The third of the “Sharknado” Syfy movie franchise, “Sharknado 3: Oh Hello No!", hit the small screen last week, and yet again it has taken the world by storm—or should I say sharkstorm. If you aren’t familiar with the summer cinematic event that is “Sharknado,” let me catch you up.
The original made-for-TV “Sharknado” was released on the Syfy network in 2013, starring “Beverly Hills 90210” co-star Ian Ziering as our hero Fin Shepard, and Tara Reid from American Pie as his wife April Wexler. We come into “Sharknado” as it is explained that due to global warming, the ocean is flooding and the flooding is somehow suspected to be pushing sharks inland. According to the movie, a mixture between global warming, severe thunderstorms, waterspouts, the large shark population close to the shore and of course, movie magic, sharks have been sucked up into the atmosphere and are raining down on the city of Los Angeles, Calif. Science. Science at its greatest. Our hero fights the raining/tornado-flung sharks to save his friends and family while the rest of the city is in a panic. Thanks to Fin’s experience as a world-renowned surfer and bar owner, he and his teenage son figure out how to dissipate the sharknados by equaling out the high and low pressure systems with homemade bombs and save the city. They save the city by throwing these bombs (flares taped to propane tanks) into the tornadoes comprised of sharks, which effectively stop the tornado and make flaming sharks rain down on to unsuspecting Californians. The world is safe for another day.
The public reaction to the original “Sharknado” was pretty surprising. It had taken silly Syfy movies to a whole new level, throwing any sort of logic, science, math, explanation, or common sense out the window and accepted the ridiculousness for what it was, and ran with it. Twitter went crazy with “Sharknado” tweets, at one point there were reported to be 5,000 “Sharknado” tweets per minute.
People couldn’t get enough of it. Finally there was a sci-fi movie that didn’t take itself seriously and gave the world what we never knew we wanted but were desperate for: killing sharks with chainsaws.
By the time of the announcement of the second “Sharknado” in 2014, celebrities were pounding down the door for a cameo. Kelly Osbourne, Wil Wheaton, Ron Johnson, Vivica A. Fox, Mark McGrath, The Naked Cowboy, the entire “Today Show” cast, Andy Dick, Kelly Ripa, Perez Hilton, Biz Markie and countless more were all minor characters while “Sharknado 2: The Second One” took New York by storm, er, sharkstorm.
This time Fin and family are in the Big Apple as the sharks who were sucked into the sky by LA’s waterspout/tornado/global warming—you know what, let’s not put too much thought into this it will just hurt our heads. Let’s just say sharks live in the clouds now, they eat birds and swim up there or something. Well, now the same cold front that was in LA the previous year has now blown into Manhattan and luckily Fin and family are there. Tornadoes and sharks rain down on New York at the rate of two inches per hour according to Al Roker, but Fin and Vivica A. Fox use slingshots to throw bombs into the tornadoes and again save the world.
What’s left for a third movie, you ask? After LA and New York were saved what’s left for Fin in a third movie? What other B-celebrities could possibly be left to cameo in these things? I’m not going to ruin it for you I’ll just give you a few fun spoilers:
1. ‘Merica.
2. The Hoff.
3. Shark roller coaster.
4. Sharks in space.
Okay, okay, I’ll stop. I’ll leave you to wonder until it keeps you up at night asking yourself, "Is 'Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No' for me?" The answer: Hell yeah. Watch it.
