Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)

We kick off our first annual Shark Week celebration with the third installment in The Asylum's Sharknado series. Though these are technically TV movies due to the deal The Asylum has with SyFy to release them, to me they've always been DTV in spirit, and the kind of film the site was made for, so worth us checking them out. In addition to us, our friend Fred the Wolf at Full Moon Reviews has covered this, so you can go to his site to see what he thought of it.

Sharknado 3 picks up where part 2 left off. In the aftermath of the last Sharknado, Ian Ziering is hailed as a hero and is honored in a ceremony at the White House with the Golden Chainsaw. As luck would have it, another Sharknado is building off the East Coast just in time to attack the White House and ruin the ceremony. This storm is headed to Florida, where his family is vacationing, so he needs to shoot down there and save them. In the process, he and his team discover that this is bigger than the other ones, perhaps becoming a Sharkicane! The only person who can help now is Ziering's estranged father, played by the Hoff.

The natural go to here is to say the franchise is jumping the shark, but I have a feeling that's exactly what The Asylum and everyone involved with making this want us to say when we see this, so I'm not taking the bait. (Though I guess I already did just by writing what I wrote...) When I looked it up, this one didn't do as well as part 2 did when it aired, so we could already see the wave cresting and the enthusiasm waning, yet they still did three more. It makes sense, because, with a $2.4 million budget, if over 2 million people watched it, those are a lot of eyes seeing advertisements, which necessitates at least a 4th to see how much further they can take it. And the next thing you know we've got six. For The Asylum as newly inducted members into the 30 Club--and the only non-Hall of Famer to be in--these Sharknadoes represent their biggest successes, and while there are others, like Android Cop, that I prefer, it's still nice to see The Asylum reach these heights, coming from where they did when we started this blog, covering films like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. In that sense, I feel like it's worth celebrating their success overall, no matter how one feels about whether or not by part 3 they've jumped the shark--but I get it too if you don't have that soft spot in your heart and you're thinking "enough already" by part 3.

Still the most fascinating aspect of this for me is Ian Ziering. Loved Steve Sanders on 90210, despite the fact that I think I was supposed to like Dylan or Brandon more. There are still shades of Steve Sanders in Ziering's Fin here, which makes it that much more fun to watch--not to mention the added touch of the car he's driving in this having the same license plates that his Corvette on the show had. Seeing him do well in this franchise post-90210 is as good a reason as any for me to root for this series to succeed, it's just hard with the rinse-repeat nature of it to keep the novelty going. But, as you can imagine, I'll still be back here at some point for number 4, and will still be reminiscing about 90210.

We did have a Hall of Famer in our midst, 30 Club member Lorenzo Lamas has a short cameo--so short, he didn't even have a still frame of just his head in the shot for me to get a good screen. True to our rule though, except for the time we couldn't find Don "The Dragon" Wilson in Siege of Firebase Gloria, we always get the Hall of Famer's shot in the review, so here was the best I could do. If you follow Lamas on Instagram, you'll see that he's looking to become a pilot, so this cameo role was made for him. I also like that he played a character named Sergeant Rock, both in reference to the great comic book of the past, but also to Lamas's role as Chilly D (short for "Chilliam Davis" I believe) in the film Body Rock. For a short cameo, this was a fun one.

We can now add Mark Cuban to the list of names who have played the President of the United States in a film we've reviewed here on the site, joining Roy Scheider, Rutger Hauer, Vivica A. Fox, Mel Novak, Charlie Sheen, and Jerry Springer. I know of him mostly as the owner of the Mavericks, but recently he's receded a bit from being the more outspoken and controversial owner he was when he first bought the team. In 2011 his Mavericks won the NBA Championship, the biggest irony of that being, before 2011 he was the guy fans most loved to see fail; but in 2011 LeBron went to the Miami Heat to form a super team, which made them the schadenfreude darlings of the league, so by the time the Mavericks made the Finals against the Heat, sentiment had done a 180 and everyone was rooting for Cuban and his Mavs, and I don't think he ever lost that luster fully after. All of that made his appearance as the President here much more fun.

