With every summer comes people’s fascination with summer
themes. The great outdoors becomes a big
thing as people flock to forests and nature to go camping. They get to spend time outside with their
family and friends. They bond around the
campfire and drink some cold ones.
Another popular destination in the summer is the beach. People love going for a swim in the natural
waterparks of the world. Lakes, rivers,
and oceans become gathering areas for people looking for a cool reprieve from
the summer sweats. A small dip in the
water can wash away the heat that has been bothering the masses.
Movies and television pick up on this desire in the summer,
particularly when it comes to beaches.
People want to be in the water to escape the warmth of the sun, and
entertainment does the same thing. Water
becomes a major point for a bunch of movies.
And when it comes to action and horror, the water becomes a frightening
thing. There are creatures lurking in
the water that people don’t notice when they’re simply gazing across the
waves. Giant squids could be hiding in
the deep, dark areas waiting upon an unsuspecting victim to strike an
attack. More commonly in movies, though,
sharks become the focus of the threats within deep waters.
Over the past three years, there have been three major shark
films released theatrically. Just a
couple weeks ago, The Meg came out. It saw Jason Statham and an international
cast of characters going up against a megalodon. Last year saw 47 Meters Down and the year before saw The Shallows. All three of
these movies were commercial successes, capitalizing on people wanting to see water-based
movies that might put some frights into them.
Theatrical releases aren’t the only ones bringing sharks to
people’s viewing screens. There are many
more television movies and direct-to-video movies coming out on a regular basis
that use sharks as a terrifying villain.
Or, at least, as the foil for the main characters as they try to stop
the destruction they cause. There have
been schlocky B-movies about sharks such as Sharknado,
Avalanche Sharks, and the recently
released Santa Jaws. Few of them become long lasting
franchises. Aside from the Sharknado movies, the only others that
come to mind are the Two-Headed Shark
Attack series and this week’s topic, the Mega Shark franchise.
The first film in the franchise was Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
Released direct-to-video in 2009, it saw a group of scientists and
military personnel going up against both a megalodon and a giant octopus. They needed to stop both creatures and keep
the waterways of the world safe. When a
research accident freed the two prehistoric creatures from a glacier, Emma
MacNeil (Debbie Gibson) teamed up with her old mentor Dick Richie (Mark Hengst)
and Japanese scientist Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao) to stop the animals. They started working for the military under
Allan Baxter (Lorenzo Lamas), and things escalated to a final battle between
the shark and the octopus.
There was the potential for something great to come out of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Two giant creatures battling it out for
control of the oceans while the military fought to try and stop them is a
concept that could lead something fun.
Yet, that’s what was missing.
There wasn’t as much fun as there should have been with the
concept. None of the actors were having
fun with their performances. They were
stuck in the most standard character types possible. There was no room to bring anything
interesting to what they were doing.
That could be on the writing or the direction. Whatever it was, without the actors having
fun with their performances, it was tough to have the same sort of fun watching
the movie.
The other major fault with Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus was keeping the creatures apart for as
long as they did. The megalodon and the
octopus were on opposite sides of the world for such a long time, terrorizing
their own areas, that the story was basically cut in two. The characters were going back and forth
between the two areas, not spending enough time on either threat. There was potential for something much
greater, and it was wasted in the writing of the conflict.
Many of the problems were improved in the first sequel, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. After facing an attack by the megalodon that
killed everyone on his ship, Lieutenant Terry McCormick (Jaleel White) started
working for Admiral Calvin (Robert Picardo).
They were going to use McCormick’s sound technology to capture and kill
the megalodon. Their plans would need to
be altered when Nigel Putnam (Gary Stretch) captured the Crocosaurus and
accidentally let it free in the ocean.
The ragtag group had to stop both creatures from causing disaster
throughout the world.
The two major weaknesses of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus were rectified in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.
First, there was the fact that the movie was actually fun. Instead of having average people go up
against the two creatures, the characters felt like fully formed
characters. Terry McCormick was a man
grieving over his wife who died in the opening scene of the film. He wanted revenge against the megalodon that
killed her, and would do anything to exact it.
