false, but the interviewer is a jerk. The host gives Mike water that has a dying fly in it. He puts Mike on the spot to talk to a creepy kid on the phone… who says “Why are you afraid to go home?” Then, the cameraman is a mannequin. What we got here is an unreliable narrator. We smash to the first of many odd smash cuts: a scarecrow on fire.
Mike heads home and briefly talks to his mom. She’s concerned that he is looking into the murders. He lies and says no. Mike goes to the Sheriff’s office and it’s a bit of exposition time, but not too bad. We learn that Mike’s buddy has become Sheriff and that the Sheriff’s son is a bit of a misfit. Mike wants the files on the murders. Mike dissembles that he’s writing a book about the murders. Sheriff wants to makes sure the book will be respectful and mentions that the victims were missing their teeth. YEECH! Sheriff is worried that his son is a weirdo and offers to trade files for some free psychoanalysis…. as you do. We also get a clue as to weirdness: there are reports of a person breaking into homes, but not stealing anything. Yikes!
Dinner Party: They discuss how the kids are watching too much tv. Mike checks in on Katie – the Sheriff’s daughter – who is watching a creepy puppet show. Mike mentions this when he returns to the dinner table. The show was called Candle Cove. The same show that they watched as children in 1988. It has a super creepy host called Jawbone – a puppet skeleton. The adults discuss the show some more and Mike leaves abruptly.
Mike has a flashback to bullies messing with his brother and he does nothing. They go home and the tv turns on and it’s the creepy puppet show Candle Cove. This show really ratchets up the creep factor. Seriously, you will be scared. We flashback back to Mike’s childhood room. He wakes and sees Jawbone in his room and Mike approaches him. When he touches Jawbone, he wakes in a field looking out at the woods. He notices a man in the woods as well.
Diner: Mike runs into his old English teacher and she quizzes him on grammar. We cut away to Katie’s room. She’s vanished. This show’s creep factor really goes up and up and up. A search party forms to look for Katie. Katie’s mom Jessica confronts Mike because she’s learned that he was not home for five hours the previous night. We learn that he was in psych ward a week ago. He begins to rave that it’s the show that somehow took Katie away. She rationally calls for help and he disappears. Mike is convinced that he can find Katie.
Mike goes to the Sheriff’s house and sees Dane the Sheriff’s son. Dane says, “She said you would ask” Taking a moment. This is becoming The Ring, Ju-on, When a Stranger Calls levels of creepy. Mike is convinced that he knows where Katie is. He flees into the woods towards a place called “Crow’s Nest”. We see a number of cutaways of burying bodies and hooks to the chest. Yep, hooks to the chest.
Mike sees Jawbone and reaches to touch it. Jawbone flees and leads him to Katie. Mike rescues Katie and when they leave, we see the MONSTER: a Thing Covered in Teeth. The Tooth Monster reaches out where Katie was sitting and takes away two bloody teeth. You wanna be scared, watch this series!
They have thrown Mike in jail because he rescued Katie…come again? Well, he’s in jail and gets released. When he gets home, he mentions Candle Cove to his mom. She responds that show was just static. We cut to all of the children of the town watching Candle Cove.
This show is absolute gooseflesh inducing. Where Stranger Things was dripping with nostalgia and gothic horror, Channel Zero taps into sheer Hitchcock suspense and Rod Serling terror. It’s a great show for October and just a great Thriller!
Last night, my friends, the Snarkalecs, and I watched the latest SyFy original film, The Crooked Man!
Why Were We Watching It?
Gawdamn, y’all (as we tend to say down here in Texas), do you remember how much fun it used to be when SyFy would premiere a different movie every Saturday night? Back when I first started regularly watching SyFy and live tweeting with the Snarkalecs, SyFy was all about original movies.
Sadly, things have changed. Now, we only get SyFy original movies twice during the year. Once is during the week leading up to the latest Sharknado film. The other time is October, when SyFy does its 31 Days of Horror.
Since the Snarkalecs are still trying to change SyFy’s policy towards original movies, we make it a point to watch every single one of them. We also make it a point to tweet about the movies, the hope being that someone at SyFy will see that there is an audience for original movies.
That’s what we were doing last night as we watched The Crooked Man.
What Was It About?
Olivia (Angelique Rivera) gets all of her friends killed but isn’t ever really held responsible because she’s the main character in the film.
