Hansel & Lara (Paul McGillion & Sarain Boylan) causing some shit in the kingdom

I love getting these early screeners from the SyFy channel.  I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way at all … I really enjoy getting these early screeners.  Usually the versions I get are still in post-production and still have work to do on the f/x and the sound (i.e., syncing the dialogue to the people speaking).  But this time around I got a screener that wasn’t even sure about its own title!!  The DVD I was sent had WITCHSLAYER GRETL on it but when the title came on screen during the opening credits it just said GRETL.  So I looked it up on IMDb.com and found a third title for it:  GRETL: WITCH HUNTER.  So why am I going with this third title?  Why the hell not!!  Putting aside the issue with the title, what we’re really looking for in this review is whether GRETL: WITCH HUNTER, premiering this Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 9PM (ET/PT), is any good.  Well is it?

The title, GRETL: WITCH HUNTER, is a little inaccurate.  Gretl isn’t the witch hunter here; her brother Hansel (Paul McGillion) is.  Hansel, you see, was so traumatized by he and his sister’s encounter with the evil witch when young that he’s devoted his entire life to hunting and killing all witches (and warlocks for that matter).  The witch took his sister’s life and he’s been hunting down the Queen Witch to exact revenge and to stop her from becoming immortal and all-powerful.  The Queen Witch, you see, goes around kidnapping women all over the countryside who have “witch power” but don’t know it.  She takes them and casts a spell over them so they are enthralled to her and make her more powerful.  As the film opens, Hansel and his I-want-her-to-be-cute-but-she’s-really-not partner, Lara (Sarain Boylan), stop the Queen’s thugs, lead by the countries only warlock, Abyss (Jefferson Brown), as they attempt to kidnap Ehren (Emilie Ullerup).  Ehren doesn’t know it but she’s an extremely powerful witch with powers the Queen needs for her ultimate plan.  And the plan is … wait a minute … I’m not sure.  I think she just wants to be the most powerful witch in the kingdom.  Right?  Aahhh whatever!!

Shannen Doherty ... NOOOOOO

So Hansel, Lara, and Erhen (who loses her dad, Frank J. Zupancic, to the warlock) team up to hunt down Abyss and the queen witch.  What could possibly go wrong?  I won’t keep you wondering any more, but GRETL: WITCH HUNTER has a lot of problems with it.  Besides McGillion, of SANCTUARY and STARGATE: ATLANTIS fame, the acting in this one is pretty over the top.  Sarain Boylan also does a pretty solid job but the rest of the cast are acting at a made-for-TV-movie level.  In fact, the entire production felt more like the pilot episode of an already cancelled pilot.  Add to this a script with an identity crisis and you’ll be scratching your head a lot.  This seems to take place in the age of Dungeons and Dragons, but Lara and Hansel have this Bluetooth-like device they use to talk to each other over long distances.  Maybe in this film THE TWO TOWERS are actually cell phone towers?  And all of Hansel’s witch-fighting weapons are pretty lame.  There’s a lightning whip, a boomerang-like throwing knife straight outta KRULL, and some magic-sensing goggles they ripped right off of Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge’s face!!

Then for good measure throw in some unclear motives for why everyone is doing what they’re doing.  Writer Brook Durham (the writer of other such SyFy epics, RED: WEREWOLF HUNTER, RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX, and SHOWDOWN AT AREA 51) must have cranked this one out pretty fast.  But despite all the eye-rolling moments I also found myself, god help me, enjoying this one.  GRETL: WITCH HUNTER definitely falls in to the so-bad-its-good category.  The girls all have perms and wear make up; all the girls in the kingdom are twenty-something pieces of ass; and it seems every female has ‘witch powers.’  If you come across a young, sexy, big-tittied maiden in this kingdom I guarantee she has ‘witch power’ and doesn’t know it (maybe that’s what’s growing all those saline-filled titties?).

The plot moves along in a very predictable manner until Hansel finally gets his face to face with the queen witch only to find out its … Shannen Doherty.  Now it’s a party!!  I’m not gonna give away the twist here, but i watched this one with my 3 and 6 year olds and they both figured it out long before the twist was revealed.  No, this one’s not gonna win any awards, but it is fun and you could make a pretty good drinking game out of it.  Every time you see something modern in the film or a cast member says something modern, ya gotta drink a shot.  Trust me, you’ll need a few bottles.

Hansel & Ehren (Paul McGillion & Emilie Ullerup)

Since the Hollywood big budget film, HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, got pushed back to a January 2013 release date, GRETL: WITCH HUNTER might tide you over.  It’s silly, has huge plot holes, doesn’t always make sense, and doesn’t have a “directed by” credit attached to it!!  That’s right; as of writing this review, nowhere on the DVD or on IMDb does anyone wanna claim they directed this one.  That’s always a bad sign!!  But at least GRETL: WITCH HUNTER isn’t trying to be something it isn’t.  This is a SyFy Original through and through and it knows it.  This is worth checking out for its so-bad-its-good appeal and for it’s potential to get you really drunk.  Look for this one this Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 9PM (ET/PT).

My Summary:

Director:  ???

Plot:  2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  1 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Well, St. Paddy’s Day is almost upon us and to celebrate one of the dizziest and pukiest of all holidays, the SyFy channel has partnered up with After Dark Films to bring us the tale of a killer leprechaun, aptly titled, LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE. But this isn’t the same kind of killer leprechaun we all grew to love in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This is no wisecracking, Freddy Krueger-looking wee one running around retrieving his lost gold and killing anyone who gets in his way (in neither outer space nor “da hood”). No; this is a more monstrous looking mythical creature from Irish folklore. Gold still plays a role in the plot, but in a different way. And let’s not forget that not only is LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE a SyFy Original, it’s also co-produced by After Dark Films … and we all know their track record!!

Karen (Courtney Halverson) puts is a solid performance & looks cute doing it.

This one has some recognizable faces in it. There’s Billy Zane, who plays the sheriff in the small town of Keening, Massachusetts (Sheriff Conor O’Hara), and William Devane (Pop O’Hara), Zane’s wacky old father who seems to have a lot of knowledge about leprechauns (of course). But caught in the middle of the shit storm is Sheriff O’Hara’s daughter Karen (Courtney Halverson) who unknowingly and unwittingly releases the titular creature from it’s prison inside an oak tree (!!?!). Karen picked a red clover in a patch near the oak tree and invoked the “Curse of the Red Clover.” This curse has her pegged as the number one target of the killer leprechaun and she and her dad and grandpop have four days to figure out a way to kill the immortal creature before the curse gets her. And why is the leprechaun so pissed off anyway? Well it seems that before the people that founded Keening, Mass left Ireland they first captured a leprechaun and brought it with them to their new home. They “drained the leprechaun’s luck” until it turned mean and vicious and then turned on the people. They managed to imprison it inside an oak tree for centuries until Karen had to go and pick that damn red clover!! Got it? Phew.

She is NOT gonna wanna see what's behind her!!

Remember kids; leprechauns aren’t bad … it’s people who turn them bad!!

If you watch a lot of SyFy Originals, like I do, then the first thing you’ll immediately recognize is the lack of the typical “SyFy Original formula.” There’s no current or ex-special forces hunk, there’s no geeky yet extremely hot female scientist, and there’s no weird love triangle. In fact, there’s no relationship or love interest in the entire film. The closet we get is Karen, who’s a major cutie, innocently and awkwardly flirting with one of her high school classmates. But beyond flirting, there is no deeper relationship built up here. The central characters are all related (the O’Hara family) and we see how they deal with this killer leprechaun as a family (the same leprechaun apparently targeted their ancestors from Ireland). Writer Anthony C. Ferrante stayed surprisingly focused on this one and didn’t let the plot stray as it did in some of his past flicks (he also wrote the boring HOUSE OF BONES and the predictable SCREAM OF THE BANSHEE). And director Drew Daywalt keeps things running at a quick enough pace that the huge plot holes won’t bother you too much. But this is a creature flick, and this brings us to the main question: “How’s the freakin’ leprechaun look?” Well …

Zane & Devane put in pretty fun performances.

If you’re expecting the leprechaun-kinda look Warwick Davis made famous in the LEPRECHAUN franchise (as I was), you’re in for a big disappointment. The creature here looks nothing like the leprechaun pictures we’ve become accustomed too. Now normally I’d applaud the filmmakers here for thinking outside the box and giving us something new. Normally I would. But instead of looking like Warwick Davis, the leprechaun here (played by Kevin Mangold) looks more like the titular creature from Guillermo del Toro’s PAN’S LABYRINTH … albeit a cheaper, B-movie version of the creature. But Daywalt was obviously proud of its design because he shows it soon after the movie begins and they show it often!! Seriously, they show it a lot.

Don't look too closely at the creature ... it's kinda sketchy looking!!

Besides the kinda disappointing creature, the plot does move along at a brisk pace, although you still won’t be able to overlook some of the plot holes. Example; if Karen was ‘marked’ by the leprechaun for picking the red clover, then why didn’t it just kill her immediately and get it over with. The leprechaun kills many people but apparently has to keep a schedule for the one that freed it? There’s also a few segments in the film where I thought there were two leprechauns. Why? Good question!! Mainly because the leprechaun kills someone in the woods and then seconds later we see old leppy killing someone in town, about 30 miles away. I know it’s an immortal creature, but does it have super speed too?

Italian food just doesn't agree with old Leppy (yes; I just made a fart joke)!!

Overall LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE isn’t a terrible film. The most positive element After Dark Pictures brings with it to the table is that it gives this one better production values than most of the SyFy Originals we get. The acting is also well done by all the principle characters (I’m a huge Billy Zane fan and am surprised he never made it bigger in Hollywood). I watched this one with my 6 and 4 year olds and we all had a good time laughing and making fun of the film (I have my very own MST3K over here!!). There was better gore in LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE than in most SyFy Originals and they didn’t end it leaving it open for a sequel (thank you). There aren’t too many Irish-themed horror flicks for St. Paddy’s Day, and if you’re like me, you can’t watch 1993‘s LEPRECHAUN one more friggin’ time!! So sit back, crack open a few Guinness and have fun. There’s some fun to be had with this one.

LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE premiers this Saturday, March 17, 2012 on SyFy at 9pm (ET/PT).

My Summary:

Director: Drew Daywalt

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Please note the quote at the bottom of the poster … I really don’t think THE AVENGERS has anything to worry about!!

I’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time.  No, really; I have (that’s my life, folks).  Now I’ll be perfectly honest here … I’ve never seen an episode of THE JERSEY SHORE.  Seriously; I haven’t, but it feels as though I know everything about it.  These Guido’s infested pop culture quicker than a Canadian having sex with a dead body (too soon?  Sorry).  The main cast members were all over all the TV and radio talk shows, doing guest spots in films, and The Situation even attempted to do stand up at the last Comedy Central Roast (with disastrous results).  So it seemed inevitable that these jackholes would end up being parodied in either a SCARY MOVIE-like film or a TV flick.  It looks like the SyFy channel beat everyone with JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK and combined our love of killer shark flicks and our hatred of those douchy JERSEY SHORE idiots.  Seriously; why are they so popular?  If you want to follow around a bunch of drunk schmucks partying, acting like idiots, and trying to hook up all the time, you could’ve followed me and my college buddies around.  Where’s my fucking show?!!??

JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK, premiering this Saturday night, June 9th at 9pm ET/PT, stars a cast of lookalikes from the popular MTV show.  We’ve got TC, “The Complication” (Jeremy Luc), the brains of the gang; Nooki (Melissa Molinaro), a way too cute girl to be parodying Snooki; Donnie (Joey Russo), TC’s weight-lifting meathead buddy; Pauli (Daniel Booko), who may not be Italian but who “respects the Guido lifestyle”; and BJ (Audi Resendez), Nooki’s girlfriend, and aptly named I’m sure.  TC and his boys are Guido’s living down at Seaside Heights and are immature d-bags who really don’t take anything seriously.  TC’s dad, Sheriff Moretti (Paul Scalia) is the law of the beach town and wants nothing more than his son to grow up and take on some responsibility.  As the film opens we watch our gang of juiced-up cannoli eaters partying it up, getting into trouble, and just having fun.  Then when a couple of preppy, rich kids, Bradford (Grant Harvey) and Spencer (Dylan Vox) from the nearby country club cause trouble and cause their buddy Joey (Ben Giroux) to jump into the water where he gets eaten by an albino bull shark, well the gang starts to man up and find a way to convince TC’s dad and the other locals that Joey was killed by a shark.

