SyFy Channel has transformed Saturday night into a cultural spectacle, from recalling obscure TV stars to super sharks in Venice fighting spliced superbeasts.
A Woman-in-Catsuit-with-Katana Stabs a UFO
A mockbuster from our friends at The Asylum isn't complete without a chick in a catsuit with a katana ("Karla") leaping off a building to impale a UFO and then slowly walking away from it. The other highlight of (ahem) The Battle of Los Angeles involves a grenade being thrown at a robot, only for it to casually nudge it back at the poor Red Shirt. And did we mention Kel (of Good Burger fame) is the hero?
Perhaps the very reason why we have this question, but when the teaser for Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus hit the web it felt like Roger Corman's gleeful genre anarchy returned. We do get some shark-on-squid battles, but it's the human touch that made us cockeyed: while being chased by said Mega Shark, the submarine's helmsman decides he's had enough and pulls a gun on everyone else. Call us crazy, but this seems like a bad idea considering the fact that there's a Mega Shark running around.
Takin' A Bite Out of San Francisco
This is the quintessential shot of SyFy's film franchise. It is beautiful. It is perfect. It is a shark eating the Golden Gate Bridge.
There is nothing better.
I Think We're A-Gold Now
The main selling point of Mega Python vs. Gatoroid involves a catfight between Debbie Gibson and 80s pop star Tiffany. Or, the sequence toward the end filled with gratuitous panty shots and--spoiler--both being chewed up by the CGI scenery. But the craziest moment we can find is this ending, where the two characters--who originally hated each other--are honored in the most awkward ribbon cutting ceremony ever. And then this shot.
What Do We Call This Guy Again?
Meet the Rock Monster, star of Rock Monster, which is about a rock monster created by magic rocks. If this concept were any higher, it would need Samuel L. Jackson in the background screaming about Monday to Friday planes.
Missiles. Even if they're the size of a mountain, like in Behemoth, a simple well-placed missile from Ed Quinn of Eureka can easily explode them.
Remember this.
The T-Rexadactyl
Triassic Attack revolves around mystic energies and using said energies to re-animate dinosaur bones. But really, the best is saved for last: after the bones are blown up by a well-placed rocket from Craig Ferguson, they recombine thanks to the spell "Theplotus Hastenmoreminuteus" to form a combination of T-Rex and Pteranodon.
It may be the end of the trailer of Sharktopus, but this death makes about as much sense as Eric Roberts facing down a mutant shark-octopus hybrid with a g - oh, he does? Well. The point stands: in context of the film, this is a cutaway that makes you wonder, "for a multi-billion dollar organic death machine...it really isn't any pickier than Landshark was."
See, Beast
If one stares into the void, the void will stare back. If one stares, paralyzed with toxic spit, at one of the Sea Beasts, then they are about to lose their head. And face. And arms.
The take-away here is never stare at people with claws and fangs.
No, an unfrozen woolly mammoth is not the weirdest thing in Mammoth, nor is it Summer Glau running around wide-eyed shouting "THERE'S A MAMMOTH!"
Instead, Tom Skerritt sacrifices himself to re-freeze the Mammoth and...well, that's the weird part. He's kept in a nondescript Arctic location because he could be infected by an alien parasite. Did we mention the re-animated mammoth happened because an alien took it over? No? Well, it was. And still, a frozen Tom Skerritt is more baffling.
If by "some" you mean "ice spiders."
There's a long-standing history behind shouting "get some" before engaging a desperate and likely suicide task. Unfortunately, that means we have to consider Ice Spiders in the same list as Evil Dead, Full Metal Jacket and even Duke Nukem. Bet you never thought of Patrick "A Brain Bug Sucked Me Dry" Muldoon before, did you?
Boatshark Sees You
Sharks in Venice is a Stephen Baldwin heist film with a subplot involving an evil businessman introducing "a" great white shark that somehow multiplies. We use the singular because so much of the film is devoted to the Baldwin brother's search for a treasure that the shark attacks happen suddenly, and you can barely even see them. Hence, we include Landshark's retarded brother, Boatshark.
Later in the week I'll be writing an essay explaining how Sharks in Venice is actually a unofficial sequel to Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.
To wit: the sentient green spore that makes a giant golem in Iron Invader takes over metal and is kind of a vampire. But it doesn't really get explained until this tearful exchange near the end:
Generic Teenage Daughter: "I touched it, why didn't it kill me?"
