The hippie teacher guy is played by Robbie Rist who played Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch and was the voice of MIchaelangeo in all 3 live action Ninja Turtle films. Pointless fact I know, but just thought I would put that out there lol. When they were doing the contest to name the sequel, my contributions were “Sharknado 2: Shark Territory” and “Sharknado 2: Into Sharkness” thoughts? I think it’s a better title than the one they chose ” Sharknado 2: The Second One” Great episode as always Cecil!
Oh thank you for using the phrase “Sharkpocalypse”, that just made my day. I’m also championing that name for the sequel. Personally I’m hoping that they’ll have raised enough money from the first one to get a cameo by Adam West to make some gag about Shark Repellent.
Thats plenty of destruction alright, though I think the dead fish smell is going to be more hazardous than any property damage.
The look at the Asylum’s history was very enlightening. It hadn’t occurred to me before just how successful their formula is. The trend of picking titles with number or A names is so brilliant that its downright sublime.
What a gloriously awful movie. I really enjoyed the review and the backstory of Asylum was informative. Asylum already gets points in my book for using “former A-list” stars that otherwise would get no work in this age of uninteresting actors in even more uninteresting movies.
Great review,Cecil(and excellent intro from Handsome Eric as always)-enjoyed hearing more about Asylum,which seems to be following in the footsteps of Roger Corman and Charles Band’s Full Moon. I recall hearing about the studios suing over the mockbusters,which is so ridiculous. Would they rather have more people making bootleg DVDs on opening weekend instead of waiting for their overblown film(what where they thinking with The Lone Ranger-the 1980s rendition crashed and burned as well. Some things are meant for the small screen,not the big!)on legit home video?
1.does this mean you will review jaws 3-d and jaws the revense?
2.james rolfe mansjes this in his top 20 shitty shark movies
3.are you sure you wont review stephen kings it?
So glad you reviewed this movie. It’s so deliciously bad and awesome.
“Bawesome” if you will.
I’m so glad you pointed out Tara Reid’s phoned-in acting. Honestly I never really liked her. She was fine in ‘Urban Legend’ but when I saw her in ‘Alone in the Dark’ and ‘Scrubs’ I thought her acting was awful!
Oh, and to answer your question , yes I did mean the 2011 Behemoth film.
Hoping for more Asylum films. Speaking of which, what was your opinion of the their version of 3 musketeers?
Tara Reid used to be a pretty decent actress but I think she succumbed to the “Lindsey Lohan”. That is, she got popular, started taking in various substances and now both her looks and acting ability are shot. (see also: Amanda Bynes)
She was terrible in Alone in the Dark but it made me laugh because she was supposed to be one of the lead archeologist in the world and couldn’t pronounce half the words she had to say.
I’ll add Behemoth to the list.
More Asylum films to come but probably spaced few and far between. (not really much back story on them since they are kind of assembly line film making) I thought their 3 Musketeers was ok. I liked the angle of having it in current times and them being spies was kind of cool. Some decent action but the usual bad CGI that took me out of it.
You’re review made it look way more interesting than I remember it.
Although they are deliberately cheesy for the amount of budget they put in some of their versions of theatrical films are pretty good and the stories are at least creative although I would like to see how a Sherlock Holmes movie somehow involves Dinosaurs.
I thought I was the only one who didn’t like the Sherlock Holmes movie.
I wish Asylum did their own version of Zero Dark Thirty. Not showing Osama and his death in ZDT was a real cop out. I want to see him being shot outside the compound window with a rocket launcher like Kick Ass with a cool one liner.
Scott Atkins could play the special forces guy who travels the world capturing and interrogating terrorists before killing Osama.
It’s not a great movie by any stretch but it never was intended to be one.
I think they try to get as creative as they can within the constraints of budget and time. While The Asylum in general wants to keep things on the cheap, they do at least attempt to do some unique things. With larger productions there is too much at stake while with them, as long as the film is on time/budget, they can pretty much go nuts.
Sherlock Holmes was…ok. The Asylum version was much more fun.
Well, there was an indie film called Ozombie where Osama is raising an army of the undead and a team of soldiers are sent to take him out. Some folks disliked it, I thought it was rather good. We need more Scott Atkins in general. I just saw the trailer for Ninja 2 and I am freaking out. Scott Atkins and Kane Kasugi? I am positively giddy.
Couldn’t stand the direction and Downey’s portrayal of Holmes in the film.