Here’s our heroes; can you freakin; believe it??

There’s also a plot about a land developer who bought up a lot of boardwalk property with the intentions of “prettying up the area.”  Part of the plan is extending the boardwalk and building expensive condo’s, but to do this the developer, Dolan (William Atherton), needs to drill into the ocean floor.  The constant vibrations attract the normally deep sea dwellers and once they arrive they decide to have Italian.  Yes, it’s a very basic set up that we’ve seen a thousand times before, but the gimmick here is of course having JERSEY SHORE characters that look like and behave like the real life douchetards.  There’s also a few nods to other more well-known sharks flicks.  In one scene Jack Scalia tries to convince Mayor Palantine (Paul Sorvino … yes, that Paul Sorvino) to “close down the beaches.”  Now where have we seen and heard that before?  Hhmmm …  And what’s up with Sorvino’s character’s name?  It sounds like a goddamn STAR WARS character!!

Ya gotta admit, the actress playing Nooki (Melissa Molinaro) is waaaay better looking than the real Snooki!!

You know exactly where this film is going and how it’s gonna get there, but I still had a lot of fun with it.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in South Jersey and spent a lot of time in Seaside Heights.  Yes, the actors here go overboard with their “Guido-ness,” but really not by much.  I knew and saw people like that down at the shore and I had a fun time watching them get caricaturized.  But I’ll tell ya; the Italian-American Alliance Group (I’m assuming there is one), isn’t gonna be happy with how Italians are portrayed in JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK.  But on the positive side, this is a cast full of Italians, with Paul Sorvino nonetheless, and no one is in the mafia!!  That’s gotta be a first.  But I also take the good-natured ribbing not as a crack on all Italian-Americans, but on the world MTV created with JERSEY SHORE.  From what I hear about it, it’s an abysmal show.

Oh that Pauli (Daniel Booko) … always worried about his hair!!

Of course nothing here is meant to be taken seriously.  When you have Paulie shooting a machine gun at the sharks and he stops to make sure his hair still looks good, you know we’re in some goofy territory.  But there’s some really funny dialogue scattered throughout.  When the guys find a turned over little rowboat covered in blood, they figure it’s “Vinnie’s boat, but which Vinnie?”  They then proceed to list all the various Vinnie’s they know (which is a lot).  There’s Vinnie Bombatz, Vinnie Donuts, Vinnie Knuckles, Vinnie Crab, Vinnie No-Neck, … etc.  It’s a pretty damn funny exchange.

Joey Fatone & an albino bull shark. See ya Joey!!

The sharks themselves pose a big threat because they literally jump outta the water and snatch people off of boats, the sides of docks, and the boardwalk.  That’s believable, right?  Deep sea sharks would probably instinctively start jumping outta the water to eat Guido’s.  I think.  The gore is as expected:  Lots of CG blood and missing body parts as well as CG sharks jumping around all over the place.  But there are a few practical f/x here with gushing blood that was a nice treat.

The cast does a nice job and they look like they’re all having fun in their roles.  We also get a level of character development that was completely unexpected as the guys go from being punks to saving the day.  Director John Shepphird and writers Michael Ciminera, Richard Gnolfo, Jeffrey Schenck, and Peter Sullivan (yes; FOUR writers) keep everything moving along at a quick pace so you don’t have time to realize how silly everything is.  But you should already know that … it’s called JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK, not SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK!!  I had fun with this one, but the one area the writers really shit the bed was not having any of the main cast getting chewed up by the sharks.  I watched this anticipating seeing the Snooki or ‘The Situation’ characters getting torn apart by sharks.  This could have added a lot of fun to the film, but I think you’ll manage to have fun with this one anyway.  Check it out!!

JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK premiers this Saturday, June 9th at 9pm, ET/PT on SyFy (did ya think it’d be airing on Masterpiece Theater??).

This is the last thing a shark sees before a guido dies!!

My Summary:

Director:  John Shepphird

Plot:  2.5 out of 5 stars (3 outta 5 if the cast got eaten)

Gore:  2.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

PIRANHACONDA will be the second movie to premier in June (Saturday, June 16th at 9pm) on the SyFy channel in what is being called the “Most Dangerous Month on TV.” We started this party with JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK and though far from perfect, it had a fun energy to it that I couldn’t help but enjoy. PIRANHACONDA, unfortunately, isn’t quite as successful. It suffers from a really bad case of “been there, seen that.” In fact, it’s the worse case I’ve ever seen (literally)!!

PIRANHACONDA takes place in the jungles of Hawaii where Professor Lovegrove (Michael Madsen; yup, “Mr. Blonde” himself) is on an expedition in search of a mythic creature he believes is real. The creature is proven early on (like in the first five minutes) and kills the people on his team, but Lovegrove escapes unscratched and even manages to steal one of the creature’s eggs. At this point the creature isn’t referred to with the titular name but has the moniker of some ancient Polynesian myth (the name escapes me). After this opening attack we head over to a different part of the island where an indie movie crew is shooting a low-budget slasher flick, HEAD CHOPPER. Milo (Chris De Christopher) is the overbearing perfectionist director; Rose (Teri Ivens) is the script supervisor; Jack (Rib Hills) is the hunky stuntman; and Kimmy (Shandi Finnessey) is the diva B-movie starlet who acts like an A-list actress. What brings these two seemingly unrelated stories together is a group of Hawaiian kidnappers (I’m not kidding) lead by Pike (Michael Swan) and Talia (Rachel Hunter, who was recently in SyFy’s MIAMI MAGMA), who capture Lovegrove and then capture our cast and crew of HEAD CHOPPER. They believe the studio will pay big bucks to get their lead actress and director back (do they know anything about Hollywood??).

Hey; even “Mr. Blonde” has a mortgage to pay!!

Now I’m not gonna pick apart this film because we all know what to expect from a movie with the name “PIRANHACONDA.” The only problem is we didn’t really get the kind of movie I was expecting. PIRANHACONDA is written by Mike MacLean, the same guy who brought us SHARKTOPUS, so I was expecting a little more focus on the actual hybridization of the creature. But the creature starts out as being just a Polynesian myth come to life until about half way through the film when the filmmakers seem to realize the title of the film is “PIRANHACONDA”. The story line and all the characters in it also seemed extremely familiar. I mean way more familiar than the typical SyFy flick. And then I began to realize that beyond the script and characters, the actual scenery was the exact same as another film I saw last year. And to prove without a shadow of the doubt that I watch waaaay too many SyFy films, I recognized the scenery in PIRANHACONDA as being identical to 2010’s DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR. Not only was MacLean the writer on this epic as well, but both films have the same director, Jim Wynorski (he directed DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR under the name “Rob Robertson”). Now a clearer picture started to emerge.

Does this location look familiar? It should!!

It seems Wynorski was truly embracing his low-budget roots and decided to save money by utilizing the same locations from DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR to film PIRANHACONDA. So they probably cranked out a script, filmed it, and then after the success of SHARKTOPUS decided to give it a hybrid title. Thus PIRANHACONDA was born. Now I’m just speculating about this chain of events, but if you were to watch DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR and PIRANHACONDA back to back you will see that not only are the exact same locations used, but the characters are all pretty much the same, the set-up kills by the creature are the same, the creature chases the heroes down the exact same dirt road, and they even use the abandoned factory for the climax of the film. This takes “been there, seen that” to a whole other level!! You also get the feeling the script was being changed as they were filming because eventually the cast start throwing around the “Piranhaconda” name. Madsen’s Lovegrove tells them it isn’t a mythical creature hunting them down but a freak mutation that nature produced. This leads to one of the more amusing exchanges:

Rachel Hunter loves eggs!!

Arturo: “It’s not a snake; it’s some kind of unholy union between a piranha and an anaconda.”

Talia: “You mean a ‘Piranhaconda’?”

Pike: [Slowly turns his head in disgust to look at Talia] “I can’t believe you just said that.”

And because this is a Wynorski flick we get plenty of huge-chested women running around getting dirty, bloody, and killed by the creature. I had no idea that there were so many huge-chested women in the field of zoology and archeology!! Most of the f/x, not surprisingly, are CGI, but we do get a few practical f/x with blood being sprayed around the cast members. I screened a very rough copy of PIRANHACONDA and don’t know if I saw the final version of the creature or if the sound f/x for the creature were finalized, but the piranhaconda looked pretty much as you’d expect: It’s a huge, gigantic anaconda with a piranha head. Meh. And when it “screams” it sounds exactly like Godzilla (again, though, I’m not sure if these details were finalized on the screener I watched).

eeeewwwwwww!!

I really wanted to enjoy PIRANHACONDA, and part of me did. But I wanted another campy SHARTOPUS-like film. Instead what we end up with is the exact same story, setting, locations, and characters that we’ve all seen before … LITERALLY. The end result is PIRANHACONDA feeling like a rush job that’s had a lot of work done to it in post-production. I’m also suspicious that the filmmakers here had a cool title but no actual script. The titular creature definitely wasn’t utilized to the best effect!!. If you’ve never seen DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR, then you’ll have fun with PIRANHACONDA. But if you’ve seen the former then PIRANHACONDA will be like watching a remake. Recommended for the SyFy completists,and those who, like myself, just really enjoy a SyFy flick … I know you’re out there (I can’t help it; SyFy flicks are my heroine).

PIRANHACONDA premiers Saturday, June 16th at 9pm ET/PT on SyFy.

He looks a little pissed!!

My Summary:

Director: Jim Wynorski

Plot: 2 out of 5 stars

Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Let “The Most Dangerous Month on TV” continue!! I don’t know how SyFy does it, but they keep cranking out the creature flicks. I’m always saying that I yearn for the carefree days of when I was younger watching UHF channel 48 in South Jersey. Every Saturday late morning to early evening this channel would play nothing but creature flicks. The first show on was always called “Creature Double Feature.” I’ve always wanted to have a channel like this for my kids to watch some fun creature flicks, and now I guess they do. The movies aren’t exactly the same but the spirit is there. And SyFy hasn’t been closer to the spirit of the old creature features than with ARACHNOQUAKE. This is a really fun flick that I had a blast watching. It’s not good “for a SyFy flick,” but it’s a good flick period (I’d even pay to see it in the theaters).

ARACHNOQUAKE is directed by Griff Furst (who often goes by the name G.E. Furst when directing) who is no stranger to SyFy. He directed LAKE PLACID 3 (my review) and the really fun SWAMP SHARK (my review) and it seems he’s getting better with each film. ARACHNOQUAKE takes the simple premise that an earthquake in Louisiana unleashes a swarm of big ass, aggressive, hungry, albino spiders that go around and make meals out of anyone they can find. But even though the set-up is very familiar, Furst and writers Paul A. Birkett (ICE TWISTERS) and Eric Forsberg (MEGA PIRANHA) don’t take ARACHNOQUAKE down the same familiar roads and load it up with the same over-used characters.

The cast trying to tell Paul (Bug Hall) that he’s got a little something something on his shoulder!!

Paul (Bug Hall) is an irresponsible twenty-something caught up in the New Orleans lifestyle of partying too hard and chasing too many women. His father Roy (Ethan Phillips) owns a company that offers tours around the swamp and the city and wants nothing more than his son to prove to him that he’s ready to start running the business himself. Paul’s first tour of the day is a family that’s in town for a baseball game. The father Charlie (Edward Furlong) is the coach of a girl’s softball team and brought along his wife Katelynn (Tracey Gold) and kids Anabell and Justin (Megan Adelle and Skyy Moore, respectively) so they could see NOLA. The talk all over the radio and among the locals is the earthquake they felt the previous night, and before you can say, “What the hell is that coming outta the ground,” these ancient, albino spiders that grow remarkably fast start jumping on and killing any and every living thing. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that I like a film to have a certain amount of energy in it. There are times when the “slow burn” approach works in a film (THE WOMAN comes immediately to mind), but for a giant creature flick to work it needs to be fast-paced, fun, and not take itself too serious. ARACHNOQUAKE covers all these bases. What start off as little spiders that incubate in living tissue (i.e., human beings) and then burst out when they get bigger, grow to sizes larger than most hybrid cars!!

