DIRECTOR Anthony C. Ferrante WRITER Thunder Levin STARS Ian Ziering; Tara Reid; John Heard DVD & BLU-RAY 7 October
It’s a bizarre but clear concept: a waterspout, caused by a tornado, pulls hundreds of bloodthirsty sharks out of the ocean and rains them down on Los Angeles. It’s entertaining, but what really makes Sharknado interesting is how it is reminiscent of the short stories of Stephen King. The American’s early short fiction collections Night Shift and Skeleton Crew — which contain stories like “The Raft”, in which four college students swim to a diving pontoon in the centre of a secluded lake to be preyed upon by an unidentified monster that floats like an oil slick and dissolves human flesh, and “Trucks”, a tale about a group of strangers who get cornered in a truck stop and attacked by their own 18-wheelers, which have somehow come to life — both spin fables in which carnage and horror hold centre stage while explanations and plausibility take a ride in the back seat.
That’s the similarity between Sharknado and King’s short work: they’re both fearless in their ideas, even if they are nonsensical and ludicrous. The difference between the two, however, is the quality of the storytelling. King can commit any idea to paper and make it something memorable with his skilled prose — we’re talking about the guy who wrote Cujo, a 320-page book about a rabid St. Bernard that traps a family in their own car — but Sharknado disappointingly lacks the direction and acting needed to pull off its own wacky intellections.