Nigel Putnam felt like a con artist version in Indiana Jones, and that
worked to an exceptional level. Having
the two of them play off of each other was more chemistry than any two
characters from the first film had, bringing that fun factor to the characters.
Mega Shark vs.
Crocosaurus also had a story that tied the two creatures to each other in a
stronger way. Instead of simply being
two creatures doing their own thing and being brought together for a final
fight, the two were nearly always together.
The Crocosaurus was laying eggs along the coastline, while the megalodon
was attracted to the eggs. Both creatures
were in the same vicinity nearly the entire time, which added a conflict
between the animals. It was one
storyline instead of two that seemed completely apart from one another until
the end.
There was only one story in Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark, yet there was something missing from
the movie. The megalodon came back, and
Rosie Gray (Elisabeth Rohm) was going up against it in the military’s new Mecha
Shark. Her husband, Jack Turner
(Christopher Judge) was in the control room of the base bship monitoring her
vitals as she chased the megalodon to its breeding grounds off the coast of
Australia. When the Mecha Shark was put
into emergency mode, the military had to stop both the megalodon and the Mecha
Shark from destroying Sydney.
The story wasn’t too bad in Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.
The military had learned their lesson in the previous two films and were
now taking preventative measures. They
were building tech that would be better able to counter the giant creatures
that came back from the dead. A giant
mechanical shark had been built to go up against the megalodon were it to
return. And return it did. The breeding grounds element was interesting,
adding a motivation for the megalodon beyond a feeding frenzy. The husband and wife team was an interesting
element too, bringing added stakes to anything that would happen. All of the elements of a fun shark movie were
there.
Yet they fell apart in the two lead performances. There was little to no chemistry between the
husband and wife team. Christopher Judge
and Elisabeth Rohm both seemed like they didn’t want to be there. They weren’t having a good time with the
material, and they didn’t have any rapport with each other. Both of them worked better with the
disembodied voice of the Mecha Shark’s computer system. The problems were alleviated a little bit at
the end when the goofiness of the Mecha Shark on land was brought into the
fray, but it couldn’t solve the problems within the rest of the movie. It was still a step above Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, but it was
far below the standard that Mega Shark
vs. Crocosaurus had set.
Mega Shark vs.
Kolossus would try to recapture the magic of the second film, and for the
most part, it did. A new megalodon was
roaming the oceans and Admiral Titus Jackson (Ernest Thomas) was obsessed with
taking it down. Meanwhile, Moira King (Amy
Rider) was trying to find some Russian red mercury, and came across a doomsday
device called Kolossus. With both a
giant shark and a giant doomsday device causing destruction throughout the
world, a face-off in the Black Sea was inevitable. Private tech mogul Joshua Dane (Brody
Hutzler) enlisted the help of Dr. Allison Gray (Illeana Douglas) to help him
get into the conflict and capture the megalodon before Jackson’s warships could
kill it.
The fun of Mega Shark
vs. Crocosaurus returned with the fourth entry in the franchise. The characters felt fully formed. Titus Jackson was solely focused on
destroying the megalodon. His focus
turned into a fatal obsession. Joshua
Dane was a great tech mogul character, perfectly charismatic for his role. Allison Gray was played well as a woman who
wanted to help, but didn’t necessarily like the reasons she was being forced to
help. She wanted to study, not kill, and
people were pushing her in ways she didn’t want to go. Then there was Moira King who wanted nothing
more than to stop the doomsday device that she had been a part of
releasing. The four main characters, as
well as the people who supported them, were all realized as characters, which
made it easier to care about what happened to them.
Each of the stories intertwined as the monsters approached
each other. Moira, Allison, Joshua, and
Titus kept overlapping in their quests to take down their respective
monsters. Though the Kolossus and
megalodon didn’t meet until the third act, they never felt like two separate
stories because the threads intertwined throughout the film. The characters would meet each other, work
together for a bit, go their separate ways, and then come back together. It was decent storytelling that worked to
make things a little more fun.
Perhaps the difference in the Mega Shark franchise had to do
with the director. Christopher
Dougles-Olen Ray directed both the second and fourth entries. They were the two best entries. He seemed to have a better sense of what the
movies should be than the other two directors who worked on Mega Shark movies. He made sure the actors were having a good
time in their roles, and that the roles were actual roles. His installments were more entertaining,
being the reasons to watch the franchise.