Meet The Queen … she’s extremely large & very pissed off!!

Yes, the spiders are pretty creepy looking, but remember that I hate spiders. I mean I really fucking hate spiders, so you may not be as freaked out by these creepy-crawly’s as much as I was. But they are big, can move fast, and can jump even faster. Oh yeah; did I mention they’re fast swimmers and can breathe fire?? Well they do. But nothing here is meant to be taken seriously, once again you can tell that director Furst and the cast had a really fun time making this one. This may start off as a fairly standard “spider invasion” flick, but by the end ARACHNOQUAKE becomes a full-blown giant creature feature!! Just wait until the queen spider appears; this’ll take you back to the good old day’s of the Creature Feature.

Hey Pops (Ethan Phillips) … you definitely don’t wanna turn around!!

What I really enjoyed is that the standard characters we usually get in these films were absent. There was no love interest going on between any of the characters, no odd love triangle, and there weren’t your typical ‘expert,’ soldier, and scientist running around. The closest we get to an ‘expert’ here is Katelynn (Tracey Gold’s character). Katelynn is an eighth grade biology teacher who has a Master’s degree in zoology. She has just enough knowledge to progress the plot, but isn’t a know-it-all who knows how to destroy the spiders.

There’s not much more I can say about ARACHNOQUAKE. I really enjoyed this one and was really surprised how it grabbed me. All the characters are likable, the dynamic between them all is different than we’re used to seeing, and everyone looks like they were having a blast making this film. And just wait until the final act when ARACHNOQUAKE smashes its way into 1950‘s-giant creature territory!! The final act is a ton of fun and the solution Paul comes up with to destroy the beast will have you gagging. SyFy needs to keep G.E. Furst on the payroll and get him to direct more of their films. Furst “gets it” when it comes to these films. And Eric Forsberg really needs to write more scripts for SyFy. Forsberg follows up MEGA PIRANHA with ARACHNOQUAKE … two back-to-back home runs!! Don’t miss ARACHNOQUAKE, which is premiering on SyFy on Saturday, June 23 at 9pm ET/PT.

Oh shit … The Queen’s climbing up the building of my bank!! Come on ….

My Summary:

Director: G.E. Furst

Plot: 4 out of 5 stars

Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

With the premier of SyFy’s BIGFOOT comes an end to “The Most Dangerous Month on TV.”  I don’t know about ‘dangerous,’ but I’ve had an overall pretty good time with the four premiers.  JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK (my review) kicked off the month followed by PIRANHACONDA (my review), the weakest of the bunch, and then ARACHNOQUAKE (my review), the strongest of the bunch.  And now this Saturday, June 30^th at 9pm ET/PT comes BIGFOOT.  Do we go out on a high note?

BIGFOOT takes the popular big guy and puts him in Deadwood, South Dakota where he’s been living in the cave systems (apparently) for decades.  But Bigfoot is also an environmentalist and when humans start messing with his domain, the big guy gets a little pissed off.  Writers Brian Brinkman and Micho Rutare, who teamed up on 2010’s METEOR APOCALYPSE, get together again to give us a script full of pop icons, a CG Bigfoot, and a conflict between two previous best friends who now find themselves fighting each other over the titular character.  In the one corner you have ex-PARTRIDGE FAMILY member Danny Bonaduce, the DJ at a small, local radio station in Deadwood who’s trying to organize a huge 1980’s music festival.  He envisions a kind of modern-day Woodstock and has been clearing out a national park of its pesky trees, local fauna, and other annoying wildlife.

Barry Williams, Danny Bonaduce, & the big guy himself!!

In the other corner is ex-BRADY BUNCH member Barry Williams (he was Greg Brady), who used to be a singer-songwriter managed by Bonaduce until they had a falling out.  Williams is now a diehard environmentalist who doesn’t much care for the raping and damaging of the earth for someone’s greedy goals.  Williams and Bonaduce are at odds and openly hate each other (there’s also the implied indiscretion of Bonaduce banging Williams’ mom).  Not since the pop star diva match up of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson in last year’s MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID has the tension been so thick that you could see it!!  Okay; maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.  But Williams does everything he can to try and stop Bonaduce from ruining the land for his 80’s festival.  Other pop icons in BIGFOOT include Howard Hesseman (HEAD OF THE CLASS), Sherilyn Fenn (TWIN PEAKS), Alice Cooper (as himself), Billy Idol, and Andre Royo (THE WIRE).

Sherilyn Fenn & Howard Hesseman round out the cast.

The day of the festival arrives and though we were told this was gonna be the town’s biggest event … E V E R, with the Mayor (Hesseman) predicting around 5,000 people, only about 50-75 people actually show up.  The concert has a rough start and only after Alice Cooper takes the stage does the party get started.  But between acts there’s a bit of reverb from the speakers and this just sets Bigfoot right off.  He rampages the concert making meatloaf and mashed potatoes of all the attendees, and even turns Cooper into a 900 yard punt!!  But now it’s on.  Bigfoot has tipped his hand and the world is now aware he exists.  So naturally every hick with a camera and a gun attempts to hunt down the hulking beast.  I will give BIGFOOT credit where credit is due … the body count here is huge as Bigfoot stomps, chews, smashes, and kicks his way through most of the wilderness and state.  Yes, Bigfoot is a 100% CGI creation, and yes he doesn’t always fit so nicely in the scenery around him, but come on its Bigfoot!!  He’s huge and full of dense muscles that bullets can’t penetrate and always seems to be angry … really angry, all the time!!

This chick is seconds away from having a really bad day!!

Since the music festival was a bust (to say the least), Bonaduce and Williams find themselves on opposite ends of the “Bigfoot issue.”  Bonaduce wants to either capture or kill the beast and exploit it as a tourist trap to get money outta people, and Williams wants to sedate it and place it in a nature preserve because it has every right to live like any other living thing.  So one thing is clear; the Brady’s and the Partridge’s did a lot of drugs back in the day!!  There’s no way in hell you gonna either sedate or capture this beast.  Bigfoot here seems more like the rampaging Hulk than it does the legendary creature.  But that’s okay with me because Bigfoot causes some major damage.  It seems there was an unusual heat wave that came through South Dakota, waking Bigfoot out of it’s hibernation.  Now he needs to load up on more food in order to get back to sleep for the winter.  It’s also apparent that Bigfoot is on the Atkin’s-high protein diet from the fistfuls of humans it eats!!

Uummm, yeah … I don’t really think that’s the way to hold a gun, Greg!!

Again, nothing here is meant to be taken seriously.  Bigfoot resembles a huge ape-like creature (very ape-ish) and is just so pissed off all the time… we’re talking some major anger issues.  But the cast looks like they were genuinely having a fun time making this one and that attitude was infectious.  BIGFOOT is silly and goofy, but it’s also a lot of fun.  There are times, though, when Bigfoot seems as large as a three-story house and others when it seems as big as a bus.  It was pretty inconsistent.  But the film’s climax ends at Mount Rushmore and rivals that of Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST (okay; maybe not) …  but the historical attraction does get destroyed!!

In the day and age of hybrid monsters like “sharktopus” and “piranhaconda,” it’s nice to go old-school and dig up an old fossil like Bigfoot.  Sure the CG is a little more than distracting, but the overall movie has a really fun energy and all the characters are really likable – in that you like them to be wiped out by Bigfoot!!  BIGFOOT is another fun “buddies and beer” flick.  Check it out.

BIGFOOT premiers on Saturday, June 30^th at 9pm, ET/PT on where else but the SyFy channel.

My Summary:

Director:  Bruce Davison

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  2.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Oh Syfy … you definitely dance to the beat of your own drum!! I know I stand out from other reviewers in that I enjoy the vast majority of SyFy Originals (waaay more than I should). I’ve also realized that the sword-and-sorcery Originals pretty much suck across the board; the giant creature flicks are loads of fun; and films like this one (a creature feature, but not a giant creature) always fall somewhere in the middle. With all its flaws I actually really enjoyed 2012’s LEPRECHAUN’s REVENGE (my review). I know … I need help!! So when I got the screener for (THE) BOOGEYMAN, more on the title in a second, I was more than excited. (Oh stop it; we’ve already established that I need help). A good cast, a workable plot, and a decent looking creature – what the hell’s going on here SyFy?? But in the end the only thing that matters is whether it’s fun enough to recommend. So is it?

The film opens with brothers Jacob and Isaac playing around the neighborhood “creepy house.” Jacob, the younger of the two, is obviously freaked out by the house and what unknown horrors may lie inside, but one of Isaac’s friends takes Jacob’s cell phone and throws it through a window on the top floor. Now Jacob is forced to go inside. Unbeknownst to Jacob and the others, the house is a prison to a creature as old as the book of Genesis from the bible itself — and it’s as pissed off and hungry as it is old. Jacob accidentally sets the creature free and upon realizing it’s free, the creature’s guard, Mr. Skinner, has a heart attack and dies, setting off a chain of events that leads to the creature going on a massive killing spree.

Mike (Eddie McClintock) is hot on the trail of this very old killer!!

Jacob and Isaac’s father, Mike (Eddie McClintock), who also happens to be a cop in the small town, is investigating the death of Mr. Skinner when he and his female partner Rebecca (Amy Bailey), are sucked into the conspiracy of what the creature is, why it’s in their town, and why it has targeted Jacob.

First let’s talk about the title: The DVD screener I got is simply titled, BOOGEYMAN. On the IMDb.com page the film is titled, THE BOOGEYMAN. I have no idea what to say about this other than the fact that sometimes the IMDb.com page is made before the film is itself finalozed. Whatever. But there’s even more mystery with the title. If you name your film “Boogeyman,” realize this comes with a lot of baggage. Without knowing anything about the film I assumed the titular creature would be tormenting children by hiding under their beds or in their closets. You know; the childhood creature that’s the cause of all the “bumps in the night.” There are two different scenes here where the titular creature hides under a bed and in a closet, but overall this film isn’t about the monster that causes children to lose sleep. BOOGEYMAN is really about the creature’s association to the bible (that’s all I’ll say about it). The pivotal part of the plot has to do with what the creature is, how it’s survived over the millennia, and why it targets certain people. The storyline has a bit of an identity crisis and it seems the filmmakers tried to hammer a square peg into a round hole by attempting to turn the Boogeyman here into the monster of children’s nightmares.

Trust me; this isn’t a spoiler … you see the creature about 5 minutes into the movie!!

Director Jeffery Scott Lando does a nice job keeping everything moving along at a quick pace. The finer details of the plot (written by David Reed) kinda get plowed over, but that’s probably for the best. There are a lot of silly things going on in this story. Example; the titular creature is several centuries old and has been held in captivity for a long time by old Mr. Skinner (its guardian). But then along comes an eight/nine year old kid who releases the creature from its prison in a matter of seconds. Hey Skinner, it probably wasn’t the greatest of ideas to hang the key next to the goddamn door where you have the monster locked up!! There also seems to be an awful lot of cops in such a small town. I know this sounds as though I’m nitpicking but there’s probably a cop for every three or four citizens!! This is also the haziest, smoggiest film I’ve ever seen. I get it that they were using the haze to create a certain tone in the movie, but when there’s so much smog that it’s hard to identify which character is, I think it’s time to lay off the dry ice!!

Hottie cop Rebecca (Amy Bailey)

But despite these and (many) other problems, I really found myself having a fun time with BOOGEYMAN. McClintock plays pretty much the same role here as he does in WAREHOUSE 13, but it’s a fun character. He’s a little goofy, charming, and can kick ass when needed. He and the rest of the cast do a nice job with the material they’re given. The creature is also pretty decent looking. We actually get a practical creature and not some shitty-looking CGI abomination. The creature reminded me of a combination of the titular monster from PUMPKINHEAD and Jason from the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. A compliment if I’ve ever given one.!! And there was a little more blood and guts in this one than your standard SyFy Original. We get to see the aftermath of the Boogeyman’s rampage after it crashes a party in the woods. Fun stuff.

If you sit and start critiquing every little detail in BOOGEYMAN then you’re gonna have a miserable experience. If, like with all SyFy Originals, you just sit back, knock down a few beverages, and ‘go with it,’ then you’re gonna have a fun time. I enjoyed this one overall despite the seemingly ambivalent nature of the creature. Check this one out!!

