The Rise and Fall of the Shitty Shark Film
Let’s take a journey through time. Only back a couple of years, so don’t get too excited. The early 2010’s to be precise. The newly renamed Syfy channel was in full swing pumping out its “Original Movies.” Though they had been doing so for a while now, it seems the popularity of these films was riding high for the network, as evidenced by their advertisements of the flicks.
Enter Sharktopus. While creature features were big on the network for a few years, Roger Corman teamed up with Syfy to produce this more unique one which aired in 2010. It was their first to be hosted by Josh Gates of the then-popular show “Destination Truth.” He was the face of Syfy at the time, and to this day they haven’t given another film guest promotion that I can recall. The movie was well received by most of those who watch these Original Movies, and two sequels were quickly greenlit.
Then something entirely unexpected happened. Syfy showcased the Asylum’s Sharknado, which drew in an immense audience and became talked about on social media. Until this point, Syfy’s movies appealed to a fringe audience, their shark movies in particular I suspect appealing to wildlife nuts such as myself. The movie became Syfy’s most watched Original Movie up until that point and thus “Sharkmania” was born. Shitty shark movies have been around for decades, however, so this originally confused me a bit.
Sure, Sharknado was a little more silly than their average flick, but it didn’t seem all that great to me. Why did it drum up all of this interest? I found my answer one year later with Sharknado 2. This sequel seemed to be more concerned with delivering things to talk about rather than being an actual movie. I’m sure many shark movie nuts who have seen Sharknado 2 can attest to the feeling of being alienated from the thing which they once enjoyed. Sharknado 2 was not a movie for shark nuts; it was a movie for your Twitter feed.
Somewhere around this time the world was gifted with a favorite shark film of mine, Ghost Shark. Ghost Shark brought the shitty shark film back to its roots, delivering a silly concept but playing it entirely straightforward, never stopping to laugh with the audience. I consider it a true gem of the genre, ranking up there with Sharktopus and Sharktopus 2.
Later on, the first of the Sharktopus sequels, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, premiered. This is my favorite of the Sharktopus trilogy, and at the time I couldn’t be happier. Another Corman-produced piece, this one delivered almost everything you can ask for from a Sharktopus film. This also signified a “vs.” film trend at Syfy, which produced a few other “vs.” films featuring some other nonsense monsters following this one.
This was the high point of “Sharkmania,” and it has all felt like a downhill slide in quality since. Several more attempts were made by the network to capitalize on its “shark success,” and all were unwatchable. In fact, after a while I skipped dozens more altogether. The true disappointment of them all, however, was Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf. The powers-that-be threw the established rules of the other two films in the franchise out of the window in favor of attempting to appeal more to the Internet as opposed to us die-hard shark film nuts. Its smile-and-wink absurdity made me somewhat mad, as I had come to enjoy the previous movies a lot.
I skipped Sharknado 3 entirely, as those films are not for me. What once used to have appeal had it all drained out in favor of clowning around in a state of self-mocking complacency with hopes of appealing to another audience. An audience which doesn’t really care about shark movies so much as mocking something perceived as stupid.
We live now in the era of the downfall of the shark film and quite possibly the creature feature. If other creature features take this same approach, they too will become things to be mocked intentionally and not enjoyed on some level of honest, good-natured escapism.
As of this writing, the shark film nuts among us live in an era of Sharknado, not Sharktopus. What does this all lead up to? What does this all mean? It means fans may be better off finding something else to watch.
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