that's not really a surprise. ever since i had kids, i'm generally late to everything. but every now and then, my children bully their way into having a sleepover with a beloved relative and i get to play catch up on pop culture references. that's how my love affair with sharknado began.
as my husband and i settled down for what we'd hoped to be a romantic night of watching SyFy B-movies and eating various flavors of doritos, we immediately had the feeling that Sharknado would be something...special. or at least i did because i'm pretty sure the hubz didn't make it to tara reid's house in the film.
again, pesky kids.
i'm not going to give you a play-by-play here. it's a syfy film. you already know that means shitty CGI and green screen. i will just give you the highlights:
1. john heard - imagine what would have happened to kevin mcallister's dad if his wife left him after forgetting their son a second time and took all the kids with her. he'd go to the beach, find a local watering hole, and hit on the scantily clad underaged bartender. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT SAD OLD MEN DO. but then, because he raised a son who was so adept at saving himself from thieves and robbers, he'd redeem himself slightly with little more than a barstool, a poignant symbol of both his downfall and his redemption. somewhere, there's a dog named after whatever his character's name was, i'm sure of it.
2. nova - someday, i'm going to survive a traumatic shark attack (my emotional scars will be obvious by my daddy issues and wardrobe choices) and have the world's ugliest, fakest scars mar my perfectly toned body. then, i'm going to live on the beach and work at a job where, like hooters, i'll be forced to expose my long, toned limbs every day, forcing the casually observant to notice my scars and ask me about them. then i will lie about the origins of the scars until i meet someone who fell down a slide at the park, FOR ONLY HE CAN TRULY UNDERSTAND MY PAIN. then, we'll drop motherfucking bombs into the motherfucking sharknadoes together, saving the world and falling in love. until i am swallowed whole by a great white. did i mention I REALLY HATE SHARKS.
3. that dude from baywatch - remember logan from baywatch? here, he is EPIC as the australian friend with nothing to lose but perhaps his leg and his life. my second favorite scene involves the campy australian in a hardware store dropping knowledge about how tornadoes are formed to a bunch of half naked kids who are building bombs without the use of the internet.
4. tara reid's house - it's nice to see tara reid getting work. by which i mean not more botched plastic surgery. my third favorite scene happens at tara reid's house where her terrible boyfriend colin discovers the cardinal rule of being a dick in a made-for-tv-horror-film usually means you die a horrible fucking death first. it's also here where we learn there is a son - because the writers probably figured that they needed a reason to keep the characters from just going inland so they added another emotional heartstring to keep us firmly entrenched in snarknado territory. or should i say...terrortory.
5. the end - okay, i'm saving the best for last but this happens:
and then, just when we think all hope is lost, ian zeiring chainsaws his way out of the great white, carving a makeshift sharkvagina and birthing himself (and the blood drenched nova). it is EXACTLY what shakespeare envisioned for macduff (NONE OF WOMAN BORN SHALL HARM SHARKNADO!) but clearly lacked the technology to make it truly sing. i almost wet myself laughing.
my husband snored gently and missed the whole thing.
i don't know. i love that syfy has become the ed wood of my generation. these campy, terribly written little gems have found a home and given me a simple hope for the future.
that hope is sharknado 2.