BOOGEYMAN premiers this Saturday, August 11, 2012 at 9pm ET/PT, on SyFy.

My Summary:

Director: Jeffery Scott Lando

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Everyone knows what’s scary: zombies, bugs, snakes, disease, clowns, being buried alive, a renewed season of any show involving the Kardashians…

You know what’s *not* scary? Birds. The proof is in my hands right now, extra crispy and coated in the Colonel’s secret recipe. Oh, maybe at one stage our ancestors were suitably frightened by creatures with the ability to ascend to the heavens, but I figure that shock and awe got eroded some by the time we reached the Moon. You hear that, Big Bird? STICK THAT IN YOUR FUCKING YELLOW GULLET!

Ahem.

Oh, Hitchcock may have made some scary movie involving birds (its name escapes me right now), but it wasn’t so much the birds themselves as their enormous numbers, their swarming and attacking en masse. Any animal could be substituted and it would still work (“Alfred Hitchcock presents… THE KITTENS! You’ll never LOL again!”). There was Larry Cohen’s Q THE WINGED SERPENT, but this was more dinosaur than bird, and then there was the classic 50s monster movie THE GIANT CLAW, which if it frightened you means you’re ready to print out your I AM A MEGA PUSSY certificate (be sure to ask permission from your parents before using the Grown Up scissors).

Our Gang. Guess who survives to the end…

The SyFy Channel gets some grief for the quality of its movies, but they’re a lot like the chicken in my hand (or rather, the chicken now in my belly, hah!); it’s not haute cuisine, but it’ll be tasty. You won’t get a 200 million dollar Christopher Nolan blockbuster, but you might get 90 minutes of entertainment. But will ROADKILL be entertaining?

Kate (Kacey Barnfield, LAKE PLACID 3) is traveling around Ireland in an RV with her ex-boyfriend Ryan (Oliver James, WHAT A GIRL WANTS), brother Joel (Colin Maher) and friends Hailey (Eliza Bennett, NANNY McPHEE), hat-wearing asshole Chuck (Diarmuid Noyes, KILLING BONO), Tommy (TV actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) and Anita (Roisin Murphy). After driving into the countryside, the group stop off at one of those tiny roadside gas stations, which if it was in America would have some inbred banjo-player and a two-headed alligator attraction, but here has only local gypsy Luca (Ned Dennehy, TYRANNOSAUR, which strangely enough contains no actual tyrannosaurs). One of the girls sees a medallion around Luca’s neck, and persistently tries to buy it from him, responding to his refusals with, “Everything has a price” (I think Luca could have stopped her if he asked for anal). Luca finally settles at a price, but tries to pull a bait and switch on her (I don’t blame him, really, the girl comes across as arrogant and obnoxious).

Ladies & gentlemen … a crazy old Gypsy broad to round out the cast

The equally obnoxious Chuck (who calls everyone “dude”) grabs the medallion and makes a break for it, but as they drive away in their RV they hit an old one-eyed woman, who puts a curse on the group, telling them that a mythical bird will take vengeance on them, one by one, before she dies. The bird is called the Roc (not The Rock, though that would make for a batshit-crazy film, if the monster was an ex-wrestler turned actor. Or better yet, if the monster is THE ROCK, and each of them is sucked into a crappy Michael Bay flick). Now, the Roc is a giant bird of Middle Eastern mythology, which makes me wonder what it’s doing in Ireland? Couldn’t the old lady have summoned a local monster for this work, like a banshee or the Lucky Charms mascot? Stop this monster outsourcing, sez I!

Oh cool … Victoria Beckham makes a cameo!!

The group drives off, and sympathy for them drops with me as no one suggests finding the nearest police to report the accident. But then a patch of thick fog in the road means they lose their way, finally stopping when a young boy appears in the road, pointing accusingly at the RV before disappearing. And Anita, who had left the RV to talk to the boy, gets grabbed by the Roc, lifted up and then dropped again, with half of her face mauled off (a quite grisly and realistic-looking shot for a SyFy movie) before the Roc returns and flies away with her.

The group continues on its way, while also finding themselves pursued by Luca, who wants his medallion back, as it protects one from the Roc’s attacks, and is willing to feed them all to the Roc to boot.

Don’t Cross the Locals, Gang…

First, the positives. The location is novel, making a change from Canada, Hungary or wherever else it’s cheap to film these days. The roads are as just as narrow, winding and scary as shown, though the notion of driving for hours without seeing any houses or villages is bullshit; that might happen deep in Texas or North Dakota, but Ireland’s a tiny little place that would fit in Texas’ back pocket and still have room for the chewing tobacco. The monster’s also novel, though again I wonder why an actual Irish myth wasn’t used (or invented, ala RAWHEAD REX). The CGI is passable, and the practical FX shots, what we see of them, are decent. Director Johannes Roberts (FOREST OF THE DAMNED, HELLBREEDER) offers some good atmospheric shots and keeps the story moving, not wasting too much time on exposition or extended romantic interludes or character development. And the characters who survive towards the end aren’t who I expected. There’s a nice sense of doom hanging over the proceedings.

Deggsy’s Caption: There’s no escape claws here!!
Scott’s Caption: Eewww, I can see the bird’s chicken!!

As for the negatives? The main characters are stupid: never going out in pairs despite everyone saying the Roc only attacks one at a time, or making weapons for themselves, or trusting the murderous Luca not to kill them. The story gets muddled and unnecessary twists are thrown in the mix from nowhere (including a pointless cameo from Stephen Rea (V FOR VENDETTA, INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE) which confuses the issue (so the Roc wasn’t just conjured, but lives out in the woods, and other people who have been cursed can have their curses lifted if they help the Roc with its workload? This is getting a wee bit too complicated for a story about a giant bird!). And I’m sorry, but the bird itself doesn’t look all that scary, but more like a plucked Victoria Beckham (though admittedly that in itself would be frightening).

Still, ROADKILL is an entertaining little way of passing the time. With some chicken. And I love monster movies! It’s available on DVD and probably on VOD too, and the trailer is here.

Deggsy’s Summary:

Director: Johannes Roberts

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Derek “Deggsy” O’Brien

This is obviously NOT the poster for this film. One hasn’t been released yet, so I made this one

Here we are again. Another Saturday night … another SyFy Original … another LAKE PLACID flick!! Can you believe we’re on the third sequel?? LAKE PLACID 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER picks up directly where part three left off, with Game and Wildlife agent Reba (Yancy Butler) fighting off a killer croc. After this sequence, we jump to the opening credits and then get right to the fun. Was there a need for another LAKE PLACID flick? Does it seem silly that the authorities haven’t gone into the area and wiped out every last croc? Is this really the last LAKE PLACID flick?

LAKE PLACID 4 jumps right into the fray as we join Reba (the aforementioned Yancy Butler), Sheriff Giove (Elizabeth Röhm), and an engineer from the Army Corp of Engineers as they discuss the benefits and stupidity of the large fence that’s been built around Lake Placid in order to control the killer croc population. It seems these are rare crocs that “must be protected.” But if you’re wondering what food source the crocs will turn to after they eat everything in the fenced in area, well that’s obviously a point that writers David and Mairin Reed completely ignored. As expected the crocs turn to the nearby human population to munch on. Well duh!! We get all the typical side stories and love interests as the story progresses and there’s nothing here that particularly original. But I found myself, like always, having a pretty good time. Yeah, yeah, yeah … you know me by now. A SyFy flick has to be really bad for me to hate it. I find SyFy Originals (for the most part) to be simple-minded fun and ya don’t have to invest a whole lot into watching them. LAKE PLACID 4 delivers in this respect. There won’t be any awards being won here, but if you’re looking for giant crocs chewing their way through the cast then this is the film for you.

What’s become typical in the LAKE PLACID franchise is to have someone, usually a ‘name’ celebrity, popping up from the Bickerman family. In the original film it was Betty White (as Delores Bickerman) who started all the problems by feeding the lil baby crocs. In part two it was Cloris Leachman taking on the role of Delores’ sister, Sadie Bickerman. In part three we get a younger Bickerman, here being played by EUREKA’s Colin Ferguson. Finally in THE FINAL CHAPTER we get perhaps the biggest name yet in the Bickerman role: Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. Englund, as always, is terrific and puts in a typically grandiose performance as a backwoods croc poacher. He adds both an element of menace and comic relief in LAKE PLACID 4 and as expected out-acts the other cast members. The rest of the cast do great jobs, but Englund definitely stands out. No matter what role Englund plays he’s always fantastic. He’s a real actors’ actor. He loves to be in front of the camera performing, and the camera loves him.

That’s a good lil croc … yes you are … yes you are

The other scene-stealer is Yancy Butler. I admit that I was pretty hard on Butler in one of her films I saw last year, but her performance in LAKE PLACID 4 was fantastic. She was the ‘Yancy Butler’ I was used to seeing: Strong, sexy, a killer body, and she was a big presence in the film. She was great!!

The story unfolds in a pretty standard fashion but that’s okay with me. I don’t watch SyFy Originals with the hopes of seeing a film that re-defines the genre. I want action, giant ‘things’ attacking stupid people, bloody scenes of said attacks, and skimpily clad women bouncing around. LAKE PLACID 4 has all this and more. Okay; maybe not more, but definitely not less. LAKE PLACID 4 is exactly what you think you’re gonna get. It’s not out to re-invent the wheel but it keeps everything moving along at a brisk pace and has lots of croc-related violence. Could you go elsewhere to get your fix of cheesy, B-movies? Of course you could. But why would you when the SyFy channel does them so damn well??

Aahhh … Yancy is back & just as I remember her!!

LAKE PLACID: THE FINAL CHAPTER is airing on the SyFy channel on Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 9pm ET/PT. Check this one out (though I don’t believe for a second this is indeed “The Final Chapter”).

My Summary:

Director: Don Michael Paul (who directed 2 eps of the USA Network series, SILK STALKINGS … sweet)

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

“Captain, zombie movie detected, dead ahead!”

“Slow to one half impulse. What do our sensors read?”

“Captain, sensors read it’s a SyFy movie called RISE OF THE ZOMBIES.”

“SyFy, huh? We’ve had trouble with them in the past, but sometimes they’ve managed to surprise us, even if they do skimp on the boobs. Any idea about the cast?”

“I’m detecting Danny Trejo, LeVar Burton, Ethan Suplee-“

“Who?”

“He played the fat idiot Randy on MY NAME IS EARL. There’s also French Stewart, and Chad Lindberg, who appeared in the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake. And Captain, I’m also detecting Mariel Hemingway, who starred in that seminal lesbian film from the 80s, PERSONAL BEST. You know the one.”

“Yes.”

“You wore our your Betamax copy replaying the same scenes over and over-“

“Yes, yes. Well, this might be interesting. I wouldn’t mind having a reunion with Mariel, heh heh. Any idea of the director?”

“Nick Lyon. He’s directed SPECIES: THE AWAKENING, and ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, another TV movie with Ving Rhames that Captain Scott had reviewed here.”

“Well, this might not be too bad. Helm, ahead full, steady as she goes-“

“Captain! Scanners have just picked up two words… ‘The Asylum’!”

“Shields up, Red Alert! All hands, Battle Stations!”

Okay, okay, we all know about The Asylum, and that like ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, they produced this TV movie, so you know not to set the bar high. This is low-hanging crapfruit, folks, designed to cash in on the success of THE WALKING DEAD.

It opens with a Viewer Discretion warning, one which you can take on a number of levels. Although, once the title flashes by, we get immediately into the zombie action in San Francisco. No voiceovers, no fake news footage, just guys in pancake makeup attacking screaming extras. I’ll give them this much, they don’t waste time, they know what we want. A couple of people help a woman out of a window while surrounded by the dead, one guy hammers a zombie in the face in grisly, lovely detail, a car drives up to rescue them, and they drive off. No introductions, no exposition, nothing. I feel like it’s a truncated version of a movie and the first half hour’s been cut out of it. We get a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge to let the goobers in the audience know it’s San Francisco as the driver spots Alcatraz Island, which historians will know as the site of the final battle between Magneto’s army and the X-Men.

