A Decade of Campy Chum: Ranking the ‘Sharknado’ Franchise from Oh, Hell No to Oh, Hell Yes!
Strap in, chum, and sail with me back to the night of July 11th, 2013, when the world as we know it changed forever. It was on that evening that the Syfy channel premiered director Anthony C. Ferrante’s Sharknado. No one could have foreseen the cultural fin-omenon that was about to swim up and bite us all on the ass. To the surprise of virtually everyone, the little mockbuster that could took social media by storm, becoming the godfather of meme-ified film success stories. Audiences live-tweeted all throughout the premiere, at one point reaching over five-thousand tweets per minute. The premise of a tornado that scoops up a bunch of sharks and wreaks havoc on Los Angeles swam, twirled, and bit its way into our B-movie-loving hearts.
What followed is fishstory (Yes, I’m going overboard with puns. You’re reading an article about Sharknado. You should have expected this).
Sharknado’s tale made it all the way to news desks at the major networks, sending Syfy scrambling to develop a sequel. Ten years later, and there are now six Sharknado films to feast your eyes on. Sure, these movies are a certain level of dumb that isn’t for everyone. Hell, the whole cast nearly abandoned ship once they learned it was called Sharknado (the working title was “Dark Skies” to convince actors to sign on).
Also Read: ‘Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness’ Is The Forgotten Entry That’s Free To Stream
But dumb is the point. The Sharknado franchise spoofs big-budget action blockbusters with a rule that no gag is too stupid. Star Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering), armed with his trusty chainsaw, is the Ash Williams of shark movies, equipped with one-liners and infectious charisma. Not to mention, Ferrante packs each and every entry to the gills with horror references. Give yourself over to the absurdity chumming the water, and there’s plenty of fun to get hooked on.
Fin, his bionic wife, April (Tara Reid), and Sharknado-hunting badass, Nova (Cassandra Scerbo) have ridden one hell of a wave over the last decade. So, in honor of Sharknado swimming into theaters this week as part of its tenth-anniversary celebration, here’s every film ranked from oh, hell no to oh, hell yes!
The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time
Once you see it, you may not want to do this time warp again. With Fin and friends lost in time and traveling through more periods than the entire Back to the Future franchise combined, this sequel is simultaneously the most ambitious and toothless Sharknado film. It throws in dinosaurs, the Revolutionary War, a future populated by an army of April clones, the whole damn kitchen sink. And my friends, you will be forever haunted by a talking April-bot head in the mouth of a shark. Ferrante clearly sought to make this last effort a love letter to franchise loyalists by returning various faces from the series, but it all sinks under the weight of a script too dumb even for most Sharknado fans.
Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
On the wrong tide of the franchise by this point, Global Swarming has Nova return as the leader of a Sharknado-hunting Sisterhood compiled of women who bite back. When she and Fin explore a tomb and unwittingly unleash the power of an ancient shark god, it threatens to destroy the entire world. Writer Scotty Mullen took over script duties from Thunder Levin for this fifth entry, and the drop-off is palpable. The Sharknado franchise was never on the rails, but they’re not even in sight this time as we learn Sharknados now have the ability to act as interdimensional portals. What was nonsensical is now just plain confusing and seriously lacking in the set pieces that previous films were known for. What Sharknado 5 lacks in cohesiveness though, it makes up for in a Sharknado-zilla monster descending on Tokyo in a wild finale. Godzilla vs. Shakrnado-zilla movie, when?
Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens
The 4th Awakens takes viewers over to the shark side in what is the beginning of the franchise’s steep decline. It’s been five years since the last Sharknado, and Musk-like billionaire, Aston (Tommy Davidson), has created weather stabilization systems that keep Sharknados at bay. Turns out, they only kind of work after a sandstorm rips through Aston’s Shark World hotel in Las Vegas—which, whoops, he has filled with sharks—leaving Fin and company to battle everything from sand-nados to a dang cow-nado. Despite an inspired opening that has Fin sailing the Treasure Island pirate ship through a hurricane of sharks, The 4th Awakens features some of the poorest writing in the franchise with so many puns it’s more exhausting than this pun-filled piece. You’re gonna need a bigger boat of patience to get through the movies from here.
Sharknado
This is the film that made us go, “Oh, that’s where Tara Reid is”. It feels odd to refer to this first entry in which a tornado full of sharks descends on Los Angeles as “basic”, but compared to the rest of the franchise, it is. No super sharknados or bionic women here. Just the simple story of a surfer-turned-bar owner-turned-action star taking on a shark-slinging tornado and jumping through the mouths of the finned creatures with a chainsaw.
It probably shouldn’t have succeeded, but Sharknado is made with such sincerity and passion that it overcomes its many, many flaws. The set-pieces aren’t as fin-sane as in later entries and the formula of going as big and as dumb as possible hadn’t quite been figured out yet, but all the Jaws references you can swallow and Fin screaming like a newborn as he saws his way out of a shark add just the right amount of absurdity to make this a bad CGI sharksploitation cult classic.
Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!
This is where the Sharknado franchise fully embraces its campy disaster movie formula with open fins, expanding the plot from a single location into a barrage of ‘nados sprouting up all along the “Feast Coast”. Fin has reached the status of American hero, invited by the president (played by Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, because of course) to the white house, where he is gifted the first ever “order of the golden chainsaw award”. But when a Sharknado goes Independence Day on D.C., with another set to ruin his family’s trip to Universal Studios, it’s up to Fin to save the day.
The comedy isn’t quite as effective as Sharknado 2 and it is missing the tension of its single-city predecessors, but this third entry is made with a giddy enthusiasm you can sink your teeth into. It brings back one of the best characters in the franchise, Nova, now a Sharknado-hunting warrior driving around in a battle truck with a destined-to-be-fish-food Frankie Muniz. It introduces our beach king, David Hasselhoff, as Fin’s dad, a jawsome casting choice. And it went where no Sharknado film went before by putting sharks in space. Oh, hell no? Oh, hell yes!
Sharknado 2: The Second One
Just when you thought it was safe to go near tornadoes again (it never was). Bigger. Better. Shark-ier. The Sharknado franchise is at the top of its game in this sequel which sees Fin and friends battling a convergence of Sharknados in New York City. Fresh off the success of the first film, The Second One had the full backing of the network, and that comes through in a treasure trove of surprising cameos (Judd Hirsch? Rachel True? Vivica A. Fox!?), as well as an incorporation of various landmark locations like Citi Field. The comedy is in peak form.
And it features one of the franchise’s best sequences in an opening plane crash that’s actually pretty intense…at least as far as Sharknado films go. Throw in Tara Reid’s buzz-saw hand and Fin riding a shark through a tornado, and Sharknado 2 is an entertaining disaster film that delivers on all of the fun, dumb chum fans can possibly devour.
Categorized:Editorials
