Full disclaimer here: I have no problems with Sharks and/or Syfy originals. One: I love sharks, they are the coolest monsters of the sea and two: Syfy originals have never done anything to me except provide entertainment at 3 AM when I was having trouble falling asleep. That being said, I have a pretty big issue with Sharknado and the hype surrounding it.
Sharknado premiered on Syfy on July 11, 2013. Written by Thunder Levin whose credits feature a little gem called Mutant Vampire Zombies From the Hood, Sharknado's premise is basically the name of the movie: a tornado with sharks. It's an interesting thought, but this is coming from the channel that brought you Chupacabra Vs.The Alamo so.. what you see is what you get. I will admit that I was pretty damn excited to check this out. Syfy is known for its "so bad that its enjoyable to watch" films and I figured this would not be any different. I was wrong.
Sharknado blew up on Twitter the night of its premiere. BLEW UP. I entertained myself reading these tweets while I was at work but I have never seen as much Twitter action for one event, with the exception of Comic Con and maybe The Oscars. Everyone from your average Joe to celebrities like Olivia Wilde were tuning in and going crazy. And if that wasn't enough, 1.37 million viewers tuned in for this. It was an enjoyable night. I admit that I came home from work and sat down to watch sharks attack the coast. But I thought that after that night it would be the end of it; everyone would focus on something else and we would forget about Sharknado like all of the other Syfy originals that we have been shown.
Unfortunately for me, that wasn't the case. The next day it was announced on Twitter that because of the AMAZING reception the movie had received (I'm sorry, were we watching the same movie?), a sequel was greenlit and the people of twitter were eligible to come up with the next title. Then it was announced that there would be another showing of the movie a week later. And when that got 1.89 million viewers, there was a third showing. And when that went up to 2.1 million viewers, they had decided that it was time to put Sharknado in theaters.
And this is my biggest problem.
Look, I know that Sharknado is a very bad, but ridiculously fun film to make fun of. I really get that because I was a part of that when it first premiered. But when I heard that Regal Cinemas was putting Sharknado in 200 theaters nationwide, I was pissed. Within the past five years, I have seen horror movies that blew me away. They were funny. They were scary. They had heart. But do you know where I saw those films? On Demand. These are the Films that deserve to be put into theaters. Ti West made two incredible movies: House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. And these two movies got a limited theatrical release. And by limited, I mean VERY limited. I couldn't even see them in theaters because they weren't even showing in Boston. Hatchet III only got to place in maybe a dozen theaters across the country and guess what: Boston wasn't one of them. But when I looked up the showtimes for Sharknado, I saw them EVERYWHERE. Any Regal Cinema would show them and you know what? Those shows sold out within minutes. They ended up opening up more showtimes for people who missed out.
This is what kills me. There are better movies to spend your money on. The Conjuring just came out and that was an amazing movie. Why would you bother to waste $12.50 for a movie that you could watch for free in the comfort of your own home? Why wouldn't you give that theater space to films that barely got any space to begin with? Better yet, if you want to watch a movie with sharks in it, why don't you tune into Jaws, Great White, Deep Blue Sea, or even Shark Night? Seriously guys, Shark Night entertained me SO MUCH MORE than Sharknado and that is really saying something. And the unfortunate thing is that Sharknado is the one that is going to get all the press and the money while other films have to struggle to even make it into one theater. And then there's the people that are going to complain that there are no good horror films in theaters anymore and IT IS THEIR FAULT. I would never give my money to watch a Syfy original in a movie theater. Honestly, its a disgrace and its disappointing that Regal Cinemas would do something like that, even if its going to bring in more money. Because of this, Sharknado is going to become bigger and bigger and IT DOESN'T EVEN DESERVE THIS TREATMENT. I will never understand people sometimes. The people that gave Sharknado an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes gave the Evil Dead remake a 62% and Pacific Rim a 71%. Which brings me to another very upsetting thought:
Sharknado got a sequel greenlit overnight. Meanwhile, Pacific Rim which is one of the best movies I've seen has been struggling and it was not until it opened in China that it got the attention that it deserved. I'm sorry. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. You would rather watch a terrible, awful movie with the worst acting and CGI effects than go see a movie that is like an orgasm for the eyes. This is why good horror movies aren't getting the recognition or the support that they should be getting. And this is why its getting harder and harder for me to understand the human race.
This ends my rant for now. I'm sure I could go on for hours. But I should probably stop before I have a heart attack. I was actually planning on doing a video blog for this post because I wanted to be able to show people how angry this made me but I'm still working on the fact that I hate my voice.
Thanks for reading! Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way.
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