Bring on the Dead!

The driver makes a comment at not having been so glad to see a prison before, and drives them down Lombard Street, the famous zigzag street seen in movies such as VERTIGO, WHAT’S UP DOC? and MAGNUM FORCE. But the driver is driving too fast and recklessly, and in an unintentionally hilarious sequence, the car overturns and becomes crap CGI, tumbling down along the zigzag road like it was in a Japanese pinball machine, ending up at the bottom, completely and utterly wrecked. And one of the people inside, a pregnant woman, gets out – and in her close-ups of this, the car is undamaged.

The rest of the people in the car are ravaged by zombies – I’m gonna miss each and every one of you – and Pregnant Woman waddles down the road, zombies in tow. Now, it’s obvious that some sort of zombie apocalypse has occurred, but like Scott pointed out in ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, the city looks fairly clean and well-kept after such a disaster.

Yeah, I’ve had my share of bad burittos in my day…

Then The Asylum logo pops up like a genital wart, saying to the world, “Mea culpa.”

Then we cut to Alcatrraz island, which appears to have been turned into some sort of refugee centre or medical facility to deal with survivors and whatnot. It appears to be thinly-run to say the least. Then Mariel Hemingway (Yay! Must find me PERSONAL BEST again!) pops up as a doctor, watching a video of another doctor played by French Stewart giving us some exposition about the inevitable virus being water-born and there being a possible cure, and I have to ask if anyone told Stewart that he was supposed to play the role straight and not like he was back on THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN?

Danny Trejo doesn’t look dressed without a machete…

PERSONAL BEST Chick is working with another doctor, Geordi LaForge (hey, they’re not bothering to give the characters names, I have to go with what I know) who’s complaining that the security forces have destroyed all their undead test subjects. PBC goes to confront their leader, Danny Trejo – yes! Machete! Even if he is phoning it in this time! Mariel and Danny argue, and at one point Mariel threatens Danny with a switchblade, and I have to say at this point, that in a movie about the undead, seeing the PERSONAL BEST Chick threaten Machete with a switchblade proves to be the most unbelievable sight I’ve seen this year. Danny Trejo deserves a little baby Emmy for not pissing himself laughing.

Credit where credit’s due, some of the makeup is excellent…

Suddenly this clash of the titans is interrupted as the dead wash ashore (apparently they come in on the tide, making the decision to move the city’s survivors there seem less sensible). Everyone rushes into the prison. You know why? Because apparently their contingency plan involves… locking themselves into cells. Not locking the dead outside the building. Locking themselves into individuals. I shit you not, they specifically say this. Talk about a Paint Yourself into a Corner strategy. Eventually they do manage to regain control, though not before some tragic losses. Sorry, did I say tragic? I meant the other word: forgettable. Eventually, Machete and PBC and the others decide to leave, partly because they’re running out of food, water and fuel, partly because PBC wants to find Dr Third Rock in the city, to find his cure.

Everyone leaves on a raft except for Dr Kunta Kinte, who’s staying because his daughter, or sister, or lover (I’m not sure which) was bitten and has become zombified inside one of the cells, and his storyline will run parallel to the others’. Now, I have to stop snarking for a moment and give LeVar Burton some credit here, because he’s a decent actor, and he convincingly sells this to the best of his ability. His exposition also provides some diversion, in describing the hive mentality of the virus reanimating the flesh, and how electricity might inhibit it and possibly even restore the victims’ former minds to some degree.

If I Had a Hammer, I’d Hammer in the Morning…

The rest of the movie proceeds as you would expect: there’s a split in the group, houses are searched, people do stupid things, the dead jump up in surprise like Peekaboo was some sort of genetic instinct, and the survivors’ number dwindle despite having an unlimited number of bullets and moments of awkward sentimentality and shallow philosophy. Nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times before, really.

However, there are moments when RISE OF THE ZOMBIES rises above the generic and becomes memorable. There’s a zombie in one house that looks like it had been stuffed in a crate for a hundred years, because she can’t get her arms untwisted from behind her neck. The dead are seen climbing up the Golden Gate Bridge like they were stunt doubles for the RISE OF THE APES, and in what is the highlight of the movie, we do return to that Pregnant Woman and find out what happens to her, and her unborn…

The makeup and gore is mostly practical and mostly effective, and if you don’t mind the repetitive slow-motion scenes and all the same things you’ve seen before in other movies, it’s as watchable as anything else. The trailer is here. You could do worse than catching it, at least up to the point where the Pregnant Woman exits the movie. Just don’t be eating nachos and cheese while doing it.

The very 1st “Jazz Hands” Zombie!!

Deggsy’s Summary:

Director: Nick Lyon

Plot: 2 out of 5 stars

Gore: 8 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 5 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Derek “Deggsy” O’Brien

SyFy movies are their own art form. Think of them like Kabuki, but populated with fat has-beens, shitty CGI and loopy as fuck premises (Like the days of 50s Monster Movies that made the posters before the films, SyFy must certainly come up with the titles of their shitfests before hiring their apes to pen the story.

CHUPACABRA VS THE ALAMO is one such title, and though it doesn’t roll off the tongue like DINOCROC VS SUPERGATOR, it certainly does the job of catching your attention. Not that movies set in and around the Alamo have set the world on fire. The 1960 version, one of only two movies I can recall being directed as well as starring John Wayne, may have had enough clout to secure a Best Picture Oscar nomination (something PSYCHO failed to do), but it’s critically derided now. Ron Howard made a version in 2004, but fewer people saw it than actually were involved in the production. I guess when the filmmakers hear the legendary phrase “Remember the Alamo!” they miss the part that remembers that the 1836 siege was essentially an incident that Americans lost, and no one likes being reminded of defeats. Ever have your mother dig out the scrapbook of photos she took of you losing the Sixth Grade Spelling Bee? Still hurts, doesn’t it?

(By the way, Mrs Roberti, if you’re still alive and reading this: Renaissance. R-E-N-A-I-S-S-A-N-C-E. Renaissance. Happy? Now go kiss the fattest part of my ass.)

“Hi! Remember me, kids?”

Anyway, CHUPACABRA VS THE ALAMO. This stars Erik Estrada, whom nerds and MILFS of my generation will remember as one half of the motorcycle cop dup from the hit TV show CHiPS, which I never watched because there were no robots or talking cars in it, so fuck that, but I do remember him from a minor role in the KOLCHAK series where he played a kid scheduled for human sacrifice to an Inca mummy. He’s in his sixties now, but has got that hunky Brian Dennehy thing going for him, and still wears the black leathers and rides his motorcycle around as he plays a DEA agent whose name is not important, because I’m gonna keep calling him Estrada.

The movie opens in a dark tunnel, presumably near the US/Mexico border, because we see some people smugglers confronting some dark, snarling shapes, shapes that seem impervious to their bullets and come after them. Credit where credit’s due, we don’t waste too much time before the first deaths, we don’t even get the opening titles first.

Then we cut to Estrada, whose got a sulky teenage daughter named Sienna (Nicole Munoz, THE LAST MIMSY), because every movie father’s teenage daughter is sulky. Not mine. Mine’s a darling, made from angels’ smiles and rainbows, so either I’ve lucked out or the movies are lying to me. Anyway, that morning is the anniversary of the death of Estrada’s wife, and he had been planning on taking Sienna to the grave, but not his son Tommy (Samuel Patrick Chu, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2), though before we learn the reasons for this, he is called to the crime scene in the aforementioned tunnel. He drives off, too cool for a helmet.

Aside: does Texas have a motorcycle helmet law? I think they do. So either Estrada is one of those cops who play by his own rules – something novel there – or this was filmed someplace where the helmet laws didn’t apply, and the production company was too inept to consider this minor detail. A quick check finds that there is a partial law in the state for younger people, though surely federal agencies would require their agents to take minimum safety precautions. I did find out that this movie was in fact filmed in British Columbia. In Canada. And that when we do get to see the outside of the Alamo, it will be courtesy of a photograph.

I FUCKING LOVE YOU, SYFY. I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES.

Ahem.

Not the Terminator, but an amazingly crap simulation.

Estrada shows up at the scene in time to meet his new partner, Agent Taylor (Julie Benson, SGU STARGATE UNIVERSE). She’s a by-the-book type, and is not impressed by Estrada’s dismissive, maverick attitude (holy fuck, I almost choked on the cliché I just got fed). A buddy of Estrada’s explains that, among other things, one of Estrada’s ancestors was at the Alamo, a bit of knowledge that’s about as useful as a pack of condoms to Jodie Foster. Estrada and Taylor venture further into the tunnels, finding a trafficker still alive, but looking like the Friday Night Special at Hannibal Lector’s Taco Stand. He manages one last word: “Diablo.”

“He said “Devil”, Estrada exposits helpfully, clearly having studied under Counselor Deanna Troi. The agents then encounter several somethings chewing on bodies, and Estrada blasts one. A coroner examining the body says it’s sort of canine, and sort of something else, and nobody wants to come out and say that it’s one of the legendary Chupacabras. But whatever it is, it’s rabid, and not alone.

Meanwhile, Estrada’s buddy is out in the wilderness with his dog, when his dog gets killed (offscreen of course). He finds a Chupacabra over the dog’s body, and rather than use the pistol that is in his hand and ready to fire, he sets it aside and tries to take a picture of the Chup. You deserve death, moron. Oh, and look, he gets what he deserves. Thanks, SyFy!

Having this in focus would not help one bit…

Estrada is then seen driving around on his motorcycle again. This time, however, he’s doing it in front of THE SHITTEST REAR SCREEN PROJECTION EVER. I swear to God, you’d think it was something from the Silent Age of Movies. I’ve seen better cinematography from Helen Keller. Anyway, disbelieving the Chupacabra angle despite the evidence, he goes off to find his son Tommy, and we learn that he’s been disowned because of the kid’s gangster ties, and so thinks his son’s friends might have had something to do with the tunnel deaths. We get more expositional dialogue; I’d swear this script was written by a guy who usually spends his time making descriptions for the visually impaired.

When a Chupacabra gets his jaws around a knob…

Meanwhile, people we hardly know are being savagely killed by things we hardly see – at least until we get to an outdoor teenage party (I believe the young people call a rave or a rove), a party attended by Sienna! One guy stops making out with his girl to take a piss, and gets his dick bitten off. There’s always one of those guys at parties I’m at; that, or they’re throwing up in the garden.

“Madre de Dios, and other cliché ‘authentic’ dialogue!”

Sienna and her friend eventually escape after ripping off the Raptor Kitchen scene from JURASSIC PARK and manage to get home, but the Chup pack eventually tracks them down like the shark did in JAWS THE REVENGE.

They break in, and the girls have to use various kitchen implements until Estrada shows up. Okay, given that we don’t actually see the Chups interact with her, not even puppet style, we can only imagine that she’s using an electric knife and hot iron on something on them. But then she throws a Chup puppy in a microwave, which made me piss my pants with laughter as we hear it yelp and die. Not that I would want to see somethign like that in real life, but…

Okay, the deaths of dozens of people can’t be ignored, and the Governor calls out the National Guard, but they won’t show up for a few days (the writer seems to have forgotten that San Antonio is not one of those isolated monster movie towns up in the hills, but a sprawling metropolis). So Estrada decides to take matters into his own hands, and with Taylor and some other expendable agents, he teams up with his son’s gangster friends to deal with the Chups themselves. And guess where they all meet up? (By the way, how did the Chups make it the 150+miles from the border to San Antonio? I know: they took a Greyhound! Hah!)

CHUPACABRA VS THE ALAMO is a batshit crazy as it sounds. The Chups, when you see them, are shit beyond belief, and I’m not just talking about the craptitude of the CGI. They look so emaciated I’d swear they were Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton running around on all fours acting like they remember what it was like to eat solid food and not Hollywood producer wang. There’s talk of hundreds of people being killed in San Antonio, but of course we won’t see them, running around in British Columbia. There’s a laughable attempt to drop some Spanish words and phrases here and there to make it all sound ‘authentic’ (hint: saying, “You in the Hood now, jefe” doesn’t work). And as I mentioned before, the exterior of the Alamo is a photograph (and the interior is apparently manned by only two people, and the ancient muskets they keep there are fully loaded and can be immediately fired by any 21st Century doofus), and the acting is what you’d see on a laxative commercial, only with less conviction.