I thought Ozombie was crap. It started out promising with the Osama raid, death and him being dumped then emerging from the sea but after that the rest of the film was just a sub-standard zombie film that seemed like they had a script from another film and decided to add in the Osama angle to get it made where we only see a tied up and brain dead Osama zombie again right at the end of the film.
Adkins did have a big screen role in ZDT only problem is he only had about 3 lines and died after about 3 minutes of screen time. Lol!
In Expendables 2 I don’t think he even had a speaking part as Van Dammes right hand man.
Didn’t know they had a trailer for Ninja 2. Looks awesome.
Looks like it is filmed in Thailand as it has two of the actors from Only God Forgives in it plus the fact that Myanmar(Burma) is not exactly the most open and friendly place to shoot a film.
Apart from Statham there are not a lot of old school western martial arts action stars with people like Snipes, Van Damme and Gary Daniels who are past there prime and Seagal who was past it a long time ago resorting to stunt doubles in his films.
I know a lot of people disliked Osombie but I rather enjoyed it. I went in not knowing anything just liking the premise.
I think Gary Daniels still kicks ass and would be an excellent leading man in bigger films if given the chance. He’s only 50 while Stallone is 67 and still making action. JCVD is awesome and I’m glad he has had a resurgence of late. If you haven’t seen Assassination Games (with Scott Atkins) then you are in for a treat.
Older Segal movies are a blast but most past Glimmer Man are…not good.
Did… did that shark growl? Hot damn, that’s almost as good as a roar!
As stupid as the house collapsing was, that was a pretty neat effect. I mean, clearly fake, but better looking than I would have expected.
That Asylum mini-doc was great, especially the part about numbers and the letter A. I love how shameless they are, but they also seem to be having fun and enjoy it. More Corman, less HGL.
The guys doing the effects are pretty talented considering what they can do in such a short time period. Also, the last I heard the only have about 20-30 guys in the FX house and are given a short window to produce the CGI. Whereas something like Transformers took hundreds of artists and months, if not years of digital work.
Thanks! I wanted to show how love em or hate em, The Asylum has a working business model that gets results. Now that they are bigger on the radar, they are clearly having fun coming up with their movies. There is a certain charm to the films and you can tell they enjoyed doing it, even though it was done on the fly. After working on some sets over the years, there is a certain excitement from the “fly by the seat of your pants” model. (nothing major, all super low budget stuff, natch)
I thought it was a lot of dumb fun, my dad couldn’t get through 10 minutes but no matter how the film ended up I just love the fact that someone came up with the idea of a tornado full of sharks attacking california, pitched it to a some producers who then gave $2,000,000 to make this insane premise a reality.
The film was originally pitched to a larger production studio, under the name Dark Skies, and they wanted 100 million. No way was that going to happen and they got funding through the Asylum to make it the cheese classic it is.
I’d love to get 100,000 for some of my hairbrained ideas but 2 million is just amazing.
I watched it when I was very under the weather, and I think it was the only reason I was a captive audience. My mom kept coming in to check on me, and decided to watch a few minutes here and there, out of complete curiosity. These types of movies are not her thing, but she laughed a few times.
I LOVE The Asylum. I cant tell you how many lonely Saturdays I have spent watching one of their flicks. This one and probably I Am Omega are some of their better films. Its just a testament that a little creativity and courage can go a long way. Sharknado, btw, is aces. Thanks for the review!
Dude. That was great! That was one of the most enjoyable entries. Well delivered, made some intelligent points. You made the right decision by doing this one. You have stayed true and you are listening to your instincts and right on and damn skippy! Now if it would just stop raining over here in Colorado…
Thanks! I knew I could give a unique angle on a subject that has been through the ringer lately. Although I will say, while everyone here is happy with it (myself included), the view counts are underwhelming. I’m glad I did it but it seems the Sharknado bandwagon has moved on to other things.
You know, as much as I love Bad Films/Good Bad Films, I still can’t believe I ever watched this one. Let’s just say hype and nothing better to do got the better of my curiosity. I actually watched this film On Demand 2 days after it aired while battling a severe headache, the result of scrombroid food poisoning (a rare food poisoning brought on by the histamine content in seafood), and I had heard the previous day about this movie on Good Morning America. I think it was the headache and exhaustion, but this movie was fascinating. The Steve Sanders with a Chainsaw Showdown was probably my favorite scene in the whole movie. It was EPIC!