That was probably more basketball talk than anyone would have wanted, but when a film intentionally jumps the shark like this one did, sometimes you run out of things to discuss. The thing is, when I compare this to some other DTV franchises we've looked at on the site, is it really any worse? By Bloodfist VIII they had devolved into just actioners featuring Don "The Dragon" as a guy taking on the world--and not even the same guy in each film either! The Kickboxers featured Sasha Mitchell in 2-4, with two and four directed by Albert Pyun, and then 5 had Marc Dacascos. By the time you hit that fifth one, we have a baddie from Space Mutiny forming his own kickboxing league, and killing anyone who doesn't join. And with the Bloodsports, by Bloodsport 4 we had Daniel Bernhardt fighting in a Dark Kumite run by Benjamin Franklin. I think the big difference between those and the Sharknado franchise, is those other ones played it straight, where as these ones they're in on the joke. I get it, how can you play a tornado of sharks straight? It just means the shelf life may not be as long.

And with that, I think this is a good time to wrap this one up. Right now you can stream it, and the rest of the Sharknado films on Prime. I don't know if they're binge-worthy, but consumed as one-offs, they can be a fun time. As you can imagine, we'll be back here at some point in the future to cover part 4.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3899796

Anaconda 3: The Offspring (2008)

I guess this was originally a Sci-Fi channel movie. I first got wind of it when Netflix suggested it to me. The Hasselhoffian implications were enough to give it a shot. I saw the end of an episode of the new Knight Rider at a friend's before one of the presidential debates, and I was shocked that Hasselhoff wasn't reprising his old role. In my mind if you can't get Hasselhoff, you don't make a new Knight Rider, right?

Anaconda III is about some facility researching a cure for cancer and Alzheimer's using genetically altered anacondas. They break free, and it's up to mercenary hunter David Hasselhoff and some of his homeboys to track them down and kill them. The CEO of the company that owns the facility, played by John Rhys-Davies, doesn't really want the snakes killed, because he has cancer, and isn't too fond of the prospect of dying, so he sends a guy in to gain the snakes' offspring so they can make an Anaconda 4. Hasselhoff won't be around for that one.



This wasn't too bad. It was plenty silly, and the deaths had that sick humor sense to them more than the freak you out sense, which I always appreciate. The people who made it really had a thing for decapitations leaving a meaty stub on the shoulders. As a Highlander fan, I'm more into the clean cut where the head seems to still be attached except for a small red line across the neck, just before it falls to the ground. The CG snakes were awesome. Their faces take on the expressions of your average house cat, and I think that's true for all CG snake movies. It's like I can't tell if the snake wants to bite someone's head off, or is contemplating whether or not to jump on my lap.

Hasselhoff is sweet in this, but he's in it way too little. For the first 45 minutes, we see him for like a total of two minutes of screen time. Whoa, back up. Is this a Hasselhoff film, or the episode of Knight Rider where Hasselhoff's unavailable so Devin Miles is driving around in KITT? Hasselhoff is frickin' amazing, and the last thing I want is a small scale Hasselhoff bait-and-switch. I want at least 75 of my 90 minutes of movie saturated with him. In one scene he gives a guy the Hasselhoffian Head Butt. They could've sprinkled in footage of him doing that to other people throughout the first half of the film where we barely see him, and that would've been perfect.



John Rhys-Davies has lost some weight. In the movie it's supposed to be a sign of his terminal cancer. I'm hoping in real life it's just a sign of him doing more cardio. He's just one of those iconic figures in movies that I couldn't imagine not being there. He just makes a perfect millionaire bad guy, or crooked cop, or Egyptian. Crazy enough, I don't have a tag for him, despite having reviewed two of his other films (Bloodsport III, and Sunset Grill). I'll have to fix that.

I minored in German in college, so I have a solid idea of how words are pronounced. One that irks me, and I'm not sure why, is Alzheimer's. People usually say "Altimer's" or "Ol' Timer's". The "Z" in German works like an English "T" and "S" put together. Think of the "Z" in Nazi. Now, I don't have an issue with everyday people mispronouncing it, but when a herpetologist with a PhD, like the woman in this film, who's been studying Alzheimer's for years, says the word "Altimer's", it's like... really? ALTS-imers.