Awww…

But you know, as much as I want to fault the movie, fuck it, I’m watching the film equivalent of a blind, three-legged dog trying to hump an angry tiger! I know it’s gonna end terribly, but I’m having way too much fun admiring the sheer audacious ineptitude at play here! Erik Estrada, you chubby walnut, I’ll have your babies if you ever make a sequel to this, and I can see you riding around America fighting other American cryptoids and making battlegrounds of other landmarks.

Next up: SKUNK APES VS MOUNT RUSHMORE!

Deggsy’s Summary:
Director:
Plot: 1 out of 5 stars
Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls
Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains
Reviewed by Derek “Deggsy” O’Brien. The D is silent. It had its tongue cut out for defying Ming.

Filed under: Derek "Deggsy" O'Brien's Corner, Feature Image, Horror Spotlight, Movie Reviews, New Horror Releases, New Posting, SyFy Corner

What the hell can you say about a film titled, SHARKNADO? If you know your cheesy movie production companies than The Asylum should jump right out at you. Who else other than The Asylum would take one of nature’s fiercest forces, the tornado, and add nature’s perfect killing machines, sharks, to it? Let me save you the trouble of reading this entire review. If you’re the kind of person who can’t just sit back and enjoy an intentionally shitty flick, then you’re going to hate SHARKNADO. If you’re the kind of person who can’t help but tear apart horribly constructed plots with plot holes big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through, then you’re going to hate SHARKNADO. But if you enjoy getting some buddies together, cracking a few beers, and ripping on a bad film a la Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you going to love this film!!

SHARKNADO begins on a rather subtle note. Somewhere out in the middle of the ocean a waterspout has formed and has sucked up what is perhaps the largest school of sharks ever. I mean literally hundreds and hundreds of sharks are sucked up into this thing and are carried away. So yes; right from the get-go we have an inaccurate title. It should be “Sharkspout.” But I digress. The “tornado” is part of a hurricane that is tearing apart Mexico and which is gradually making its way up to the coast of California.

This is exactly what you think it is!!

As it is with your typical Asylum film formula, after we get an opening scene of disaster we then switch over and meet the primary cast. There’s Fin (Ian Ziering), a retired championship surfer who now owns a bar on the beach; April (Tara Reid), Fin’s estranged ex-wife; Nova (Cassie Scerbo), a cute waitress at Fin’s bar who has a crush on Fin and who also has a secret hatred of sharks; Baz (Jaason Simmons), Fin’s buddy from Australia; Claudia (Aubrey Peeples), Ian’s estranged daughter; Matt (Chuck Hittinger), Ian’s estranged son; and George (John Heard), one of Fin’s drunk customers. There was of course ample opportunity to create a love triangle between Fin, Nova, and April, but it never happens. Sure there was opportunity to create a more human story by having Fin reconnecting with his estranged son and daughter, but it never happens. Writer Thunder Levin (who wrote and directed The Asylum’s mockbuster, AMERICAN WARSHIP and is the writer of the upcoming Asylum mockbuster, ATLANTIC RIM … I’m not kidding) decides to keep SHARKNADO on target and give us plenty of action with scenes of disaster as we watch the hurricane slam into California and flood the streets. But those flooded streets aren’t empty … the high waters bring in the sharks so we have hundreds of sharks swimming around in the streets of Los Angeles. But as the waters slowly start to ebb and the sharks are whisked back out to sea, the danger is just beginning because that waterspout from the opening (you remember, the one full of sharks) is now coming ashore as well.

Award-winning creature effects by Billy … he’s 8 years old.

It’s all pretty stupid people. The editing is pretty horrible even for an Asylum film, the CGI sharks are laughable, the plot is a minefield of subplots that go nowhere with story lines that feel forced, and the dialogue is ridiculous. But with all this being said, SHARKNADO is also a shitload of fun. How could you not love the image of sharks falling from the sky eating people in the middle of Los Angeles? And these must be super sharks because they adapt quite nicely to chlorinated pool water!! Sure it makes absolutely no sense but I found myself enjoying this one profusely!! I watched this one with my eight and five year olds and they were having a blast with it as well. It’s hard to be scared when the CGI sharks look about as scary as a bathtub toy!!

SHARKNADO aired on the SyFy channel (I know; real shocker) but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of ripped limbs and other gory scenes. It wasn’t too excessive but it had a shitload more gore in it than AMERICAN MARY (That’s right people, I recommend watching SHARKNADO over AMERICAN MARY). There are also two chainsaw scenes here that will have you standing up and cheering. The second chainsaw scene is bound to become as popular as the shark jumping out of the water and taking out an airliner in MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS!!

Everything right up to the ridiculous way our heroes decide to kill the sharks in the tornado is just hokey!! Matt, Fin’s son, flies a helicopter up to the various tornados (did I mention there were multiple shark-infested tornados??) and Nova drops homemade bombs into the funnels thereby killing the sharks. Not sure how the physics behind that goes but it seemed to work well for them. When the helicopter first approached one of the tornados and Nova saw all the sharks she muttered, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger chopper.” Nice nod to JAWS!!

Uh, ya may wanna look over your shoulder!!

There’s nothing in SHARKNADO that’s going to win any awards, and it wasn’t made to. This is simply a “so bad it’s good” film that was made on a tight budget with some washed up stars from yesteryear who are trying to act like they’re taking all this seriously. It’s a mess of a film, but it’s also one helluva fun mess. When all the sharks were swimming around and attacking people in the streets of Los Angeles I couldn’t help but think of the film BAIT (my review). But whereas BAIT was able to take a silly premise and make it seem possible, SHARKNADO is just pure B-movie fun through and through. If you’re looking for a fun, cheesy film with sharks flying out of the sky and where you can turn your brain off for a few hours, then SHARKNADO is the film for you. Movie message boards all over the internet are already calling this one “the best worst movie ever.” Now if that’s not a compliment then I don’t know what is!! I’ll leave you with one question: With the popularity of both shark and zombie films, when are we gonna get a zombie-shark mashup?? I’m just sayin’. It’s your move Asylum. Don’t miss this one.

My Summary:

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

That’s right; there’s already enough info out there to get a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming SHARKNADO 2.  We are, remember dealing with The Asylum and when the iron is hot they’re gonna strike hard!!  The mind (??) behind the phenomena that is SHARKNADO is writer Thunder Levin.  I’m sure Levin is more than happy to take all the credit for SHARKNADO, but truth be told he didn’t even come up with the idea.  In a recent chat with The Wrap, Levin talks candidly about SHARKNADO, his involvement with it, and even talks a little about SHARKNADO 2.

The actual title, “Sharknado” comes from another Asylum classic, LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE (my review).  Here, “Sharknado” was a throwaway joke that wasn’t really given any attention.  But with the amount of viewers SHARKNADO is getting each time it’s aired, well this is no throwaway film for sure.  When it premiered, SHARKNADO got 1.4 million viewers.  On it’s second viewing it got 1.9 viewers.  Then on it’s third viewing it got 2.1 million viewers!!  MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS didn’t even pull in these numbers!!

But as Levin explains to The Wrap, The Asylum first approached him to write the script for a film called SHARK STORM which was exactly what it sounds like:  Sharks attacking people during a storm.  Levin passed.  So what changed his mind?  Read on:

A month later, The Asylum brought a different title to Levin: “Sharknado” – a film about a tornado full of sharks, which makes far more sense.

Levin was in, under one condition: He told Asylum, “It has to be ridiculous, it has to be over the top. We have to have fun with it.”

A month later the script was written and ready to be shot but Levin then found himself out of the SHARKNADO scene due to him working on another project.  Levin, in fact, didn’t even see the final version of SHARKNADO until it’s premier on SyFy!!  Overall he was pleased but there were a few things he wasn’t crazy about.

writer-director Thunder Levin

At one point, the survivors are set to break into a flight school supply store (a Home Depot in the script) and a glorified extra’s lips move — but no words come out. It’s a short but noticeable clip where the other characters react, but there is no audio, no explanation.

When asked about the strange, blink-and-miss-it moment, Levin was surprised. He didn’t catch it. Most people probably didn’t.

So while on the phone with TheWrap, Levin popped in his DVD copy and fast-forwarded. He grabbed the original script and thumbed through it. After a few minutes, Levin was able to match the moment up.

The character says, “This can’t be a very sturdy building with a roof this big. What are we doing here?”

(You’re welcome, world.)

Levin has no idea why the audio was cut out. Nor why the pointless few seconds of video itself was not cut. The character has other lines in the film.

And if you’re wondering, about that final scene with Ian Ziering being swallowed whole by the flying shark and then cutting his way outta said shark … well, that was all Levin!!

Since Levin is signed on to write (and possibly direct) SHARKNADO 2, what does he have in store for us?  As you can imagine, Levin isn’t giving away too many details but does drop that he envisions a shark impaled on the spike of the Empire State Building and

“Sharks in the subway, and something with the Statue of Liberty.”

The options are endless!!  It sounds as though Levin is keeping the rules on part 2 the same as part 1:  ”It has to be ridiculous, it has to be over the top. We have to have fun with it.”  Sounds like a solid approach to SHARKNADO 2!!

Stay Bloody!!!

Yeah there’s a film coming out on, you guessed it, the Syfy channel titled GHOST SHARK.  I’ll let the plot crunch and trailer below speak for themselves, but it seems that the SyFy channel may be finally jumping the shark.  How apropos!!  GHOST SHARK is directed by Griff Furst (the same director that gave us LAKE PLACID 3, SWAMP SHARK, and ARACHNOQUAKE), is written by Furst, Paul A. Birkett, and Eric Forsberg, and stars Mackenzie Rosman, Richard Moll, Dave Davis, and Sloane Coe.  Now brace yourself for the plot crunch and trailer … you may wanna sit down and not be drinking anything:

Last Fourth of July, teenager Christy Bruce disappeared from a high school beach party. Her severed arm washed ashore a day later. Drunken sea captain Blaise Shaw became a hero to the small seaside community of Harmony after killing the great white shark that was deemed responsible, but the Christy Bruce murder was no shark attack. Blaise turns to ghost hunter Ava Conte, who is skeptical but intrigued by his ghost shark ramblings. With preparations for a massive July 4th celebration rapidly approaching, they soon find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy of sex and murder involving the town’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens. Unprepared to contend with a Ghost Shark that can hunt on land, sea, as well as anywhere there is enough water or rain to sustain its phantom form, Blaise and Ava must uncover the truth about the towns dark past or fall victim to the Ghost Shark.

Yup, you read that right.  The innocent soul of a falsely accused and tortured shark comes back from The Beyond to exact revenge on everyone.  Wow.  Now dig on the trailer:

I don’t think anything else needs to be said about this one, and if you’re wondering … of course I’m gonna watch this one!!  Watch for the premier on August 22, 2013 on SyFy.  By the way, you may notice that there’s a film titled, GHOST SHARK 2:  URBAN JAWS that’s set for a 2013 release.  This film isn’t connected at all to the upcoming GHOST SHARK and has a “2″ in title simply for narrative reasons, apparently.

Stay Bloody!!!

For shits and giggles, here’s the poster for GHOST SHARK 2:  URBAN JAWS … it’s pretty basic but made me laugh out loud.

Oh what the hell.  I’m feeling generous today.  Here’s the concept trailer for the film:

Stay Bloody, again!!!

The phenomena that is SHARKNADO keeps moving forward. After the seemingly overnight success of SHARKNADO it was almost immediately announced that there’d be a follow up. What’s more is that the fans were going to title it via twitter. Well it seems the powers that be have decided on a title: SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE. Really? According to the press release, over 5,000 titles were submitted via twitter and this was the best one they could find? The three titles I submitted were SHARKNADO 2: FLY-BY SHARKINGS; SHARKNADO 2: INTO THE SHARK TANK; and my favorite SHARKNADO 2: JUMPING THE SHARK. Maybe not the best titles but better definitely better than SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE!!

