We at BMAF love sharks, we are fascinated by them, which stems from Jaws our favourite movie of all time!
We especially love seeing sharks in films. However excluding Disney’s Finding Nemo, sharks on film are always treated as the bad guys from attacking bathers to James Bond and if not deadly enough, they are genetically modified or as in Austin Powers, they have a fricking laser beam attached to their head!!
This, of course, goes down to the legacy of Jaws, but the reality is more people have been killed by taking selfies than sharks http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/22/selfies-have-killed-more-people-than-sharks-_n_8174912.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ir=UK so we think they should remake flipper with a shark and make them to be seen as friendly before its too late =(
If you want to know more about the plight of sharks, we would recommend the documentary Sharkwater to you.
Prior to CGI, in the past shark films had been few and far between (we can’t surely blame this all on Jaws: The Revenge?
Renny Harlin’s 1999 Deep Blue Sea perhaps being the highlight although there is also the low budget Shark Attack franchise which is talked about mainly because of its 3rd entry: Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, starring Doctor Who’s Captain Jack himself, John Barrowman. If never seen it, look out for clips on youtube for some awful CGI and the now famous Kinda wired line (you’ll see, although it’s not PG friendly)
But in 2009 that was to change forever, A trailer for a film shown on MTV was to become a viral sensation with over a million views, that film was Mega Shark v Giant Octopus from the film company, http://www.theasylum.cc/
The battle of Shark v Octopus was to be their first cinema release given the worldwide reaction to the trailer. I myself even got to see it on the big screen via a preview at a midnight screening =) It would be fair to say that the majority of the film’s big moments were in the trailer, after all it was surely part of the trailer’s success that it featured a shark jumping out of the water to eat a plane!
The film though is proper low budget b-movie fun and if you take it as that you will have fun, taking top billing giving the film a real sense of nostalgia possibly fitting in with the films budget is Debbie Gibson, who I guess you could say was the Taylor Swift of the Eighties (Her rival at the time, Tiffany also stars in an Asylum film, Mega Piranha)
Debbie plays Emma MacNeil, a marine biologist, who discovers via the collapse of a large ice glacier that the 2 real stars of the film the Mega Shark and the Giant Octopus have been awoken after being frozen in time.
Although the film ends in a final battle of the 2 creatures, no winner is really decided but I don’t think you can truly count this as a spoiler as Mega Shark has spawned 3 sequels where he fought the Crocosaurus; the Mecha Shark and Kolussus (sadly the later 2 have still yet to be released on DVD in the UK) so surely he was the winner!
If you take these films as what they are, ‘Mockbusters’ to give them the term they are known most for these days, you will have fun and we suggest maybe a couple of drinks could help (BMAF, however, recommends you drink responsibly) but if you are expecting Hollywood budgets, award-winning acting and the creatures to be on screen all the time you will be very disappointed and are likely one of those who rated the film around 2.5 (the films average IMDB Score)
We, however love this franchise and like what the Asylum do, which is take a big movie and have fun with it (they have done versions of San Andreas, Pacific Rim, Battleship and even Transformers under the title Transmorphers to name but a few)
We, of course especially love their shark movies, Shark Week, Two and Three headed sharks have all come from their studio, as well as the very popular Sharknado franchise.
Our only real grumble is the fact that the Asylum do not have a UK distributor so films can take years to arrive and also change from distributor to distributor, hence why having brought Sharknado 1 & 2 on bluray, if I want the 3rd I have to get it on DVD which is no fun at all for my collection!
Do you have a favourite Low budget so bad it’s good shark or any other film? Do you agree Mega Shark beat Giant Octopus? Which Eighties pop legend would you love to see in a movie? We’d love to hear from you
You can also find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/barkingmadaboutfilms