The summer isn’t only about the outdoors and beaches. Those are some of the big things that people
do in the summer, but they’re not all.
The summer is also about having good times and having fun. Shark movies, which come out of the beach
concept, need to also play by those rules.
They should be good times or fun, if not both. The horror of them might not be good. As an audience, however, it should be a good
time getting frightened by the horror.
It should be fun watching the heroes team up to take down the threat
before them. A shark movie should be
fun.
These notes might be fun for someone:
- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus was suggested by @PsychOfFilm.
- The Sharknado series was mentioned in this post. Here’s the post covering the first three films in that franchise (week 190). The Two-Headed Shark Attack franchise was also mentioned. Here’s the post for Two-Headed Shark Attack (week 7) and the post for Three-Headed Shark Attack (week 165).
- Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray directed two of the Mega Shark movies. He also directed Two-Headed Shark Attack (week 7) and Three-Headed Shark Attack (week 165).
- Debbie Gibson and Matt Lagan were both in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.
- Ozzie Devrish was in Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark and Mega Shark vs. Kolossus.
- Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus was the third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Gerald Webb who had previously popped up in Two-Headed Shark Attack (week 7) and Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190).
- Gregory Paul Smith is another third timer after being in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. He was in Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (week 84) and 6 Guns (week 247).
- Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark featured Terry F. Smith, who was also in The Human Centipede III (week 180) and Sandy Wexler (week 231).
- If you watch movies by The Asylum, you might have noticed Christopher Karl Johnson. He had already been in two Asylum movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. They were Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (week 60) and Nazis at the Center of the Earth (week 73).
- Four actors from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus were in Transmorphers: Fall of Man (week 130). They were Jay Beyers, Dana DiMatteo, Russ Kingston, and Dean Kreyling.
- Michael Teh showed up in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, after having previously appeared in Sharknado (week 190).
- Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) had a Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus actor as well, in Lorenzo Lamas.
- Still going, Jonathan Nation was an actor from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus who was also in 6 Guns (week 247).
- Finishing off Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, there was Vic Chao from American Ultra (week 261).
- Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus featured two people from 8213: Gacy House (week 60): Michael Gaglio and Rachel Riley.
- Two actors from Sharknado (week 190) also made appearances in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. They were Tiffany Cole and Willie R. Malloy.
- John A. Lorenz from Rise of the Zombies (week 16) showed up for a bit in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.
- One of the actors in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus was Robert R. Shafer, who you might recognize from Zombeavers (week 142).
- Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus had an appearance from Dylan Vox, who was in Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven (week 170).
- And ending the Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus stuff, we have Sarah Lieving from The Beast of Bray Road (week 176).
- Bermuda Tentacles (week 96) and Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark shared two actors: Steve Troublesome Castillo and Patrice Gibbs.
- One of the people in Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark was in 8213: Gacy House (week 60). That was Sylvia Panacione.
- Natalie Pellegrini from Sharknado (week 190) and Christopher Judge from Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) made appearances in Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.
- Mega Shark vs. Kolossus saw Patrick Bauchau return from Big Ass Spider! (week 61).
- Finally, Chris Clanton had roles in both Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark and The Human Centipede III (week 180).
- Have you seen the Mega Shark movies? What did you think of them? What do you think of shark movies? Should they be fun summer movies? All of this can be discussed in the comments section.
- The comments section and Twitter are good places to let me know about movies that you think I could be watching for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. You could be like PsychOfFilm and be listed as one of the people who suggested something. Hit me up.
- When I watch bad movies, I like to share bits and pieces of them with people on Snapchat. If you want to see that sort of thing, add me (jurassicgriffin).
- There will be another post coming out this week since it is week 300 right now. That’s right. There’s a bonus post coming soon. I’ll link it here once it’s up.
- Now for the most important part of the post that’s not everything that came before this point. What is coming up next week with the Sunday “Bad” Movies? After a big franchise, I decided to take it down a notch with another suggested movie. Airborne, a movie involving roller blades. That’s what will be coming up next Sunday. See you then.
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