Okay, there’s actually a little more to it than that. The Crooked Man is a hybrid of The Ring, It Follows, Candyman, Slenderman, The Nun, and … well, just about every other horror film made over the past 16 years. It starts with a slumber party, where a group of 12 year-old girls make the mistake of listening to a song online. The song, it’s said, will summon the Crooked Man.
Later, the slumber party is interrupted when all the lights go out. Fortunately, there’s also a pizza delivery guy at the party and he knows how to turn the lights back on. Well, that’s good. However, there is yet another interruption when one of the girls, Jill, is found dead at the foot of the stairs. Standing over her is Olivia. Though Olivia has a knife in her hands, she swears that she didn’t kill Jill. It was … THE CROOKED MAN!
Olivia is sent to a mental asylum for six years. When she’s released, she returns home. The problem is that nobody in the town wants her to come home. And actually, they have a point because, as soon as Olivia returns, The Crooked Man starts killing everyone who was at that slumber party.
EVEN THE PIZZA GUY!
What Worked?
I will be the first to admit that most of my tweets were pretty critical last night but there were a few effectively creepy moments in The Crooked Man. The Crooked Man himself was scary.
The Voice‘s Dia Frampton showed up to sing a song and then promptly got killed. That definitely provided the film with a nice WTF moment.
What Did Not Work?
Okay — so the Crooked Man can only get you when you’re in the dark, right? SO WHY DOES EVERYONE IN THE FILM KEEP TURNING OFF ALL THE LIGHTS!? Seriously, nobody seemed to appreciate that there was a really easy solution to most of their problems…
(Actually, in all fairness, The Crooked Man had the power to kill all the electricity and plunge people into darkness. But still, it did seem like the characters often never even considered trying to turn on all the lights. I would have at least liked to have seen some sort of effort.)
“OMG! Just like me!” Moments
I related to the character of Violet. Violet was at the slumber party and therefore, she was on Crooked Man’s kill list. And Violet put the blame right where it belonged. On Olivia!
Seriously, Olivia, way to get all your friends killed.
Lessons Learned
If a monster can only exist in the dark, turn on the damn lights!
I just finished watching the premiere of the latest Asylum-produced SyFy film, Isle of the Dead!
Oddly, this film premiered on a Thursday night at 10:00 pm and, especially when compared to Sharknado 4 or 2 Lava 2 Lantula, it did so with relatively little fanfare. Fortunately, I just happened to see the premiere mentioned on Facebook. Otherwise, I probably would have missed it all together.
And that would have been a shame because, for a low-budget zombie film that was reportedly filmed in just 12 days, Isle of the Dead was actually a pretty effective little film.
The film’s plot will probably sound familiar but there’s a reason for that. The action starts at a secret Army research post that is located on an isolated tropic island. While Dr. Wexler (D.C. Douglas) watches, a virus spreads through the lab, turning doctors and soldiers into ravenous zombies and leaving death and terror in its wake. Jump forward ten years later. A team of Navy Seals has disappeared on the island and a strike force has been sent to find out what happened to them. Leading the strike force is the tough Lt. Gibson (Joey Lawrence). Accompanying them is a CIA agent named Mikaela Usylvich (Maryse Mizanin). Early on, Mikaela establishes a simple run: If you’re bitten by a zombie, you’re as good as dead. A zombie bite means a bullet to the brain.
Eventually, the strike force makes their way to the old research post, where they discover a lot of zombies and one rather crazed Dr. Wexler. Wexler, who turns out to have a personal connection to Mikaela, has spent the last ten years experimenting on zombies. As a result, we now have zombies who can shoot guns as well as zombies who can talk and who can plot and plan…
If all of this is sounding familiar, it’s because Isle of the Dead is an homage to the Resident Evil games. (Douglas may play Dr. Wexler here but he’s best known for voicing Albert Wesker in the games.) As such, the film follows a pretty standard formula: we watch as the members of the strike force try to move from one area to another without getting ripped to pieces by zombies. Admittedly, I’m not a huge expert on the Resident Evil games but I’ve been told by people who are that Isle of the Dead was full of references that were both subtle and occasionally obvious.