Nicole "The Non-Jadzie Dax Dax" de Boer: "The metal was infected with bacteria that feeds on blood iron. Thank god you're anemic!"
The alternative: they inevitably kill the spore by dousing it in beer and alcohol. Which means that most of US are the aliens.
Ghost Spiders!
Ok, maybe this is a really well done College Humor video. But you're telling me you can't see this on a SyFy Saturday next yea--wait, 2012. Ghost Spiders. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES FROM OUR INVISIBLE OVERLORDS!
We all knew raptors were clever, after all they took over Raptor Island and survived a nuclear explosion. But did you know they could pull off a Flying V and follow it up by taking over an entire planet?
Now you do. And knowing is half the ba - OH MY GOD THEY CAN SWIM TOO?!
Michael Rooker has a Grenade Launcher, Your Argument Is Invalid
Skeleton Man is about the vengeful spirit of - we kid you not - "Cottoneyemouth Joe" brought back to life due to ancient burial grounds were disturbed. It's hard to tell because the "vengeful spirit" looks a lot like a dude in a skull mask and black robe that kidnaps a horse. But Michael Rooker leads a team of "special forces," featuring a five-minute Casper Van Dien cameo.
But their weapons can't harm Joe, until finally the local cops show up and have better weapons that the U.S. Special $#%*in' Forces.
Liu Kang-ing A Piranha
It takes a while to find the mega piranha in Mega Piranha, but it's all worth it for a two-minute long bicycle kick against CGI fish that may as well have been thrown in by Roger Corman himself.
Sure, Mansquito, we'll put up with the whole half-man/half-bug thing. But even in The Fly, we didn't have to watch Brundlefly awkwardly knock boots thoraxes with Geena Davis while draining her blood.
This is just draining on a number of levels.
That Darn Banshee
Scream of the Banshee has a distinct honor: its the 200th SyFy Original Film. That means it ups the ante with insane plot points (there's a banshee's head in a metal box that can only be opened with an armored glove), trippy freak outs (eye-gouging) and more importantly, it provides yet another paycheck for Lance Henriksen as an eccentric professor who mugs for the camera.
And the really scary part? It's a lot more fun than it should be. You could say, it's a scr--fine, we won't.
Dinocroc Loves Kids
Ok, Roger Corman. You continue to prove to us that no one is ever safe, especially from giant super crocodiles fed steroid enhanced chickens.
Especially Lizzie McGuire's little brother.
So what is Dinoshark? "Some kind of prehistoric shark," according to Eric "Remember me in Skyline" Balfour in this spiritual sequel to Dinocroc. Here, we revisit the iconic shot from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus but instead of taking out an entire 747, poor Dinoshark can barely grab onto a helicopter. This is clear proof that we have to be careful what sort of message we teach our younger brothers of different mothers.
S.S. Doomtrooper Can't Lose
Consider this the best inside joke you'd never notice: Parker Lewis Can't Lose was an ode to John Hughes and Ferris Bueller's Day Off on Fox in 1990. Cornin Nemic played the title character and S.S. Doomtrooper features a sly reference to his old role -- here, a soldier with the same name capable of hotwiring anything. "It's not a problem," he says, honoring the original's own catch phrase.
Leave it to SyFy to make "bird flu" into something that involves man-sized zombie birds complete with a random kid being lit on fire purely because he tried to stop a fight. But the best scene involves two troubled youths fighting over property of a flare gun when another finds a box marked "EXPLOSIVES" and shouts, "Hey guys, over here!"
You best believe he gets a flare to the face for his trouble. And then come more zombie mutant birds. It's like a Corman holiday.
Do you see the surprise and terror here? No? Well, that's because everyone's copacetic with the titular Mongolian Death Worms. They're as accepted in the local village as BBQ and treasure hunters. But their one defining feature? An amazing drinking game: chug beer until they inevitably eat someone, and you too will love the death worm.
The plot of Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon is as follows, "What if Alive had a monster eating corpses instead of the survivors?" But we're not done yet, because the Yeti gets tired of frozen dinners and goes for fresher survivors in CGI feats of pure wonder (did you know a Yeti can jump insane distances? You will).
But the stand-out moment: as the Yeti stalks upon a hapless boyfriend and girlfriend, the latter screams in pure terror while the former throws a snowball. The Yeti responds by ripping out a heart and curb-stomping the other. We'll leave who's who to you.
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