Wednesday, August 3, 2011

3 Short Paragraphs: Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus


2010, Christopher Ray (honestly, do we care who directs these direct-to-video or direct-to-SyFy crap fests?) -- download

And then there is bad-B or C- or F or whatever the bottom of the scale is for bad movies. At least this one is done in the attempted feel of doing a bad movie for the sake of a bad movie, ala MegaShark vs Giant Octopus. But can I actually state out loud that some people do terrible movies on-purpose but still do them badly? This whole sub-genre discussion of being a bad movie but maybe "getting it" that the movie is terrible confounds me in the way that Uwe Boll still continues to make money. Do I love it, do I hate it, do I love to hate it?

This movie pales next to the terrible movie from which it may be considered a sequel. The first had bad special effects, terrible acting, incredibly cheap sets and an 80s pop singer (Debra Gibson) as scientist. This one has even worse special effects, terrible acting, a 90s TV star (Jaleel White aka Steve Urkel) and so much re-used footage the entire movie may have actually been about 20 minutes. But it lacks the glee the other had. You aren't giggling at how bad it is but sighing and rolling your eyes.

While I enjoyed its emergence, I hope the Z-grade creature feature mini-genre fades away. Bad movies going straight to DVD/OnDemand/NetFlix/NextParadigm are something that will always be with us but it's a waste of energy and money doing a bad attempt at a bad movie. And we will probably run out of washed up ex-stars; hell, even C Thomas Howell has successfully come back with a career.

1 comment:

  1. I say we just call them z-grade (zed-grade, not zee-grade).

    Uwe Boll films are not Z-grade, though, and they're not B-movie. They're somewhere in between A-list and B-movie. There needs to be a term... besides terrible.

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