Tuesday, October 1, 2013

We're Back! With SHARK WEEK!!!

We’re back at it, friends!  I ended up on an unplanned hiatus for the summer.  We had insane work schedules…. Vacations… Jason moved!   We did still watch movies as much as possible, but there were a number of weeks that we couldn’t meet.  The movies we did watch have been put on the Movie Nuts Watch List, so check out that page to catch up on what we watched over the summer.  There were some good ones!  And so… to kick us back off on the blog—SHARK WEEK!!!!!

Movie #1:  Ghost Shark (2013, with ensemble cast of relative unknowns)

Another SYFY creature feature!  Ghost Shark begins with a couple of stereotypical redneck low-lives viciously killing a Great White Shark that then, through unholy magic, turns into a blood-thirsty ghost.  Now the poor town (very reminiscent of the village of Amity in Jaws, complete with self-serving mayor) is at the mercy of this violent ghost!  Oh, but it’s not just the shoreline that harbors the danger of losing life and limb—OH NO!  The “ghost shark” can travel anywhere there is water…. bathtubs, swimming pools, water hoses, fire hydrants….  No one is safe! There is the requisite group of half-naked, teenage girls.  In this movie, they’re working a fundraiser car wash, so naturally they are all WET half-naked teenage girls (you can piece it together here on your own….).  Of course, these sirens of the local high school must meet their untimely end, as is the custom with all horror movies.  Our favorite “offing”—the ghost shark is in the water bucket and chomps the girl to bits from inside the water bucket.  Absolutely over the top.  Kathy loved it… she has a picture of the scene on her Facebook page.  In the end, the unholy magic is reversed, the ghost shark is returned to the Hades of the oceanic world, and life returns to normal (with half the town decimated in the ghost shark’s wake, naturally….)
Things we loved:  1.  Richard Moll’s guest appearance as the creepy and crotchety old lighthouse keeper.  (You’ll all remember him from Night Court fame!)  He was creepy.  Very creepy.  And crotchety.  Very crotchety!   2.  The museum curator—Kathy had a very hard time determining his identity.  Is it a man?  Is it a woman?  Who is it?  We told you it was a man, Kathy… and it was—IMDB.com says so.
Ratings:  We all three gave this one a 3.5.  For what it was (read and remember here---cheesy tv horror flick), it was good. Funny, over the top, utterly ridiculous.  No Oscar noms here!  And we like it that way.

Movie #2:  Sharknado!  (2013, The Asylum, with Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, John Heard)


We’ve been waiting for another production from The Asylum!  Finally, one was released.  This flick actually even made it to the theaters.  We were all bummed that we didn’t get to go see it on the big screen….until we watched it last week.  We can go along with a lot of pretty stupid, far-fetched story lines, and we totally loved Ghost Shark.  (Kathy’s exact comment—“I’m buying it.  Ok.  I can buy that.”  Of course, that could’ve been the wine, but then, Kathy will believe about anything. )  Sharknado on the other hand…  even Kathy couldn’t go with it.  So the basic premise is the Los Angeles coast is plagued by a massive hurricane that then generates these water spouts that include dozens of sharks.  In the midst of all this is a small group of people trying to survive.  You have the fairly common family drama that comes into play at the most inopportune moments, yet is resolved by the coming together against a common foe—the sharknadoes.  Ian Ziering (of the original Beverly Hills 90210, not that recent CW reboot crap) is the hero, naturally.  Tara Reid, who by the way looks horribly old for her age, plays his ex.  Throw in massive tidal waves, hundreds of gnashing shark teeth, school bus full of stranded, crying children, a helicopter, and a chainsaw, and you have the mediocre flick which we watched.  Although a bit lack-luster for The Asylum, we were trying to hang on to our “suspension of disbelief” up until the very end.  At the end, our hero Ian sacrifices himself to save his daughter from the sharnado by jumping in front of her with a chainsaw.  The shark swallows him and the chainsaw whole.  They kill the shark, it falls to the ground, every one stands around crying over the now dead Ian.  But wait!  There’s a noise…it’s muffled, yet persistent.  What is that?  The shark’s body begins to move.  The sound gets louder; the shark’s body begins to shift harder.  There’s a sudden gash, AND-----our hero cuts through the shark’s body with the chainsaw and frees himself—AND the girl who was swallowed whole about 30 minutes ago in the movie.  WHAT????!!!!???   All three of us sat forward in our chairs and shouted our disbelief at this cinematic miracle.  Kathy:  “I believed in the ghost shark!  I ain’t believing in that!”   At that point, we were all three totally over this movie….and we were all three thankful we hadn’t wasted $10.00 a pop going to see that in the theater.  What a waste.  Why, people of The Asylum, why?  Your standards have definitely dropped.


Ratings:  Kathy and Jason both give this one a 2.5;  I give it a 1.5.  (Even if you’re into crap movies like us….Don’t bother.)

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