What I can tell you is that, taken on its own terms, Isle of the Dead was an effective, no-nonsense zombie film. The zombies were relentless (and I personally like the idea of talking zombies), the gore was both credible and copious, and the entire film maintained a proper atmosphere of impending doom. Douglas did a good job as crazy Dr. Wexler and Maryse Mizanin got to kick a lot of ass as Mikaela Usylvich. If you’re into zombie films or you just enjoy the unique Asylum aesthetic, I suggest keeping an eye out for Isle of the Dead.
Last Sunday night saw the premiere of Sharknado: The Fourth Awakens!
For the fourth year in a row, SyFy and the Asylum allowed us to take a peak into the shark-filled life of Finn Shepherd (Ian Ziering) and his family. Also for the fourth year in a row, the premiere of the latest Sharknado film was practically a national holiday. Long before the film even started, #Sharknado4 was the number one trending topic on twitter. I actually live tweeted the film twice, once for the east coast and then a second time for my friends on the west coast. That’s right — I sent out over 300 tweets about Sharknado 4 on Sunday and I’ve never been more proud of myself. Live tweeting the latest Sharknado is a lot like wishing someone you barely know a happy birthday on Facebook. It’s a part of the ritual of social media. It’s like the Internet’s version of a Thanksgiving parade or a 4th of July fireworks show.
After four films, it’s easy to forget that Sharknado started out like almost any other SyFy film. The first Sharknado film featured no celebrity cameos and very little of the self-referential comedy that has come to define the series. In fact, I didn’t even see Sharknado when it first aired because it premiered, opposite a Big Brother eviction show, on a Thursday. It was only on Friday morning that I discovered that Sharknado had become a phenomena, largely due to the fact that celebrities like Mia Farrow had decided to live tweet it.
After all this time, it’s easy to forget just how much we veteran live tweeters resented that attention that was paid to celebrities like Farrow, the majority of whom were virgins as far as live tweeting SyFy was concerned. (The fact that the majority of Farrow’s Sharknado tweets weren’t that good only added insult to injury.) The media acted as if those celebs had invented live tweeting. They also acted as if Sharknado was the first entertaining and over-the-top film to ever premiere on SyFy. Among those of us who had been live tweeting SyFy film long before the premiere of Sharknado and who had loved pre-Sharknado movies like Jersey Shore Shark Attack and Shark Week, there was more than a little resentment.
But you know what? I watched Sharknado the following Saturday and I had a great time live tweeting it. The next year, I made sure to watch and live tweet Sharknado 2 the night that it premiered. The same was true of Sharknado 3 and I even ended up casting a vote on the question of whether or not April should survive that film’s cliffhanger. With its cheerful absurdity and determination to continually top the glorious absurdity of each previous entry, the Sharknado franchise won me over. In fact, the franchise won over not only me but hundreds of thousands of other viewers. Sharknado has become very much a part of our culture.
As I mentioned above, Sharknado 3 ended with a cliffhanger and that alone indicates just how big a deal Sharknado has become. Sharknado 2 was made because the first Sharknado was an unexpected success. Sharknado 3 followed because Sharknado 2 had proven that the first one was not a fluke and that there was an audience for these films. However, by the time 3 was in production, there was never any doubt that there would be a Sharknado 4. Sharknado 4 also ends with a rather abrupt cliffhanger, leaving little doubt that there will be a Sharknado 5. At this point, not doing another Sharknado film would be the same as canceling summer all together.
As for what Sharknado 4 was about … well, does it really matter? At this point, we know that there’s going to be another sharknado and that Finn is just going to happen to be nearby when it strikes. We know that landmarks will be destroyed (in this case, Las Vegas is thoroughly ravaged during the film’s first 30 minutes). We know that Al Roker will show up and say stuff like, “There are reports of a Lightningnado near Kansas…” (Both Roker and Natalie Morales apparently survived being attacked by sharks during Sharknado 3, though Morales does have an eyepatch in 4. Matt Lauer is nowhere to be seen so I assume he wasn’t as lucky.) We know that celebrities will appear in a cameos and that the majority of them will be promptly eaten by a flying shark. We know that Finn and his family will eventually have to use a chainsaw to battle the sharks and we know that at least one person will be rescued from the inside of a shark’s stomach.
