Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!

Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante. Written by Thunder Levin. Starring Ian Ziering (Fin Shepard), Tara Reid (April Shepard), Cassie Scerbo (Nova Clark)

Bottom line: Not as fun as the second but it was still a fun event.

1.5/4 (for the movie) -> 2.5/4 (for the event)

There isn’t too much to say about Sharknado 3. I’ll bet that you know what this movie is about. There are tornadoes and they go over the ocean and now have sharks in them.

It jumps straight into the action. The hero is named Fin Shepard (Ziering) - Get it? Fin like a shark’s fin! He is in Washington DC stopping another sharknado. By this point, his ability to stop the weather anomalies has made him a celebrity. But it soon becomes clear that what was a freak weather accident is happening more often. What is he going to do?

Made for TV movies on the SyFy Channel are infamously cheesy. You have movies about giant sharks, giant squids, giant sharks fighting giants squids. In fact, looking at IMDB, it seems like there are some thematic groupings.

You have the animal hybrids movies: Sharktopus (Shark/Octopus), its sequel Piranhaconda, and maybe Dinoshark. Then you have sharks and sharks in different locations: Sand Sharks, Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast, Swamp Shark. And then you have the much larger section of “versus” movies: Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Sharknado, it seems, hasn’t spawned any spin-offs but I wonder when that will happen. Might we expect a Crococane?

In any case, the movies offer cheap thrills. The first Sharknado movie was kinda fun because it was a way for the SyFy channel to say, ‘Hey, we know these movies are cheesy, and we’re going to have some fun with this one.’ The second, Sharknado 2, was a continuation in the most logical way – two sharknadoes. Where else are you supposed to go? Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! went for a bunch more sharknadoes and more celebrity cameos.

My wife and I saw the movies at the local arena. One of the local radio stations sponsored the event. There were $2 hot dogs, cheap beer, and raffles. The experience was fun and that’s really the only way to watch it; it should be playing in the background as you laugh with friends. I wouldn’t recommend this to watch independently.