Film: SyFy

Leprechaun Returns

 

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A direct sequel to the first Leprechaun, would you be surprised to hear that Jennifer Aniston is nowhere to be found?

You know who WAS around from the first film? Ozzie, better known as Francis in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Turns out that Jennifer Aniston’s character died of cancer, so her daughter comes back to the VERY SAME HOUSE, which is now an environmentally conscious sorority house. It’s exactly 25 years later, and very bad Leprechaun things start to happen…

I was ready to be fiercely loyal to Warwick Davis’s portrayal of our Leprechaun hero, but it turns out that the new Leprechaun, played by Linden Porco, was pretty consistent with the OG Leprechaun. He was silly and brutal and full of limericks.

This one character gets stoned and yells at goats. I feel that in my bones. She also takes a Leprechaun selfie – that must be some goooood shit. And then this other guy takes a leprechaun selfie – and he wasn’t even high. What the fuck is wrong with kids today?

There were some good chuckles in this one, like when the Leprechaun finds some Crocs and gets offended. He wasn’t impressed by their Prius either.

Unlike the abominable Leprechaun: Origins, Leprechaun Returns is a throwback to the original Leprechaun films and is a worthy installment in the series. There are a few major laughs and a few truly stomach churning moments.

Zombie Tidal Wave

 

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Good lord, this film was a boring-ass stinker!

Look, I get it. Why not try to capture the “lightning in a bottle” success of the Sharknado films and put Ian Ziering in another water-based disaster situation…it just did not work. Zombies are just not cut out to be an ocean invasion.

First off, these zombies were blue – they looked like goddamn herpes-infected Smurfs. Per the plot contrivances, they were blue because of phosphorous dumped into the ocean. Sure, Jan. Some of them were super-fast and some of them were super-slow. I stopped paying much attention, but they were really hard to kill, until the end of the film, then all of a sudden, they were easier to kill? I don’t even fucking know.

Don’t bother with watching this one – there’s no humor in this one AT ALL, nor are there any silly celebrity cameos – it’s a total waste of time.

Santa Jaws

 

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What in the shit?

Rest assured, Santa Jaws is exactly as bad as I thought it would be. I had zero expectations going in, expecting some mindless, season-appropriate entertainment on Christmas night and this film fulfilled those expectations.

This kid gets a magic pen and it brings drawings to life, so he draws “Santa Jaws”, a killer shark that wears a Santa hat on its fin. Santa Jaws comes to life and eats his Grandpa, and then slowly works his way through the rest of the kid’s family and friends.

Throughout the film, Santa Jaws also acquires a Narwhal-like peppermint horn and festive teeth made out of Christmas lights. The protagonists attempt to conquer Santa Jaws with baked turkeys full of gunpowder. What kind of Christmas party requires 3 baked turkeys and several buckets of gunpowder? Outside of Texas, of course – that’s a totally normal party set-up here in the Lone Star State.

Per my husband, Santa Jaws is one of THE WORST films he has ever seen on SyFy and he has seen them all, from Mansquito to Sharknado.

On a side note, I found “Santa Jaws” wrapping paper on post-Christmas clearance at Target today. I totally bought it.



6-Headed Shark Attack

 

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How many heads could a 6-headed shark give, if a head-giving 6-headed shark could give head?

The set-up to the shark feeding frenzy is ridiculously frustrating. A bunch of couples are stranded on a desert island in Baja, in order to take part in Survivor-style Couples Therapy. If I wanted to watch a bunch of dysfunctional couples arguing, I’d just wait until the holidays. Every single one of them is an asshole – who cares if the 6-headed shark eats them?

I do not understand the dynamics of the 6-headed shark. Unlike the 5-headed shark, all of the heads are up front – no butthole heads on this shark. The 6-headed shark looks like Patrick Star with an erection. Also, when angered, the 6-headed shark may bite off one of his own heads. I don’t even fucking know anymore, guys.

I will never unsee the sight of that dipshit 6-headed shark walking like a crab, on the tips of 4 of its shark-noses. Why? Does The Asylum even science?

The Asylum does NOT science, as evidenced by the ending. I feel like it was supposed to be an homage to the ending of the original Jaws, with the oxygen tanks and flare gun. Don’t they know that the Mythbusters already debunked that???

The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time

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I don’t care what they call that damn movie, I really doubt it’s the last one. (Are you sensing a certain cynicality in me, when it comes to franchises? You’re goddamn right you are!)

As the last film ended, everyone on the planet was dead I think, except Fin. His son showed up with a time machine…and that’s right where Sharknado 6 picked up. Fin ended up in the Jurassic period and oh look! There’s Tara Reid riding a Pterodactyl. Or was it a “Tara-dactyl”?