On a side note, I actually met Christopher Judge, who was in Clash of the Empires. I met him in August at the Stargate Convention in Chicago (yep, I’m one of those geeks with a weakness for Stargate). He’s a great guy, and talked about this movie upon request from a young fan – yes, that’s right, a CHILD asked him about the movie. I think the child was a girl, nonetheless. It’s on Netflix, so I may actually watch it when I can spare some time…hopefully not the result of histamine food poisoning, I had that once more after the Sharknado viewing, nasty stuff.
I tweeted during Sharknado and kept a body count, and even though the Sharks technically lost, I still gave them 1000 points at the end…because people are stupid. I’m convinced my best tweet of the time spent watching was “it’s like shooting fish in a barrel…or sharks in a ‘Nado.” My boyfriend still loves that tweet.
Anyway, THANK YOU for looking at this film, and I’m glad we seemed to have the same opinion about it. 🙂
Sorry you were sick, I had food poisoning once (bad crab) and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. UGH. I lost like 15 pounds.
Sharknado was a treat. I’m glad to see The Asylum is stepping their game up just enough to make their films more enjoyable. I’m looking forward to the sequel but I don’t think it will go over as well.
It was bad enough, but Good Bad Films are a cure for what ails ya! But seven pounds lost is not a bad thing, I can spare it.
I just love that they really go the extra mile to rip off bigger, more expensive fare, and it’s proof that anything can be done on a small budget, though not necessarily with good quality. Which is why there is such a fascination with Good Bad films. I’m convinced a sequel is not a good idea…why ruin a Good Bad thing?
BTW, I have to tell ya – my boyfriend and I watched Rad last week, and then watched your review of it afterwards – he laughed hysterical at the “announcer losing steam” comment. 🙂
Ian Ziering looks freaking amazing for a guy in his 50s. I used to watch 90210 all the time back in the day and I’m kind of shocked that he was the one who seems to have come out normal. Good for him!
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The hippie teacher guy is played by Robbie Rist who played Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch and was the voice of MIchaelangeo in all 3 live action Ninja Turtle films. Pointless fact I know, but just thought I would put that out there lol. When they were doing the contest to name the sequel, my contributions were “Sharknado 2: Shark Territory” and “Sharknado 2: Into Sharkness” thoughts? I think it’s a better title than the one they chose ” Sharknado 2: The Second One” Great episode as always Cecil!
Oh thank you for using the phrase “Sharkpocalypse”, that just made my day. I’m also championing that name for the sequel. Personally I’m hoping that they’ll have raised enough money from the first one to get a cameo by Adam West to make some gag about Shark Repellent.
Thats plenty of destruction alright, though I think the dead fish smell is going to be more hazardous than any property damage.
The look at the Asylum’s history was very enlightening. It hadn’t occurred to me before just how successful their formula is. The trend of picking titles with number or A names is so brilliant that its downright sublime.
What a gloriously awful movie. I really enjoyed the review and the backstory of Asylum was informative. Asylum already gets points in my book for using “former A-list” stars that otherwise would get no work in this age of uninteresting actors in even more uninteresting movies.
Great review,Cecil(and excellent intro from Handsome Eric as always)-enjoyed hearing more about Asylum,which seems to be following in the footsteps of Roger Corman and Charles Band’s Full Moon. I recall hearing about the studios suing over the mockbusters,which is so ridiculous. Would they rather have more people making bootleg DVDs on opening weekend instead of waiting for their overblown film(what where they thinking with The Lone Ranger-the 1980s rendition crashed and burned as well. Some things are meant for the small screen,not the big!)on legit home video?
1.does this mean you will review jaws 3-d and jaws the revense?
2.james rolfe mansjes this in his top 20 shitty shark movies
3.are you sure you wont review stephen kings it?
So glad you reviewed this movie. It’s so deliciously bad and awesome.
“Bawesome” if you will.
I’m so glad you pointed out Tara Reid’s phoned-in acting. Honestly I never really liked her. She was fine in ‘Urban Legend’ but when I saw her in ‘Alone in the Dark’ and ‘Scrubs’ I thought her acting was awful!
Oh, and to answer your question , yes I did mean the 2011 Behemoth film.
Hoping for more Asylum films. Speaking of which, what was your opinion of the their version of 3 musketeers?
