Shark Attack Blog-A-Thon(g): Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

(Welcome to the start of my Spring Break Shark Attack Blog-A-Thon(g)! For the next several weeks, throughout spring, I will be watching as many bad shark movies I can get my hands on. But thankfully, I won't be going through this journey alone! I've asked several of my friends to participate in this and when they refused to return my email, I made some other bloggers watch some shark movies. I'll be posting those in the upcoming weeks as well. For now, to kick things off, here's my review of "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" or as I like to call it "The Aslyum Discovers a Niche and Sticks With It, Holy Fuck Do They Stick With It!")

I'm the Tiny Juggernaut, bitch!

Much like everybody else, I heard of this movie through online news. They made a big deal about it, saying things like "Pffft, can you believe there's a movie called 'Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus'! I mean come on!!" Then they went on and on about it starring Deborah "Don't Call Me Debbie" Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. I was saying "Pfft, I see shit like this all the time."

Then I found out it was made by The Asylum and I went "Pfft, what else is new." Then I wondered what movie this might've been ripping off. The closest I can think of is "Shark Attack 3: Megalon", but that came out a few years ago and I don't recall a giant octopus, so I had to wonder "Could this be the first original movie made by Asylum? Are they changing a new leaf? WOW!" Then the previews before this movie started and they're releasing a movie called "The Terminators", so nevermind that.

You should be familiar with Asylum by now, I've done two of their movies here, both of which were horrible. But this is what they're known for, making rip off movies. Have I mentioned "Transmorphers" yet? Oh yeah, I have. Considering what's coming out this summer, I can't wait to see "Year 2" or "Carey Motter & The Full Bloody King". Should be good.

Alright, so after telling us this movie only stars four people, we find Deborah "Not Debbie" Gibson in a mini-sub with some dude. They're floating around in some ocean somewhere just looking around at fish and random things swimming. We also get shots of a dude in a helicopter dropping something off into the same body of water Debbie and Dude is in. 

Soon, some whales go apeshit (whaleshit?) and start swimming aggressively towards Debbie. Then through a series of jump cuts and horrible edits, some ice falls apart and inside said ice is our two main characters, Giant Shark and Mega Octopus! Or Mega Shark and Giant Octopus! Whatever! They're frozen, enlocked in a loving embrace. To prove they weren't totally fucking before the ice age, when they unthaw they act like mortal enemies and go their separate ways.

Debbie is like "Whoa" and suddenly we're in a car on land. Debbie is shaking up by the whole thing but I guess this little trip was illegal cause now she's in trouble with some underwater society she works for or whatever. This David Caruso-type dude shows up and yells at Debbie, while making her look at a dead whale on a beach. Debbie spots something but Fake Caruso (like we need one of those) tells her to piss off.

After drinking on the beach with Dude, Debbie sneaks back to the beach that night in a disguise. She offers the security guard a blow job to let her in. Ok, not really. She offered to sing "Lost In Your Eyes" and the guy, feeling threatened, let her in. Wise move, dude.

The thing Debbie found was a giant sharp white thing, that's rather tooth-shaped. She takes it home and tries to look up this tooth-like object but can't seem to find anything similar. Hmm, if only she opens her mouth and looks in the mirror. Or visits a dentist.

"Hm, I feel something in my teeth. Teeth? Could it be? YES! It's a whales penis!"

Well, Caruso fired Debbie and now that she's got some free time, she's gonna meet up with her old teacher Prof. Sanders, who taught her everything having to do with the water. Sanders use to be in the Navy but because he's Irish, he got drunk and crashed a sub. Tsk tsk.

"Either my cholesterol is high or I'm pregnant. Either way my wife's gonna kill me."

Debbie takes the white thing that could only be a tooth to Sanders, who immediately tells her it's a tooth. Debbie is dumbfounded at this revelation and wonders how a drunk Irish guy knew this, but a washed up singer from the 80's didn't. I kinda wonder myself.

Meanwhile, the shark and the octopus is going around causing all kinds of damage. The octopus tears up an oil rig and the shark stupidly jumps in the air and eats an airplane. Dr. Shimada talks to the only survivor of the oil rig thing, and the only thing that guy said was "AHHH!! AHH!!! Mega Octopus! AHHHHHH!!!!!" He's now locked up in an Asylum. Forced to watch "Snakes on a Train". HA!

Sanders brings in Shimada cause he thinks they're dealing with the same thing here, but Shimada says "No, this is an octopus" and they're like "Whoa, there's TWO giant creatures running around." When Debbie learns that the shark is a Megalon, she gets excited. I wonder if some dude is gonna offer to take her home and eat her pussy.

Speaking of, the pics she did for Playboy is totally on Google. Just sayin'.

Anyway, now they spend countless nights working on...something. I dunno what. But suddenly one morning a bunch of army or S.W.A.T dudes show up and take our trio to "TREASURE ISLAND US NAVAL AIR COMMAND STATION". I only know that cause we see this title card FIVE fucking times IN A ROW. 

See? I told you.

There, Lorenzo Lamas shows up and he isn't given a name through the entire movie, so even though I'm calling Debbie by her real name I have to call Lorenzo by his real name cause I have no choice. Lornezo immediately acts like an asshole by being a huge racist. I'm surprised he didn't lean in on Debbie and go "How about some, sugartits?" Maybe he did off-set.