As the shark-fighting team travels through history fighting Sharknados, they also travel from continent to continent. Not sure where they started in Dinosaur-land, but they make appearances at King Arthur’s Court (Excalibur was really a chainsaw), the American Revolution, wherever Billy the Kid was hanging out at, then San Francisco in 1996, and then…the far off future full of Tara Reid Clones wearing tinfoil hats. We truly had no idea what the fuck was going on. And I don’t mean that in a delightful way.

The cameos were fast and furious this go-round. And weird…very, very weird. Alaska Thunderfuck as Morgana (le Fey?); Deanna Troi; Neil deGrasse Tyson as Merlin; The Offspring (the band), literally telling the American Revolution Cavalry to “Come out and play”; Leslie Jordan as Benjamin Franklin; Darrell Hammond as George Washington (but doing his Bill Clinton impression…so weird); Ben Stein as Alexander Hamilton; Dee Snyder; Murr from Impractical Jokers; Gilbert Gottfried (again); Tori Spelling and her gross cheating/anal sex-obsessed husband as Fin’s parents; Peter Brady as Nova’s grandfather; Doc from The Love Boat; LaToya Jackson as Cleopatra; James Hong as Confucius; and Al Roker (also again).

I take it back, this really has to be the last one. There’s no where else to go, right? RIGHT?

5 Headed Shark Attack

In case you’re wondering, there’s no 4 Headed Shark Attack movie – the franchise skips straight from 3 Headed Shark Attack to 5 Headed Shark Attack. This kind of makes sense…because for the first half of the movie, the shark only has 4 heads…but for no discernable reason, the shark sprouts a 5th head out of its butt. Literally, the shark’s 5th head is its butthole. You can’t make this shit up.

Sadly, there are not even any C-list stars to bear witness to the carnage. The closest is Chris Bruno, who I vaguely remember from a brief stint on All My Children in the 90s. (Don’t judge me.) I’m not saying that I only watch these movies to see “celebs” debase themselves by running from mutant sharks…but I’m not saying that it isn’t.

There’s really not a lot to say about this movie…EXCEPT that they try to use dolphin recordings to scare the shark, because dolphins are the only thing that scare sharks. SEE! I fucking told you! Dolphins are the most fucking horrifying creatures in the ocean! Even a Great White Shark with a shark-face for its butthole is absolutely terrified of dolphins!

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

After destroying every landmark in America over the last four movies, the 5th Sharknado movie goes global, with the latest Sharknado erupting out of a cave beneath Stonehenge.

There’s not much to the plot. The Sharknado came back and now it can teleport you to anywhere on the planet. Yup, it can pick you up in Switzerland and then drop you in Australia. Sure…why not? It’s a great plot device.

The Sharknado took out Stonehenge, Big Ben, London Bridge (someone actually got to say “London Bridge is falling down”), the Swiss Alps, the Rio Dr Janeiro Jesus, the colosseum, the pyramids of Giza…and eventually, the entire planet.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention SHARKZILLA. It’s a toxic waste Sharknado shaped like Godzilla that destroys Tokyo. Really.

Since the movie starts out in London, I feel like there were celebrities I wasn’t aware of…but here are the ones I did catch…Cameo Roll Call: Chris Kattan, Clay Aiken with a bad British accent, Samantha Fox, Katie Price, Bret Michaels (gets hit by a double-decker bus, but why is he in London?), Charo as the Queen of England, David Naughton, Nichelle Nichols, Geraldo Rivera, Olivia Newton-John and her plastic surgery-addicted daughter, Tony Hawk, Tiffany “New York” Pollard with a bad Brazilian accent, Fabio as the pope (and proferer of the holy chainsaw), Margaret Cho, Al Roker with Hoda and Kathie Lee, Bai Ling, Gilbert Gottfried, and Dolph Lundgren in a very, very bizarre cameo with a flux capacitor made out of a possum.

It made my son and I sad when Fin raised his holy chainsaw in the air and proclaimed, “I am not throwing away my shot.” Just…no. I know LMM, and you sir…are NO LMM.

Let the record show that I totally called the ending of the film about 45 minutes in…not the ending of the film per se, but the fact that the NEXT Sharknado will have to include time travel. Just ask my kids…they’ll back me up. I absolutely fucking called it.

I wasn’t any more or less disappointed with #5 than any of the previous Sharknados. Frankly, I’m impressed that they’ve kept it going this long. I can’t even be mad. Did you know that Ian Ziering made half a million dollars for Sharknado?