Tara Reid used to be a pretty decent actress but I think she succumbed to the “Lindsey Lohan”. That is, she got popular, started taking in various substances and now both her looks and acting ability are shot. (see also: Amanda Bynes)
She was terrible in Alone in the Dark but it made me laugh because she was supposed to be one of the lead archeologist in the world and couldn’t pronounce half the words she had to say.
I’ll add Behemoth to the list.
More Asylum films to come but probably spaced few and far between. (not really much back story on them since they are kind of assembly line film making) I thought their 3 Musketeers was ok. I liked the angle of having it in current times and them being spies was kind of cool. Some decent action but the usual bad CGI that took me out of it.
You’re review made it look way more interesting than I remember it.
Although they are deliberately cheesy for the amount of budget they put in some of their versions of theatrical films are pretty good and the stories are at least creative although I would like to see how a Sherlock Holmes movie somehow involves Dinosaurs.
I thought I was the only one who didn’t like the Sherlock Holmes movie.
I wish Asylum did their own version of Zero Dark Thirty. Not showing Osama and his death in ZDT was a real cop out. I want to see him being shot outside the compound window with a rocket launcher like Kick Ass with a cool one liner.
Scott Atkins could play the special forces guy who travels the world capturing and interrogating terrorists before killing Osama.
It’s not a great movie by any stretch but it never was intended to be one.
I think they try to get as creative as they can within the constraints of budget and time. While The Asylum in general wants to keep things on the cheap, they do at least attempt to do some unique things. With larger productions there is too much at stake while with them, as long as the film is on time/budget, they can pretty much go nuts.
Sherlock Holmes was…ok. The Asylum version was much more fun.
Well, there was an indie film called Ozombie where Osama is raising an army of the undead and a team of soldiers are sent to take him out. Some folks disliked it, I thought it was rather good. We need more Scott Atkins in general. I just saw the trailer for Ninja 2 and I am freaking out. Scott Atkins and Kane Kasugi? I am positively giddy.
Couldn’t stand the direction and Downey’s portrayal of Holmes in the film.
I thought Ozombie was crap. It started out promising with the Osama raid, death and him being dumped then emerging from the sea but after that the rest of the film was just a sub-standard zombie film that seemed like they had a script from another film and decided to add in the Osama angle to get it made where we only see a tied up and brain dead Osama zombie again right at the end of the film.
Adkins did have a big screen role in ZDT only problem is he only had about 3 lines and died after about 3 minutes of screen time. Lol!
In Expendables 2 I don’t think he even had a speaking part as Van Dammes right hand man.
Didn’t know they had a trailer for Ninja 2. Looks awesome.
Looks like it is filmed in Thailand as it has two of the actors from Only God Forgives in it plus the fact that Myanmar(Burma) is not exactly the most open and friendly place to shoot a film.
Apart from Statham there are not a lot of old school western martial arts action stars with people like Snipes, Van Damme and Gary Daniels who are past there prime and Seagal who was past it a long time ago resorting to stunt doubles in his films.
http://youtu.be/-b88Sf_eCgE
I know a lot of people disliked Osombie but I rather enjoyed it. I went in not knowing anything just liking the premise.
I think Gary Daniels still kicks ass and would be an excellent leading man in bigger films if given the chance. He’s only 50 while Stallone is 67 and still making action. JCVD is awesome and I’m glad he has had a resurgence of late. If you haven’t seen Assassination Games (with Scott Atkins) then you are in for a treat.
Older Segal movies are a blast but most past Glimmer Man are…not good.
Did… did that shark growl? Hot damn, that’s almost as good as a roar!
As stupid as the house collapsing was, that was a pretty neat effect. I mean, clearly fake, but better looking than I would have expected.
That Asylum mini-doc was great, especially the part about numbers and the letter A. I love how shameless they are, but they also seem to be having fun and enjoy it. More Corman, less HGL.
The guys doing the effects are pretty talented considering what they can do in such a short time period. Also, the last I heard the only have about 20-30 guys in the FX house and are given a short window to produce the CGI. Whereas something like Transformers took hundreds of artists and months, if not years of digital work.
Thanks! I wanted to show how love em or hate em, The Asylum has a working business model that gets results. Now that they are bigger on the radar, they are clearly having fun coming up with their movies. There is a certain charm to the films and you can tell they enjoyed doing it, even though it was done on the fly. After working on some sets over the years, there is a certain excitement from the “fly by the seat of your pants” model. (nothing major, all super low budget stuff, natch)
I thought it was a lot of dumb fun, my dad couldn’t get through 10 minutes but no matter how the film ended up I just love the fact that someone came up with the idea of a tornado full of sharks attacking california, pitched it to a some producers who then gave $2,000,000 to make this insane premise a reality.