We don’t really watch a movie a like Sharknado 4 for the plot. We watch it for the communal experience. Last Sunday was Sharknado Day and it seems like the entire world was on twitter, talking about Sharknado 4. The majority of us weren’t tweeting about the plot. Instead, we were acknowledging that we had picked up on the in-jokes and the references to other films. When April (Tara Reid) showed up alive and was revealed to now by a cyborg, many references were made to the Terminator — both in the film and on twitter. When we learned that David Hasselhoff has been rescued from the moon, it was time to make jokes about The Martian. When it was announced that a sharknado was headed towards Kansas, I made a Wizard of Oz joke on twitter. Three minutes later, in the movie, a house fell on a character who could charitably be called a witch. We briefly got a shot of her feet sticking out from under the house.
(I should also mention that Gary Busey shows up, playing a mad scientist. The fact that Sharknado 4 could find prominent roles for both the Hoff and the Busey says a lot about what makes this franchise so endearingly entertaining. Considering that Penn Jillette was in Sharknado 3, you have to wonder if the franchise will eventually feature every single person who appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice. Who doesn’t want to see a flying shark bite off Piers Morgan’s head?)
(Actually, as long as I’m mentioning stuff — here’s my favorite inside joke. Finn and his family are driving through North Texas. Just judging by the hills and the mountains in the background, this scene was not actually filmed in Texas. Anyway, they stop off at a general store where Dog Chapman — the bounty hunter — sells them a chainsaw. When the sharks attack Texas, a chainsaw-wielding army is waiting for them. Among that army is Caroline Williams, who starred in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. On the one hand, everyone viewing will immediately get the chainsaw joke. But only the dedicated horror fans will truly understand why it’s so brilliant that Caroline Williams was credited as playing a character named Stretch.)
At this point, the Sharknado franchise is no longer just a series of films. Instead, it’s a deliriously over-the-top experience. In these times of partisan rancor, it briefly did not matter if you were a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican. For two hours on Sunday night, if you were watching and live tweeting Sharkando 4, you were a part of a gigantic family, a community of people with an appreciation for over the top silliness. Sharknado 4 brought this country together.
That’s not bad for a film about a bunch of flying sharks.
If you missed Sharknado 4 the first time, catch it when it’s shown again. Just make sure that you watch it with a friend, someone who you can trust to make you laugh.
Last night, while most you were probably watching the Democratic National Convention, my friends, the Snarkalecs, and I were watching and live tweeting a movie on SyFy called Ozark Sharks.
And you know what?
I’m glad that I was because, seriously, Ozark Sharks was a tremendous amount of fun. I’m also proud that we managed to get Ozark Sharks trending on twitter, if just because that caused a lot of confusion among the normals, many of whom seemed to assume that it was some sort of politically themed hashtag. For example:
Well, with all apologies to the political junkies of twitter, that’s not what Ozark Sharks is about.
Instead, Ozark Sharks is probably the best film that will ever be made about sharks invading a river in Arkansas. Now, if you’re asking yourself: “Why are there sharks in Arkansas?,” you’re not doing this right. The why is not important. What is important is that there are six hungry sharks in the water and they’re willing to eat anyone that they come across. Literally no one is safe. Not your boyfriend. Not your best friends. Not the guy who you were thinking of going out with in case you ever broke up with your boyfriend. Not even lovable older tourists. Ozark sharks will eat anyone.
(And they’re messy eaters, the type that regularly leave legs and arms floating in the water.)
Making things even worse, the river leads to a lake and the citizens of a nearby town are planning on shooting of fireworks at that very same lake. They’re hanging out, drinking beer, listening to country music, hanging out on the docks, and floating around in inner tubes. And little do they realize that sharks are heading straight towards them!
Luckily, hope is not lost. There’s a family that’s come down to the lake for the weekend. Will they be able to stop the sharks or are they all destined to end up as shark bait? Well, let’s consider who they are:
First off, there’s Diane (Laura Cayouette, who many of you will recognize as Leonardo DiCaprio’s sister in Django Unchained) and her husband, Rick (Michael Papajohn). I liked Diane and Rick. They were a likable couple and Cayouette and Papajohn had a very believable chemistry. You actually believed that they were married and in love and I cannot begin to say how important that was to the overall effectiveness of the film. They both committed to the roles and, as a result, Diane and Rick came across like the type of people you would want as your neighbors.
