Sharknado

Sharknado! Not one of my creations but it should be. I’ll just copy out the brief tantaliser from IMDB.

When a freak hurricane swamps Los Angeles, nature’s deadliest killer rules sea, land, and air as thousands of sharks terrorize the waterlogged populace.

That’s right, it’s raining sharks and this made for TV thriller is coming to the Syfy channel next week. With bated breath I can’t wait to watch the ridiculous CGI, corny dialogue and lashings of over acting from the “actors” in their death scenes. Call me Ishmael if you want sometimes a B-movie can be that bad it’s good. To join in the swing of things I’ll be watching Sharknado harnessed on the couch with my harpoon gun at the ready.

Movies with literal titles have always rocked my boat. As the adman says, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Anaconda, Strangers on a Train, Snakes on a Plane, High Noon, Alien vs. Predator, The Great Escape, Attack of the 50 foot woman. The list is endless and covers all genres.

Sharknado comes into the category of the disaster movie. The Golden Age of the disaster film is the 1970’s. There are many classic disasters in there: The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The Cassandra Crossing. It is harder to generate interest in impending doom vehicles as most of the calamities have been done to death using a tried and trusted formula.

The disaster genre needs a kick up the backside. My proposal for a title is-

Rampage of the Tennis Ball Machines.

It is 3040 and machines have developed until they are almost flawless. Up loading pictures to media galleries is as easy as drawing a Lada so Tennis Ball machines are programmed to fire cannons at every angle and speed imaginable and, now much improved, are capable of returning serves. A machine called Deep Blue Sea beats the Wimbledon champion in a man v machine contest. The victory goes to Deep Blue’s head and he attacks the spectators, including the Royal Box, with a procession of tennis ball volleys! King Will. i am II manages to be ushered to safety. Deep Blue gathers together his tennis ball machine pals and they rampage through London breaking windows with their balls. Looters emerge on the scene and steal the latest plastic TV’s and oil paintings. Art imitating life.

The top brass, aware of the crisis, lay out blueprints and see a blemish in the Deep Blue Sea make-up. If they can find a sharpshooter that can fire a tennis ball straight into Deep Blue Sea’s blowhole it will explode internally and all the other machines will retire unhurt as Deep Blue is the big baddie. Enter Andy Skywalker, the man with the killer groundstrokes.

14 thoughts on “Sharknado”

  2. Hello jhl, if I’m not mistaken this is our first correspondence. And it is a memorable one.

    Your title is pure 1950’s Schlock horror. No mad scientist in it just a mad chef.

  4. I’d prefer ‘The Curse of the Killer Wolves’, and make it as a documentary.

    OZ

  5. More, J-man. Have you ever tried drawing a Corvette? The curves are difficult to negotiate.

    Hello OZ, good to see you back and fangs for your contribution.

  6. Now if you want real horror what about the Festival Flob of the Flab?

    Going home on a plane in the middle seat for Christmas, fighting for air and then being immolated by shopper rage in Walmart/ASDA by fat’uns fighting for the last turkey?
    Enough to turn you into an agoraphobic vegetarian for life!

    Currently I am deeming the US is a worse offender than Wales by a long chalk in the flab, positively quite a shortage of fat’uns round Llandeilo, but then its quite an expensive up market area. I do note an increasing influx of immigrant white English fleeing from the horror of East UK though. Still reassuringly Welsh out in the countryside though.

  7. Countryside is the bees’ knees! Yes! Pity there ain’t room for all the Unsuitables! 🙂

  8. They need to get them all back over that bridge and then blow it! Forget the ‘Croeso y Cymru’ more like machine gun nests!!

  9. It has only taken me five years to get used to your abrasive style, Mrs O. Now I look forward to your comments here and on other authors posts as they are…bone-breaking, sometimes funny-bone-breaking. If the chariot were a sitcom at your first appearance on each episode the audience would burst into a mad round of applause.

  10. JW, I have spoken on the phone with Mrs O and can assure you she is a complete sweetie – not that I’d want to get on her wrong side, you understand.

    OZ

  12. It is easy to get complacent and say to yourself that “it’ll never happen here” so I am delighted that the local council has contingency plans for every eventuality to put restless heads at rest. Now I can sleep soundly without having dangerous weapons nearby. I can put the chainsaw back in the cupboard safe in the knowledge a shark won’t drop from the sky onto the bed.

    http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sharknado-fears-soothed-council-reveals-2173640

    Review-wise, the film was great. Non-stop humour and action, right from the off. None of that tension building nonsense.

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