The film was originally pitched to a larger production studio, under the name Dark Skies, and they wanted 100 million. No way was that going to happen and they got funding through the Asylum to make it the cheese classic it is.
I’d love to get 100,000 for some of my hairbrained ideas but 2 million is just amazing.
I watched it when I was very under the weather, and I think it was the only reason I was a captive audience. My mom kept coming in to check on me, and decided to watch a few minutes here and there, out of complete curiosity. These types of movies are not her thing, but she laughed a few times.
I LOVE The Asylum. I cant tell you how many lonely Saturdays I have spent watching one of their flicks. This one and probably I Am Omega are some of their better films. Its just a testament that a little creativity and courage can go a long way. Sharknado, btw, is aces. Thanks for the review!
Thanks!
I keep meaning to check out I am Omega. Perhaps this weekend if I have time.
Dude. That was great! That was one of the most enjoyable entries. Well delivered, made some intelligent points. You made the right decision by doing this one. You have stayed true and you are listening to your instincts and right on and damn skippy! Now if it would just stop raining over here in Colorado…
Thanks! I knew I could give a unique angle on a subject that has been through the ringer lately. Although I will say, while everyone here is happy with it (myself included), the view counts are underwhelming. I’m glad I did it but it seems the Sharknado bandwagon has moved on to other things.
Hi Cecil!
You know, as much as I love Bad Films/Good Bad Films, I still can’t believe I ever watched this one. Let’s just say hype and nothing better to do got the better of my curiosity. I actually watched this film On Demand 2 days after it aired while battling a severe headache, the result of scrombroid food poisoning (a rare food poisoning brought on by the histamine content in seafood), and I had heard the previous day about this movie on Good Morning America. I think it was the headache and exhaustion, but this movie was fascinating. The Steve Sanders with a Chainsaw Showdown was probably my favorite scene in the whole movie. It was EPIC!
On a side note, I actually met Christopher Judge, who was in Clash of the Empires. I met him in August at the Stargate Convention in Chicago (yep, I’m one of those geeks with a weakness for Stargate). He’s a great guy, and talked about this movie upon request from a young fan – yes, that’s right, a CHILD asked him about the movie. I think the child was a girl, nonetheless. It’s on Netflix, so I may actually watch it when I can spare some time…hopefully not the result of histamine food poisoning, I had that once more after the Sharknado viewing, nasty stuff.
I tweeted during Sharknado and kept a body count, and even though the Sharks technically lost, I still gave them 1000 points at the end…because people are stupid. I’m convinced my best tweet of the time spent watching was “it’s like shooting fish in a barrel…or sharks in a ‘Nado.” My boyfriend still loves that tweet.
Anyway, THANK YOU for looking at this film, and I’m glad we seemed to have the same opinion about it. 🙂
Awesome!
Sorry you were sick, I had food poisoning once (bad crab) and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. UGH. I lost like 15 pounds.
Sharknado was a treat. I’m glad to see The Asylum is stepping their game up just enough to make their films more enjoyable. I’m looking forward to the sequel but I don’t think it will go over as well.
It was bad enough, but Good Bad Films are a cure for what ails ya! But seven pounds lost is not a bad thing, I can spare it.
I just love that they really go the extra mile to rip off bigger, more expensive fare, and it’s proof that anything can be done on a small budget, though not necessarily with good quality. Which is why there is such a fascination with Good Bad films. I’m convinced a sequel is not a good idea…why ruin a Good Bad thing?
BTW, I have to tell ya – my boyfriend and I watched Rad last week, and then watched your review of it afterwards – he laughed hysterical at the “announcer losing steam” comment. 🙂
Who knew Ian Ziering was our last hope and Savior in the battle versus the Sharknadoes????
I had the biggest crush on him when I was 7 years old.
*Mind blown*
Ian Ziering looks freaking amazing for a guy in his 50s. I used to watch 90210 all the time back in the day and I’m kind of shocked that he was the one who seems to have come out normal. Good for him!
I forgot he was in his 50s, I was too busy thinking how he looks amazing too! 🙂 I watched 90210 for a few years in the 1990s, I loved it until it got too risqué and I was discouraged from watching it by my parents. Ahh, good times. I’ve seen some reruns since then.