Trailer Park Shark

That Tara Reid, she sure does have bad luck with sharks.

Tara Reid isn’t the only C-list celeb on board. The REAL star is Thomas Ian Nicholas, coincidentally Tara Reid’s boyfriend in American Pie. He’s the asskicking trailer park dude, who fixes everything with duct tape. Also, we’ve got Mr. Belding (the principal from Saved by the Bell) as the evil land developer that orchestrates the levee explosion that leads to the shark invasion of the trailer park. Yeah…a shark (singular) invades a flooded trailer park. The shark also has electric powers like an eel. Okay….

Tara Reid doesn’t even show up until an hour into the movie, marooned on top of a trailer. She’s got 5 minutes in the film, tops. Also, she throws a pink flamingo – the shark was not impressed.

I’ve always dreamed of seeing a horse eaten by a a shark…and now that dream has come true.

Also, the main bad guy’s name is “Swayze” – I giggled every time they said it. Or was it because he was a white guy with cornrows? Either or.

This entry into the Sharkolympics was actually on the funnier end of the spectrum. Most of the laughs were intentional, although quite a few were not. Like…why do they call jet-skis “skidoos”? And why do they pronounce Go-Pro as “gah-PRO”? WHY?

Mississippi River Sharks

Two Londons for the price of one!

Jason London (Dazed and Confused) stars as “himself” – a fictionalized version of the actor, who stars in the “Shark Bites” movie franchise. He must have a pretty good sense of humor, because he plays “himself” as an utter douchebag. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a dig at Ian Ziering’s Sharknado fame? Or maybe I’m just projecting…but I’m fairly certain that Ziering just doesn’t play a douche on TV. Jeremy London (Mallrats) has a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, but it’s a good chuckle.

As you may have guessed, the plot of the film is sharks entering the mouth of the Mississippi River and eating people. No backstory, no particular reason WHY there are sharks in the Mighty Mississip – they just ARE. I was hoping the sharks would make it to St. Louis, but they only made it 100 miles or so up the river. Boo.

Bonus points to Mississippi River Sharks for giving the film a strong, smart heroine AND an interracial couple. The diversity is appreciated, especially in a film full of rednecks. Even though there are a couple of good one-liners, the film is boring and has ridiculously lame CGI. It was so bad, that the kids were talking shit to the screen. How bad does your CGI have to be that a nine year old is unimpressed? I tried to get my son to make a shark movie in our pond, but the snakes in our pond are scary enough to keep him from wanting to flail around in it.

Fun fact…the opening sequence takes place on the New Orleans Riverboat Natchez. My friend Gingher got married on that very same boat back in 2000…and I got severely seasick and had a panic attack. Good times.

Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens

Why did Sharknado 4 have to open with a Star Wars-esque opening crawl? Was it because they gave Tara Reid a Light Saber hand?

First there was a shark sandnado in Vegas, then a shark bouldernado in the Grand Canyon, followed by a shark oilnado/firenado in Texas. A shark lightningnado heads toward Kansas. Cue Wizard of Oz references…and a cownado. The lightningnado heads towards a nuclear power plant in Ohio…and becomes a shark nuclearnado. The grand finale takes place all the way in Niagara Falls…Wait, how did that baleen whale get into the Sharknado? And the baby shark nipple defibrillators…uhhhh…the end? At least they set it up for a sequel…Sharknado in France.

Adding Gary Busey to the mix was a stroke of genius. I didn’t think there was any more crazy that could be added to the mux, but I was wrong.

I was disappointed that Tara Reid wasn’t killed off in the last one, but I technically, I guess she DID die. Grumble, grumble…

The cameos came fast and furious: Carrot Top, Vince Neil, Wayne Newton, Adrian Zmed, Dr. Drew, Xfinity Cable Remote Controls, Al Roker, Bud Bundy, Jillian Barberie, Gilbert Gottfried, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dan Yeager (Leatherface) and Caroline Williams (Stretch), Stacey Dash, Christine (the car), Steve Guttenberg (his character crossover from Lavalantula), Comic Con, Paul Shaffer, the biggest ball of yarn in the world, Lloyd Kaufman!!! (one of my idols), Gena Lee Nolin and some other Baywatch skank…did I miss any?

The whole family agreed that this one was better than the third one, which was previously the best one. Although it was mostly ridiculously predictable, there were a few WTF moments that had a tiny spark of genius, like the Christine cameo. I didn’t catch any other Stephen King references, it just seemed out of place, which made me love it all the more. Just a total, “fuck you, we’re going for it” moment. But isn’t Sharknado itself a whole spectacle of “fuck you, we’re going for it”?