There was a goat in this movie. He got almost as much screen time as Hasselhoff. Anytime I see a goat, I can't help but be transported back to the Lambert/Hopper classic The Target, where Dennis Hopper asked a goat if he could drink its urine for the psychedelic properties. Hasselhoff should've done that in this movie. Even better, one of the snakes should've done that. Maybe it could've hissed at the goat, and subtitles would tell us what it said.

The only hesitation I have in pulling the trigger on an out-and-out recommendation is the lack of Hasselhoff-age. Otherwise, it's a pretty solid choice for a bad movie night: funny deaths, silly snakes, ridiculous plot. Maybe rent it on a two-for-one night, that way you won't feel as bad getting only half the Hasselhoff if you only pay half the price.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137996/

Bail Out aka W.B., Blue, and the Bean (1989)

My friends and I found this film in one of those 50 movies for whatever low price kind of deals. It said it had Hasselhoff in it, so we figured it'd at least be entertaining for that. The reason my buddy bought this collection originally was its inclusion of a Joe Don Baker classic, Mitchell. If you're as big a MSTie as I am, you must watch Mitchell at least one time in the non-MST3K version. It's a trip. Not only that, but you learn what happened to John Saxon.

Bail Out is about some bounty hunters, headed by Hasselhoff, who work for a shady bail bondsman played by the guy who played Capt. Lipschitz on Silk Stalkings. They're hired for a big score, which is making sure an heiress, played by Linda Blair, gets to her court date on Monday on a huge drug trafficking charge. The fly in the ointment is that the Colombians want her because they need compensation for the $5 million in coke they lost and they think her rich dad should reimburse them. She's kidnapped, and it's up to Hasselhoff and his boys to save the day. Danny Trejo's in this for a moment near the end.



One of the striking things about this film is how dated it seems. I don't mean because it was made in 1989 and we saw it in the new millennium. I mean for 1989 it seemed like it was much older. The film quality was like that in a Charlie's Angels or Rockford Files episode from the 70s. Then there's the use of racial stereotypes: the white guy who leads the show and gets the girl, his black friend who's a smooth talker and knows the streets, his Latino friend who does all the dirty jobs, and their stingy, penny-pinching Jewish boss. This was embarrassing to watch.

The Hasselhoff-age was pretty decent. He had this mullet that I would probably rate a 7.2 in mulletude. I've never been quite sure how I'm supposed to take Hasselhoff. As a young kid, watching Knight Rider, I still didn't know just how much Hollywood expected me to take him seriously, and then I was in first grade for God's sake. Just the same, I remember an episode of Baywatch Nights where he was playing pool in the last five minutes, and he hit this shot that I still refer to as The Hasselhoff, and have only hit it myself a couple times. The 9 ball was just off the rail in the middle of the table, and cue ball was down further, not quite in line with it. He shot the cue so it hit directly next to the 9, slamming it against the rail and back out into the side pocket on the other side of the table. It was hot.

Linda Blair is in this as the damsel in distress slash Hasselhoff romantic interest. I felt she was sufficiently attractive in that role, but I have the sinking suspicion that the movie makers would have gotten someone hotter if they thought they could. It's just the kind of movie this was. In 1989, though, you could do a lot worse than Linda Blair, and for me she was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise crappy film.



I recently had a conversation with a group of people about Saved by the Bell. Some of them had actually made it through their 25-plus years on the planet without having seen this television tour-de-force. The conversation started when I mentioned Zack Morris' cell phone. Anyone who's seen the show enough would know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, Hasselhoff has a nice Zack Morris phone in this, and it's held up as some kind of status symbol, which I guess in 1989 it would have been. Now it just looks silly.

There was one memorable scene. Near the end, Hasselhoff needs to shoot a helicopter with a grenade launcher or something. He takes his sweet-ass time waiting for a clean shot while his friends are sprayed with gunfire from the baddies flying it. Finally he blows it up, and then does this great celebration. We had to watch it a few times, one, because it was so funny, and two, because we had so little to be pleased about in this horrible movie.

If you see this by itself in the store, avoid it at all costs. It's such a waste. On the other hand, if you have a friend like we did with one of these 50 movies for whatever price collections, and see this in it, and you need to kill an hour and a half, it might not hurt to give it a try. Out of the 50 movies, this'll probably be one of the best, which isn't saying much, but it's kind of how these things work.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098614/