SHARKNADO and SHARKNADO: HEART OF SHARKNESS (2013) Reviews and overview

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‘Enough said!’

Sharknado is a 2013 American horror/disaster film produced by The Asylum (Snakes on a Train, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies) and directed by Anthony C Ferrante. The screenplay is by Thunder Levin, whose previous writing credits include Mutant Vampire Zombies from the ‘Hood! 

The movie stars John Heard (Cat People, Would You Rather), Cassie Scerbo, Ian Ziering and Tara Reid.

Plot:
A prologue shows a fishing crew hacking of fins intended for soup in the Far East and tossing the dying sharks back into the Mexican Ocean. A storm overwhelms the boat and the crew are all eaten by sharks.

A freak hurricane apparently caused by global warming hits Los Angeles, causing man-eating sharks to be scooped up in tornadoes and flooding the city with shark-infested seawater. Surfer and bar-owner Fin (Ziering) sets out with his friends Baz (Jaason Simmons) and Nova (Scerbo) to rescue his estranged wife April (Reid) and teenage daughter Claudia (Aubry Peeples). Fin succeeds but April’s boyfriend is eaten by the sharks.

John Heard played a bar fly

The group meet up with Matt (Chuck Hittinger), the adult son of Fin and April, who is in flying school. They decide to try to stop the threat of the incoming “sharknadoes” by tossing bombs into them from helicopters.

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As Nova prepares to throw one of the bombs, she falls out of the helicopter and directly into a shark’s mouth. Matt, who has fallen for her, is heartbroken. Baz is also lost in the storm. After Matt lands on the ground, a flying shark plummets toward the remaining members of the group. Fin jumps into its mouth with a chainsaw and cuts his way out…

The film’s pre-release poster received significant coverage due to the Oklahoma tornado and when it debuted on the US Syfy Channel on July 11th it suddenly generated a massive amount of online social media chat: 5,000 tweets a minute on Twitter at one point. However, once again proving those people idly chatting away on the internet are not the same people who actually watch movies – even bad ones for fun – the viewing figures were below average for an original debut.

Reviews:

“The flick tries to take things as serious as possible (or as serious as a movie called Sharknado can be). Therein lays the problem. Had the film really went for broke on the goofiness (as it did in the opening scenes), we could’ve had a real winner on our hands. The finale where Ziering’s kid tries to fly into the sharknado and blow it up is rather disappointing too and the nods to Jaws fall flat. Overall, Sharknado isn’t awful by any stretch of the imagination, but it just never really lives up to its title.” The Video Vacuum

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Buy: Amazon.com

Trailer:

MOVIES and MANIA rating:

Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness documentary:

Cast and characters:
Ian Ziering as Finley “Fin” Shepard
Tara Reid as April Wexler
John Heard as George
Cassie Scerbo as Nova Clarke
Jason Simmons as Baz
Aubrey Peeples as Claudia Shepard
Chuck Hittinger as Matt Shepard
Christopher Wolfe as Collin
Robbie Rist as Robbie
Alex Arleo as Bobby
Connor Weil as Luellyn
Julie McCullough as Jonni Waves
Adrian Bustamante as Kelso

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