Anyway, Lorenzo wants to hire our trio of renegades (HA, see what I did thar?) to do something about the shark and octopus. So it's another montage of them doing stuff! With science stuff! WOW! I honestly don't know what they were trying to do here, considering the actual science thing is coming up.

"If it's time to re-enact "The Re-animator" I get to be the headless guy!"

But first, Shimada and Debbie go "Eh, we're roughly the same age. Let's fuck." So they do, which happens that randomly in the movie. Sanders just shakes his head and goes "Oh you crazy young sober people!" and continues with the science. But the fucking scene gave us a purpose and our gang an idea: if they release pheromones, they'll think a mate is around and get horny and want to fuck and when they do...something! YAY!!!

Jeez, that's mean. These guys been frozen for a billion years and even though they were frozen while experimenting with each other, they get a chance to do it with an actual female, only to find there's no female and something bad is gonna happen to them. I certainly wouldn't like if that happened to me.

This something means Shimada has to go to Japan to lure the octopus while Debbie and Sanders lures the shark to San Francisco. Why there? Maybe the shark likes Haight-Ashbury. Or it's gay. Cause it was experimenting with the octopus, you see.

Ok, so by now you're probably bored and want to know "When does the VS come into play? Tell us you stupid little man!!" Well, I hate to say it, but so far this is what happens exactly in the movie. A bunch of science stuff, with a little fucking, and a bunch of title cards that says "TREASURE ISLAND US NAVAL AIR COMMAND STATION". 

We get another montage of them making the pheromones, which they do, and everybody says goodbye. The plan is to dump the stuff in the water and lure them there and I guess shoot them? It's not totally clear. I'll save recapping the next 20 minutes by telling you this doesn't work. Instead the shark just munches on the Golden Gate Bridge. Good idea, Debbie. Now how about you step aside and let us bring in Tiffany, huh?

Eh, it was time for a new one anyway. That was kinda old. Thanks Mega Shark!

Shimada says he didn't have any luck either but doesn't say how badly they fucked things up. Not knowing what to do now, Debbie goes to sleep and has a dream about random clips of the movie we just seen. One of these scenes includes a clip of Shimada on his sub but the background is missing, but we clearly see the green screen. If you can't do something that the local news manages to get right, you should stop making movies.

"You are going to put a picture behind me, right?
 Otherwise, this would look stupid. HAHAHA!"

Anyway, somehow Debbie gets an idea from out of this and runs to Lorenzo and Sanders and simply shouts "Thrilla in Manilla!" and acts like everyone's suppose to know what the hell she's talking about. After five minutes of "OH come on, you know what I mean, guys!", she explains. Just have the two beasts fight each other to the death. Which is a good idea except the whole thing about what if one survives? But they don't touch on that, so nevermind.

They do the pheromone idea but drag them back to the icy waters Debbie and Dude was at the beginning of the movie and oddly enough they do start fighting. Inside the sub, we keep focusing on some random guy every 2 seconds, even though he isn't a major character. Then out of nowhere, this guy has had enough of the captain yelling at him and pulls a gun out of nowhere and waves it in front of the captain's face. But the octopus grabs a hold of the sub, which is enough of a distraction for our crew. 

And just like that the random guy pulling a gun on the captain plot ends cause he mysteriously vanishes and Sanders takes over, despite being a drunk Irish guy. They manage to get away, the shark and octopus fight, and somehow they both die. All the fighting scenes, cause it's all CGI, is kinda hard to make out, but I think Octopus had the advantage.

Before Debbie can rub her vajayjay on the screen, Shimado returns to where ever and they continue their random romance, with him saying he'll stay where ever they are. But Sanders appears with a red folder, saying "Let's go!" and they all go. What the hell? Is this "Mission: Impossible"? They found MORE giant pre-historic sea animals fighting? Is this a pilot of a TV show? The fuck?

Whatever, it's over. And my disappointment can begin now. Of course, I've seen plenty of "VS" movies and I should know by now the VS part isn't gonna happen until the last 5 minutes of the movie. The first 1 hour and 25 minutes is gonna be people not having to do with any of the main characters going "OH NO! This is happening! OH NO! That's happening! We need to get them together to fight!" 

Seeing as this is an Asylum movie, I will give them points for coming up with a slightly original idea for a movie. And for casting Debbie Gibson as the female lead. But they lose points for reminding us of the existence of Lorenzo Lamas. I did forget to mention this movie was written and directed by a guy named Ace. 

Of course, that's his name.

Nolahn over at the Bargain Bin Review also reviewed "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" and for whatever reason, he enjoyed this movie. I guess he's not as easily bored as I am.

The Great White Dope proves how awesome he is by doing a review of "Tintorera: Killer Shark" a few days early! And apparently this was a big task for him, so much thanks to him!

I have a lot of movies left and I don't wanna do them all on my own. If this sounds like fun and you want to participate, email me and I'll send you the list of available movies. What do you get in return? I dunno, fame or glory or hookers or something. We'll figure something out.

-Jason