Their oldest child is named Harrison (Dave Davis). Harrison is single and could really use a girlfriend. Fortunately, he meets Dawn (Ashton Leigh), who is stranded on a rock in the middle of the river and in a pretty emotional state because she’s just seen all of her friends (including her boyfriend) eaten by a shark. Fortunately, for Harrison, that means that she is now single.
Harrison’s younger sister is named Molly (Allisyn Ashley Arm). I think the general consensus on twitter was that, by the end of the movie, Molly was everyone’s favorite character. When Molly first appears, she is defiantly insisting on reading a book and refusing to get into the river. Speaking as someone who ruined many a family vacation by doing the same thing, I immediately related to Molly. If Molly had spent the whole movie just reading her book and maintaining her indifferent attitude, she already would have already been the best character in the film. But, instead, Molly quickly emerged as the family badass, which makes her even cooler. I don’t want to spoil the film but let’s just say that if your state is ever invaded by sharks, you’re going to want Molly on your side.
Curtis (Ross Britz) is Molly’s wonderfully goofy boyfriend. More than anything, you have to love Curtis because he seems to genuinely be overjoyed to have a chance to fight sharks. Fortunately, Jones (Thomas Francis Murphy) is also around to teach Molly and Curtis how to deal with sharks. (Jones even gets to utter a line that serves an homage to Jaws. I won’t spoil it, though, because it was a fun moment that you should experience on your own.) Jones owns a bait shop but he’s also an expert in how to kill sharks and he’s got a storeroom full of all sorts of weapons. He even has a harpoon cannon, which he claims is only used to fight sharks though I suspect that it has other uses as well.
"Why do you need a harpoon cannon?" "Yankees."#OzarkSharks
— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) July 29, 2016
(There’s another member of the family as well, but I fear that if I talk too much about her, I’ll be spoiling one of the film’s more surprising moment. So, I’ll just say that Sharon Garrison did a great job playing her!)
So, if it’s not clear already, I absolutely loved Ozark Sharks. This is one of those lovingly crafted and unabashedly entertaining films that epitomizes everything that we love about old B-movies and modern day SyFy films. This is a genuinely fun and entertaining movie, one that is meant to be watched by you and a group of your snarkiest friends.
On a personal note, I appreciate the fact that this movie got the Ozarks right. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in Arkansas. My grandmother lived in Ft. Smith and my family lived in Fouke (home of the Fouke Monster) for a year. I still visit Arkansas fairly frequently. For the record, of course, Ozark Sharks was actually filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But no matter! Regardless of where it was actually filmed, Ozark Sharks gets Arkansas right. It captures the atmosphere, the accents, and the attitudes of the Ozarks and then it throws in a nice little spin by adding sharks.
Ozark Sharks was directed by Misty Talley, who also directed last year’s Zombie Shark. Ozark Sharks shares much of the same crew as Zombie Shark (and a few of the same cast members as well, including Laura Cayouette and Becky Andrews) and they all should be as proud of their work on both films. As opposed to the rather dark Zombie Shark, Ozark Sharks is a rather light-hearted film. (Though there is one death, towards the end of the film, that definitely caught everyone watching it by surprise and got us all feeling a little emotional.) Last year, I announced that Zombie Shark was the best of that year’s SyFy original films. I think the same may very well prove to be true of Ozark Sharks.
Excluding Sunday’s premiere of Sharknado 4, Ozark Sharks was the final original film of SyFy’s Shark week. (For those interested, I’m planning on live tweeting the Hell out of Sharknado 4 and I’ll be doing not just an east coast live tweet but a second live tweet with my friends on the west coast as well!) Below, I’ve ranked them all five of the Shark week premieres in order, with number 1 being my favorite.
(Personally, I liked all five of the premieres so being ranked fifth on this list should not be taken as a criticism.)
Thank you, SyFy, for another great shark week! And, if you missed any of these premieres, keep an eye out because SyFy will probably repeat most of them during this weekend!
Yesterday, I watched the latest SyFy shark movie premiere — Planet of the Sharks!
As if there was any doubt, Planet of the Sharks is an Asylum movie. And let’s give the Asylum some credit. They know how to title their movies. When I saw that this movie was called Planet of the Sharks, I immediately thought of Planet of the Apes. I went into this movie expecting that it would feature speaking sharks and maybe a stranded astronaut shouting out, “Take your damn fins off of me, you damn dirty sharks!”
