Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

1/2 (out of 4)

In the good tradition of the grindhouse era, if you make a great title people are going to pay to see it. That's pretty much what happened with this horrid film, which became a cult item even before it was released due to the trailer being posted on YouTube and quickly becoming a hit. Once again I was suckered into a rental but hopefully others will stay away. The movie has a prehistoric shark and octopus breaking free, causing destruction and in the end fighting to the death. Oh yeah, Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson (yes, that one) star. Asylum, the group behind this movie, are experts at ripping off other movies with titles such as THE TERMINATORS, THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED and STREET RACER. This here must have been their shot at doing something "original" but no matter what they were trying to do the end result is a complete mess of a movie, which features horrible acting and some of the worst CGI effects I've ever seen. This is the type of "B" movie that should make you laugh and at least deliver a good time but instead I walked away from this thing highly mad. Why? Because the thing is so cheap that they don't even include full attacks. We will see the shark jumping out of the water and attacking a plane yet we don't see the aftermath. The octopus attacks a large station yet we don't see what happens. The shark goes after a Navy ship, we see one bite but nothing else. There's a scene where the Golden Gate Bridge is attacked but we don't see it. Even the fight between the two monsters is extremely poorly done and that includes reusing the same footage over and over! The only reason this film avoids a BOMB rating is because of the scene where the shark jumps out of the water and attacks the plane. The sight of this is so incredibly bad that I couldn't help but start laughing. The performances are all really bad and that includes Gibson who seems to be confused by what she's doing. There are plenty of good "when nature attack" movies out there and there are many good "direct to DVD" titles out there but this sucker fails on both levels. This is a complete waste of time but at least the producers were smart enough to come up with a great title to get people like me to lay down their cash.