Any who, here’s the press release:

SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE HITS LAND JULY 2014

NEW YORK – August 8, 2013 – A decision has been reached! After reviewing more than 5,000 Twitter submissions to its Name Sharknado 2 social media contest, Syfy announced that the title of the eagerly anticipated Sharknado sequel is…

SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE

Said Thomas Vitale, Executive Vice President, Programming and Original Movies, Syfy: “Since Twitter played such a huge role in the success of the original movie, we wanted to use that platform to ask our fans to name Sharknado 2. This response is another reminder of how Sharknado has become a pop culture phenomenon. We want to thank all our viewers for their wonderful contributions to keeping up the shark-mentum.”

Sharknado 2: The Second One, which will also be produced by The Asylum, hits land July 2014. The movie will be set in New York City.

In Sharknado, regulars of a beachside bar including owner Fin (Ian Ziering/Beverly Hills90210), bartender Nova (Cassie Scerbo/Make It Or Break It) and local drunk George (John Heard/Home Alone) teamed up with Fin’s ex-wife April (Tara Reid/Scrubs) to investigate the ecological nightmare that has sharks swimming through the streets of Los Angeles and falling from the skies.

Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)

###

Still no plot details but stay tuned. I’m sure by the time this weekend is over they’ll have a script written. And by the way, the above artwork in a fan-made poster, not official in any way!!

Stay Bloody!!!

This title gets it half right.  There certainly is a battle, but these creatures are most definitely not dogs!!  BATTLEDOGS is another gem from The Asylum but it’s not (brace yourselves) a mockbuster.  I know, right!!  Another thing threw me off with this one.  The Asylum has become known to throw in a few big names or big names from yesteryear, but BATTLEDOGS definitely tips the scales with stars.  But the most surprising aspect of BATTLEDOGS is that it’s actually a lot of fun.  Seriously!!  I found myself really enjoying the hell out of this one.

The fun starts in a busy airport where Donna (Ariana Richards), a wildlife photographer, starts to act and look a little funny.  It looks as though she’s having an anxiety or panic attack but when she goes to the restroom she has a full blown seizure and transforms into a rather large werewolf.  I was really digging the creature design here in that it wasn’t a human-wolf hybrid.  This was more like the wolf from AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.  The Donna-wolf thing decides to take out her frustration on the entire airport and goes on a rampage swatting at people with her huge claws, ripping throats out, and chewing on a few heads.  I took this for a metaphor for what airport traveling has become, but I think I was reading too much into it.  This all sounds pretty standard so far, doesn’t it?  But wait.  The best part is that the people she bit and didn’t kill turn into werewolves within seconds.  It was like 28 DAYS LATER with werewolves.  And the people that turned were just as ferocious as Donna and they also went on killing sprees.  When it was all said and done there were hundreds of infected people that are now werewolves.

Just what traveling needed … werewolves!!

The military and the CDC swoop in, quarantines the infected, and stop the virus/infection from getting out of the airport.  All the infected are rounded up into a quarantine zone (think Guantanamo Bay without all the comforts) where doctors are trying to figure out what the hell is causing this sudden rash of werewolf-ism.  I couldn’t help but feel a modern day social relevance to this aspect of the plot (of rounding up all the infected).  But again, this is an Asylum flick so it’s better not to read too much into it.  Craig Sheffer plays Major Hoffman who I believe is a military liaison for the CDC (it was never made clear).  He’s determined to find the cause and help develop a cure to save all the infected.  Hoffman’s superior officer, Lt. General Monning (Dennis Haysbert, the president from the first season of 24), has a secret agenda for these werewolves that’s revealed pretty early on (gee; do ya think he wants to use these werewolves as super soldiers??  What is it about seeing ferocious, completely untamable, uncontrollable werewolves that makes him think they’d be great weapons??).  Monning’s boss, President Sheridan (Bill Duke of PREDATOR fame) seems about as effective as our current president at making decisions and makes things a whole lot worse.

Craig Sheffer once again finds himself fighting monsters!!

Sheffer starts working closely with CDC scientist Dr. Gordon (Kate Vernon) to both try and save the infected and stop General Monning in his “fuck ‘em all” attitude in which he’ll stop at nothing to get his weapon.  Oh yeah, you can also throw in Ernie Hudson as Sheffer’s buddy, Max Stevens, who helps him find the infection’s patient zero.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way.  We know that all Asylum flicks use CGI f/x.  BATTLEDOGS is no exception.  Every transformation into a werewolf is indeed CGI, but to be honest it didn’t really bother me.  I expected it to be CGI.  It’s like going to a Ryan Gosling flick and getting pissed off when he takes his shirt off!!  But if you can get beyond the CGI transformations you’ll be rewarded with a really fun, fast-paced film.  Director Alexander Yellen and writer Shane Van Dyke (who also wrote CHERNOBYL DIARIES, see Deggsy’s review) keeps everything moving along at a blistering fast pace and grabbed my attention right from the opening scenes in the airport.  Eventually all the werewolves escape from their internment camp and start chewing a bloody path all throughout NYC.  Now it becomes a race to cut off the city so the infection doesn’t spread across the world (and there’s of course maps showing how fast the virus will spread).

Don’t get me wrong people; this is an extremely silly movie with cheesy dialogue, cheesy CGI f/x, decent gore, and lots of action.  The acting is also way above normal for an Asylum flick.  I’m gonna just say it, everyone.  I really liked this film and had a really fun time with it and no, I wasn’t drunk when I saw it.  If Asylum keeps cranking out fun films like BATTLEDOGS, they’re gonna lose their old reputation!!  Don’t miss this one.  It’s a lot of fun.

My Summary:

Director:  Alexander Yellen

Plot:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed soberly by Scott Shoyer

This kinda looks like it’s gonna turn into an intimate scene!!

Brace yourself. Are you sitting down? Are you sure? Okay, here it goes. GHOST SHARK is not made by The Asylum!! Pretty damn mind-blowing, isn’t it. This time Active Entertainment is to blame and as much as you won’t admit it, you’re already familiar with their work. ARACHNOQUAKE, MANSQUITO, and the upcoming RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS are a few of Active Entertainment’s credits. But enough nostalgia … GHOST SHARK is exactly what it sounds like. A shark in spirit form terrorizing the coastal town of Smallport. But the twist is that in its incorporeal form, ghost shark can attack and kill in any form of water. Sure it’s an odd little gimmick, but writers Eric Forsberg, Paul A. Birkett, and Griff Furst (who also directs) have a lot of fun with this gimmick and use it often. If these names sound familiar then that means you’ve been paying attention. Thank you. Forsberg wrote and directed MEGA PIRANHA and wrote SNAKES ON A TRAIN and ARACHNOQUAKE. Birkett wrote ALTITUDE, STORM WAR, and ICE TWISTERS, and Furst directed such classics as LAKE PLACID 3, SWAMP SHARK, and ARACHNOQUAKE. Just wanted to give you the pedigree of the “creative team” behind GHOST SHARK.

Not even crappy lawn entertainment is safe from Ghost Shark!!

GHOST SHARK begins in the middle of the night in the Gulf of Mexico. A redneck and his daughter (who I originally thought was his wife … he talks extremely inappropriate things to her) are hoping to land the biggest amberjack fish in order to collect $30k in prize money. He’s been battling one for hours and just as he’s about to land it a great white shark appears outta nowhere and eats the amberjack. What’s a dumb redneck to do? Why take out all his life’s frustrations on the shark, of course. I’m sure that $30k was gonna really turn his life around. This toothless, daughter-banging ass wipe proceeds to whip out a gun and starts shooting the shark, then he pours hot sauce into the gun wounds (come on; rednecks always carry around bottles of hot sauce), and then throws a few grenades into its mouth. A perfectly logical response to a shark eating another fish. The dead shark floats into this cave (hey, I thought they were deep sea fishing) where some sparklers were apparently being stored and before you can say, “Chicken of the sea,” the shark gets resurrected as a ghost. Hence, GHOST SHARK.

Now you see Ghost Shark, now you’re dead!!

But just when you thought the story couldn’t get any sillier we then start meeting the primary cast. There’s Ava (Mackenzie Rosman), the “strong” female lead; Blaise (Dave Randolph-Mayhem Davis), the tall dorky kid who has a crush on Ava and therefore does lots of stupid, life threatening things because Ava tells him to; Cameron (Jaren Mitchell), the Mayor’s son; Mayor Glen (Lucky Johnson), who fills the role of the uptight authority figure who won’t “close the beaches;” Mick (Shawn C. Phillips), Cameron’s best friend who plays the ‘funny, fat guy’ role; and Finch (Richard Moll, of NIGHT COURT and HOUSE fame), the guy who seems to know exactly what’s going on but who is blown off by everyone for being a crazy drunk. Yup, the script template was brought out and used to the fullest for this one.

Wouldn’t that be ironic if this exact thing was on her bucket list??

I don’t think I really need to go into the rest of the story here. This one pretty much wrote itself. The ghost shark starts attacking and killing people. The dead bodies are never found and the Mayor and sheriff don’t believe the reports from a few survivors. Then of course comes the scene where the ghost shark is openly attacking people and now everyone believes what’s going on … but is it too late?? And of course whoevers left alive now begs the town drunk, Finch, to help them. The end. Of course this one is silly; it’s about a freakin’ ghost shark. But the writers here have a lot of fun with the gimmick mentioned above. Ghost shark can appear in any form of water. Besides the obvious ocean, we also see the shark attack in a pool (my worst fear as a little kid after seeing JAWS for the first time), on a slip and slide, out of puddles in the street, out of a bucket of water at a bikini carwash, through the rain, and through pipes. But perhaps the best death was the poor schmuck who drinks a glass of water and unknowingly drinks the shark. The shark then chews its way out of the poor bastard. These were pretty fun scenes and I was surprised that we actually get some decent gore in this one. Some of the kills are simply the shark swallowing a victim whole, but in others we get to see some pretty decent gore. And I liked that ghost shark wasn’t afraid to chomp on and tear apart some children. GHOST SHARK might have one of the highest child body counts in recent films (next to HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, of course).

That’s it, Bull, stab a ghost with a stick??

The acting is pretty much what you’d expect. There weren’t any Academy Award winning performances, but there also weren’t any outright horrible performances. My biggest complaint here is that the cast played their roles way too seriously. Part of the fun in SHARKNADO was that the cast played it all tongue-in-cheek and just had fun with their characters. Mackenzie Rosman went way over the top in her role as Ava. You’d have thought she was in a Francis Ford Coppola flick!! And I’m not gonna sit here and pick apart the plot holes in this one. There are plot holes everywhere. I’m not gonna point out that Finch’s first attempt to kill the ghost shark was to stab it with a special spear. Yes, they were going to use a spear to kill a ghost shark. How the fuck do you stab a ghost??

This was just water. I’d hate to see what would happen if there was a little whiskey in it!!

Buyer beware. When you sit down to watch something titled GHOST SHARK you should damn well already know that it’s gonna be silly with moderate acting, a ridiculous plot, and hopefully enough fun scenes to make it all worthwhile. Adding up the pros and cons for this one I definitely think the fun moments added up to enough to recommend it. Just seeing a shark jump out of a bucket of water and eat a chick in a bikini was worth the price of admissions for me. Check this one out if you’re up for a no-brainer with some decent gore.

Okay now, the bar has been raised. We’ve gotten hybrid sharks, sharks inside natural disasters, and now ghost sharks. Who’s gonna man up and deliver the script for a zombie shark?? We’re waiting …

“I, ain’t got no body …”

My Summary:

Director: Griff Furst

Plot: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore: 5.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

What the hell can you say about a film titled, SHARKNADO? If you know your cheesy movie production companies than The Asylum should jump right out at you. Who else other than The Asylum would take one of nature’s fiercest forces, the tornado, and add nature’s perfect killing machines, sharks, to it? Let me save you the trouble of reading this entire review. If you’re the kind of person who can’t just sit back and enjoy an intentionally shitty flick, then you’re going to hate SHARKNADO. If you’re the kind of person who can’t help but tear apart horribly constructed plots with plot holes big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through, then you’re going to hate SHARKNADO. But if you enjoy getting some buddies together, cracking a few beers, and ripping on a bad film a la Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you going to love this film!!

SHARKNADO begins on a rather subtle note. Somewhere out in the middle of the ocean a waterspout has formed and has sucked up what is perhaps the largest school of sharks ever. I mean literally hundreds and hundreds of sharks are sucked up into this thing and are carried away. So yes; right from the get-go we have an inaccurate title. It should be “Sharkspout.” But I digress. The “tornado” is part of a hurricane that is tearing apart Mexico and which is gradually making its way up to the coast of California.