Well, needless to say, that doesn’t happen in Planet of the Sharks. The sharks don’t speak, though they have apparently figured out how to leap out of the water and fly through the air. And though there are a few stranded people, none of them are astronauts. In fact, the only thing that Planet of the Sharks has in common with Planet of the Apes is a shot of the Statue of the Liberty.
But that’s okay! What’s important is that seeing a title like Planet of the Sharks got me excited. I was really looking forward to watching the movie and that enthusiasm carried me over some potentially rough moments. It’s a brilliant title and The Asylum deserves all the credit in the world for coming up with it.
As for the film itself, it takes place in the future. Apparently, humanity never did anything about all of that climate chance because the entire world has been flooded. The Statue of Liberty is now underwater! The few humans that are still alive live in crude floating cities, places that have names like Junk City and Sanctuary.
Speaking of Junk City, when the film begins, it’s in the process of being destroyed by a group of sharks. That’s right — in a world where there’s too much water, the entire world becomes a shark feeding ground. Add to that, it appears that all the plankton have died off. The sharks have no choice but to eat human beings.
(And, quite frankly, it’s hard to blame the sharks. When the people of Sanctuary gather to slaughter a group of sharks, they do it with so much savagery that you can’t help but sympathize with the sharks. Importantly, it should be noted that this seemed to be what the movie was going for.)
Fortunately, there is hope! A group of scientists think that if they can power up a transmitter and send a rocket into space, they’ll be able to change weather patterns. (Or something like that. To be honest, I had a hard time following their plan but what’s important is that it’s what they need to do to lower the sea levels and save the world.) But in order to launch the rocket and power up the transmitter and do everything else, they’re going to have to avoid being eaten by rampaging sharks…
Planet of the Sharks was a little bit talky for an Asylum film. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The film deserves some credit for trying to explain the science behind what was going on and for attempting to give the characters some sort of motivation beyond “Let’s blow up a bunch of sharks.” Those looking for nonstop action may be a little bit disappointed.
But, no matter! I liked Planet of the Sharks. I appreciated the fact that it tried to make its dystopian future plausible and you could tell that the filmmakers had actually given some thought to the story. It was actually kind of interesting to see the savage and sometimes odd culture that had risen up to replace the old world. (The floating town of Sanctuary was especially memorable and disturbing.)
So, no, Planet of the Sharks did not feature talking sharks. But it was still an enjoyable SyFy film.
Those are the two main things that I took away from watching Ice Sharks, which premiered on the SyFy channel on Tuesday.
Ice Sharks take place in the Arctic circle. A group of scientists have set up Oasis base so that they can observe what climate change is doing to the arctic sea life. The water’s getting warmer and, as a result, the ecosystem is changing. Greenland sharks are no longer content to just hang out around Greenland. Now, suddenly, they’re showing up in Antarctica and guess what? They have the ability to not only jump through ice but also to use their dorsal fins to saw through glaciers…
Well, you can probably guess what happens.
First, it’s just sled dog after sled dog getting eaten. Then it’s an Eskimo who is so thoroughly eaten that only a bloody fingernail is found lodged in the ice. Next thing you know, a scientist makes the mistakes of investigating the world outside of Oasis and a shark ends up biting off his leg. The scientist lies on the ice and briefly attempts to tie a tourniquet around his bloody leg stump. It doesn’t do him much good.
One thing about Greenland sharks — they’re mean but they’re also surprisingly intelligent. As soon as they come across Oasis station, they use their dorsal fins to saw through the ice. Soon, Oasis is sinking to the bottom of the ocean with the surviving scientists inside.
And, as our surviving (and fortunately, physically attractive) scientists try to figure out how they are going to survive, the sharks are outside, banging against the station walls…
Ice Sharks is a surprisingly dark little movie. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an Asylum film so, of course, Ice Sharks has an appropriately macabre sense of humor. But, especially when compared to Sharknado 3, Ice Sharks is rather grim. Director Emile Edwin Smith does a good job of creating and maintaining a claustrophobic atmosphere inside the sunken Oasis station. And when the sharks attack, it’s never pretty. Greenland sharks apparently do not share the charm of their home.
Ice Sharks was a grimly effective little creature rampage film. Personally, I will never look at Greenland the same way again.
Through the Shattered Lens 