This is exactly what you think it is!!

As it is with your typical Asylum film formula, after we get an opening scene of disaster we then switch over and meet the primary cast. There’s Fin (Ian Ziering), a retired championship surfer who now owns a bar on the beach; April (Tara Reid), Fin’s estranged ex-wife; Nova (Cassie Scerbo), a cute waitress at Fin’s bar who has a crush on Fin and who also has a secret hatred of sharks; Baz (Jaason Simmons), Fin’s buddy from Australia; Claudia (Aubrey Peeples), Ian’s estranged daughter; Matt (Chuck Hittinger), Ian’s estranged son; and George (John Heard), one of Fin’s drunk customers. There was of course ample opportunity to create a love triangle between Fin, Nova, and April, but it never happens. Sure there was opportunity to create a more human story by having Fin reconnecting with his estranged son and daughter, but it never happens. Writer Thunder Levin (who wrote and directed The Asylum’s mockbuster, AMERICAN WARSHIP and is the writer of the upcoming Asylum mockbuster, ATLANTIC RIM … I’m not kidding) decides to keep SHARKNADO on target and give us plenty of action with scenes of disaster as we watch the hurricane slam into California and flood the streets. But those flooded streets aren’t empty … the high waters bring in the sharks so we have hundreds of sharks swimming around in the streets of Los Angeles. But as the waters slowly start to ebb and the sharks are whisked back out to sea, the danger is just beginning because that waterspout from the opening (you remember, the one full of sharks) is now coming ashore as well.

Award-winning creature effects by Billy … he’s 8 years old.

It’s all pretty stupid people. The editing is pretty horrible even for an Asylum film, the CGI sharks are laughable, the plot is a minefield of subplots that go nowhere with story lines that feel forced, and the dialogue is ridiculous. But with all this being said, SHARKNADO is also a shitload of fun. How could you not love the image of sharks falling from the sky eating people in the middle of Los Angeles? And these must be super sharks because they adapt quite nicely to chlorinated pool water!! Sure it makes absolutely no sense but I found myself enjoying this one profusely!! I watched this one with my eight and five year olds and they were having a blast with it as well. It’s hard to be scared when the CGI sharks look about as scary as a bathtub toy!!

SHARKNADO aired on the SyFy channel (I know; real shocker) but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of ripped limbs and other gory scenes. It wasn’t too excessive but it had a shitload more gore in it than AMERICAN MARY (That’s right people, I recommend watching SHARKNADO over AMERICAN MARY). There are also two chainsaw scenes here that will have you standing up and cheering. The second chainsaw scene is bound to become as popular as the shark jumping out of the water and taking out an airliner in MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS!!

Everything right up to the ridiculous way our heroes decide to kill the sharks in the tornado is just hokey!! Matt, Fin’s son, flies a helicopter up to the various tornados (did I mention there were multiple shark-infested tornados??) and Nova drops homemade bombs into the funnels thereby killing the sharks. Not sure how the physics behind that goes but it seemed to work well for them. When the helicopter first approached one of the tornados and Nova saw all the sharks she muttered, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger chopper.” Nice nod to JAWS!!

Uh, ya may wanna look over your shoulder!!

There’s nothing in SHARKNADO that’s going to win any awards, and it wasn’t made to. This is simply a “so bad it’s good” film that was made on a tight budget with some washed up stars from yesteryear who are trying to act like they’re taking all this seriously. It’s a mess of a film, but it’s also one helluva fun mess. When all the sharks were swimming around and attacking people in the streets of Los Angeles I couldn’t help but think of the film BAIT (my review). But whereas BAIT was able to take a silly premise and make it seem possible, SHARKNADO is just pure B-movie fun through and through. If you’re looking for a fun, cheesy film with sharks flying out of the sky and where you can turn your brain off for a few hours, then SHARKNADO is the film for you. Movie message boards all over the internet are already calling this one “the best worst movie ever.” Now if that’s not a compliment then I don’t know what is!! I’ll leave you with one question: With the popularity of both shark and zombie films, when are we gonna get a zombie-shark mashup?? I’m just sayin’. It’s your move Asylum. Don’t miss this one.

My Summary:

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

What do you get when backwoods yokels start dumping toxic moonshine into the swamp?  You get huge gators with red necks.  That’s right, you get RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS, and the “redneck” refers to the gators not the yokels!!  This is the latest offering from Active Entertainment (think of this production company as the inbred brother of The Asylum) that aired on the SyFy channel.  And as the trend has been lately, it’s just not enough anymore to make things gigantic, mutated, or radioactive.  We need hybrids of things (a la PIRANHACONDA) or even more bizarre delivery systems (a la SHARKNADO).  So what makes RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS stand out?  If you think these gators are just the byproduct of some toxic moonshine, don’t fret, dear readers, there is a twist.

Here they come … walking down the swamp …

Avery (Jordan Hinson) is a college student who’s returning home to the Bayou to visit her family after being away for four years.  She comes across as an intelligent, fiercely independent woman who’s happy she found a way out of the swamps, despite loving her family.  And as Avery soon learns nothing has changed much in swamp life.  Her father Lucien (Ritchie Montgomery), is the head of the Doucette clan and Wade (Thomas Francis Murphy) is the head of the Robichaud clan and these two clans have been a feudin’ for over 200 years.  Each clan gets territorial when members of the other clan hunt gators on their property, and more than once the local watering hole breaks out into a scene straight out of ROADHOUSE when the two clans clash.  As if this Hatfields and McCoy-like plot wasn’t enough, writers Keith Allan, Rafael Jordan, and Delondra Williams also felt the need to add a Romeo and Juliet subplot.  Avery’s old boyfriend, Dathan (John Chriss), is a Robichaud who also happens to be the town’s sheriff.  And yes, they pick up their relationship after a four year hiatus as if no time had passed at all.  I must point out that the way the writers dealt with Avery’s character was extremely old fashioned and sexist.  In the beginning Avery is independent and a model of a “modern woman.”  But as soon as she hooks back up with her old boyfriend, Dathan, she suddenly becomes the Poster Woman for giving up your dreams and letting the man control your life.  Or am I expecting too much from a SyFy flick??

Early in the film the Doucette’s hunt down, kill, cook up, and feast on one of these new redneck gators.  They figured it would taste better because it was different(??!?).  Little did they know that what changed those gators would soon do the same to them (more on this later).  The scene where we witness the Doucette’s sitting around an open fire outside as they feast on the gator might just be one of the most offensive stereotyped scenes ever put on film!!  I sat there, jaw wide open as I watched these Bayou inbreds perform every single stereotype you can imagine.  It was pretty terrible and I can’t imagine that anyone from Louisianna wasn’t completely and utterly offended.  But it was also pretty damn funny!!  You know the kind of funny I’m talking about … the kind of funny that we’re not supposed to laugh at but can’t help it.  Kinda like when you see a blind person trip over something.

To Avery, this might be considered a date!!

RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS is helmed by Griff Furst, the man behind other such classics like ARACHNOQUAKE, SWAMP SHARK, LAKE PLACID 3, and GHOST SHARK.  And if there’s one thing you can say about Furst’s films it’s that he’s consistent.  He knows that the success or failure of these made for SyFy films is that they need to deliver.  If your titular creature is a shark or a croc or even a ghost shark, then you better give the audience a lot of said shark, croc, or ghost shark.  This is Furst’s formula for success:  Keep the film moving at a quick pace and give the audience a lot of the titular creature destroying shit and killing people.  This is the exact formula used in RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS.  I mean come on … “toxic moonshine” … really??  Yet Furst moves everything along at such a quick pace that you never have time to sit and ponder just how fuckin’ ridiculous that is as an explanation.

Uncle Jesse … NO!!!

I also enjoy the humor that Furst usually puts in his films.  He knows he’s not making any award-winning films so he has fun with them and puts fun in them.  In about the middle of the film we get introduced to a new character, Mr. Tristan Sinclaire (Victor Webster), also known as “The Gator Whisperer.”  This is obviously a spoof and a jab at all those retarded reality-TV characters that claim to have “special relationships” with animals and can communicate and understand said animals better than ‘regular’ people can.  Webster takes this role and runs with it.  It’s one of those roles that steals the show.  Once the locals realize they’re dealing with a new breed/species of gator they call in The Gator Whisperer (who has his own TV show of which we get to see the opening to.  It’s classic!!) who is essentially just a guy who wrestles gators and whispers in their ears.  Webster plays the role brilliantly.  He’s arrogant, full of himself, and is using this new species of redneck gator to get more publicity.  I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by telling you things don’t go well for The Gator Whisperer and his crew!!

Now THAT’S what I call a redneck gator!!

Overall, RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS is your typical “new breed” SyFy flick that amps up the absurdity and keeps a sense of humor about itself.  But, you might be thinking, this all sounds rather standard.  After all it’s just a bunch of aggressive, large gators mutated by some toxic moonshine, right?  Well yes, but we do get a little more “absurdity” thrown at us.  Remember the scene I described when the Doucette clan kills and then cooks up one of the redneck gators?  Well it seems that by ingesting the gator they all end up transforming into gators!!  Yeah, I know.  This adds another layer to the film but unfortunately also gives us a really shitty ending.  It’s an absolutely ridiculous ending that almost ruins the previous fun atmosphere the movie established.

Dathan definitely needs a moisturizer!!

Barring the ending, there’s a lot of fun to be had with RAGIN CAJUN REDNECK GATORS.  It’s your typical SyFy flick that has enough silly humor and silly characters to keep you laughing and a surprisingly decent amount of gore in it as well.  You know what you’re gonna get with a title like this.  Just sit back and have a laugh.

My Summery:

Director:  Griff Furst

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Yes folks, we’re in the second Golden Age of the Shark.  Sharks have always been a danger in the oceans, but now they can “swim” in the sand (SAND SHARKS), they can fused with other deadly creatures (SHARKTOPUS), and they can become part of natural disasters (SHARKNADO).  So instead of heading to the beaches this Spring break you should maybe go skiing.  Yeah, that sounds safe.  It used to be!!  Leave it to SyFy to even ruin a skiing vacation by throwing sharks into the mix.  With AVALANCHE SHARKS those pesky toothsome bastards can now even survive in the snow (why the hell isn’t this one titled, “Sharkalanche”??).

AVALANCHE SHARKS is directed by Scott Wheeler, written by Keith Shaw, and stars Kate Nauta, Emily Addison, Jack Cullison, Mika Brooks, and Eric Scott Woods.  I haven’t had a chance to review SAND SHARKS yet, but AVALANCHE SHARKS is being labeled more of a sequel to SAND SHARKS than just a ripoff of SHARKNADO.  Sand … snow … sure, I get it.  Makes total sense.  Do you really need a plot crunch of this one?  Yes?  Okay, here it is:

After a horrific avalanche, the staff at Twin Pines Ski Resort starts to receive reports of missing people and creatures that move beneath the snow. As the body count piles up, the management tries to cover up the situation, which leads to disaster on their busiest day of the year: Bikini Snow Day.

Spring break in the mountains: snowboarding, beer, drunken co-eds in bikinis. As the yearly Bikini Ski Day party descends on a small mountain town, something lurks beneath the snow. When an unwitting rider causes an avalanche, it awakens a huge, menacing, prehistoric Snow Shark! With a newfound taste for human flesh, the Snow Shark picks off the snow bunnies mercilessly. Cut off from help by mountainous terrain and blinding snow, the local sheriff must make an unlikely alliance with a motley crew of snowboarders to take down the Snow Shark before the white hills run red with blood!

Now check out the trailer … brace yourselves!!

Now if you’ve been paying attention, you may notice that AVALANCHE SHARKS bears more than a similar resemblance to another film which focuses on sharks swimming around in the snow, SNOW SHARK: ANCIENT SNOW BEAST.  Yes I watched SNOW SHARK but I never got around to reviewing it.  It was bad. I mean it was really bad.  I’m not just referring to the basic plot of a shark swimming around in the snow, I’m also referring to the production values.  At least SyFy has decent production values and passable f/x.  Anyway …

Check out some stills below.

Stay Bloody!!!