User reviews

Perhaps I have been hoodwinked. Mega Piranha resparked my love of shonky B Movies like the adrenalin shot Vincent Vega gave Mia Wallace, and I immediately sought other examples.

I unfortunately forgot that adrenalin shots are not Plan A, B or C, but to paraphrase Earl Bassett in Tremors "something you do when a plan fails".

How's that I just referenced two 10 out of 10 movies to help me describe a 4 / 10 crapfest!

As good as Mega Piranha was in being enjoyably terrible Sharktopus is at being normally terrible – and the truth is both beasts (films) are only 5% different.

Sharktopus is an army funded genetically engineered amalgam of shark and octopus – if you couldn't have worked that out for yourself. It seems a little unfair to give the most efficient and dangerous underwater predator an eight leg up but they did it anyway.

(One thing I can't deny is that it would actually be a way more efficient predator given 8 legs!)

The sharktopus has a large helmet strapped to it that conveys electrical impulses sent by its scientist creators, this keeps it on the straight and narrow. Calamari control if you will.

No prizes for guessing what happens to the helmet?

...

Once free of control Sharktopus heads down the coast for some sun, surf and supper. Using the new octopian improvements and its sheer sharkiness – they can make up words so can I – it wreaks havoc on dozens of bikini clad terrible actors all the way to Mexico.

Back in the lab lead scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts – he should ask his sister for some money and avoid these films) knows the risks and sends two more over-actors to recapture the beast… in some sort of seafood basket I would expect.

The pair are his daughter Nicole (who does little but tap away at a laptop and look worried) and a staff member he fired named Andy (who also seems terribly ill-equipped for the job).

Various kooky cats get involved including a hungry reporter and her reluctant cameraman, a crazy local drunk and dozens of dozens of middling bikini chicks. One thing I will say is that for a TV movie there was much cleavage and flesh on display – all PG stuff I assure you – none of it is A-for-Alba Grade but I appreciate the effort and acknowledgment of the inevitable viewing audience, it sure wasn't my wife who put Sharktopus on the DVD pile.

Anyway the entire movie should revolve around the beast so let's expand on Sharktopus. Aside from the afore mentioned enhancements the tentacles mean that ol' Sharkey can now walk on land – funny I never saw an octopus do that – it is obviously a cheap FX job and when walking looks like an overly elaborate hood ornament.

The CGI is also distracting in that it pops out of the screen rather than blending in, meaning it is hard to take the shark/octopus hybrid seriously… did I just really write that?

Let's put a bow on this sucker: While the CGI is better than Mega-Piranha it lacks the same clumsy charm, everything here comes off as calculated and try hard where the giant exploding fish film was cheese personified.

All the deaths are the same:

Bikini clad bad actor (BCBA) noticing,

BCBA wondering,

BCBA looks surprised (and often slightly in the wrong direction),

Tentacles appear.

Dead.

Final Rating – 4 / 10. As a guy I appreciate the inclusion of some T&A, even in the form of average women in bikinis and zero nudity. But it's the other T&A that better describes Sharktopus: Tedious & Amateurish.

This is no Mega Piranha, when given the choice I can't impress just how much better that is than this film. Where Mega Piranha was ridiculously terrible, this is just terrible.

A half-shark, half-octopus creature created for the military, creates a whole lot of terror in Mexico while a scientist (Eric Roberts) who helped created it tries to capture/kill it.

I had just about as high of expectations and anticipation as one could possibly muster for this film. I received word roughly two months in advance that I would be receiving the Blu-ray and I checked my mailbox day in and day out, eagerly awaiting its arrival. I knew it was going to be bad, but I wanted to savor its badness. And the more I waited, the more I wanted it... and what I got was far worse than anything I could have ever imagined.

There are some things I could say nice about he film. Eric Roberts is decent, there is an "epic beard man" whose facial hair puts mien to shame. The film is not scary, but it made three cats on my girlfriend's couch jump, so that has to count for something... but that is about all.

There are bad special effects, of course -- and it almost seems like they are embracing it. The smart move is to show a creature as little as possible in a horror film, especially when the makeup or effects are not great. Here the effects are among the worst I have ever seen on SyFy, and they still felt the need to show the sharktopus early and often.

There is also terrible acting, with actors who can only deliver lines in a choppy monotone. I think some of them do not speak English and are reading their lines phonetically. But it is hard to tell, and maybe this was just the best cast they could get. One character, Bones the camera man, is covered in fake tattoos. They could not find one bad actor with real tattoos?

Should I classify this as one of those films that is "so bad it's good"? I do not think so. Maybe if you are really drunk, kicking back some bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon with some buddies, making fun of it... it might be tolerable. But under no condition could this ever be seen as "good".

Thanks are given in the credits to Gabriel Cowan, the director of "Breathing Room" and "Growth"... why? Aside from Roger Corman and Eric Roberts, Cowan is the only remotely famous or successful person associated with this project -- but what did he do to get thanked?

If there is anything redeeming about this film at all, it is that the disc comes with an audio commentary from producer Roger Corman. Corman is, obviously, a legend in the horror and science fiction genres. So to hear him talk over the movie is a nice treat. But, if you think he can make a bad film good or justify its creation, you would be wrong. Not a film to see under any circumstances... I would rather see "Raptor Island" again.

Saw this with beers and expected to laugh at the whole thing, but this was below all. I'm not sure why they made it in the first part...

The name of the movie is really the best part of it all. Period.

The effects are extremely unrealistic and there's no feel at all, as soon as the sharktopus shows up it's so detached from the environment to the point it feels like watching a cartoon blended with live characters or vice versa - in other words... too damn noticeable! Imagine a cartoon shark in a shark movie, would that put you off? If yes: Don't see this.

Not to mention the poor bloopers in it (aside from the sharktopus), there are a lot of mistakes all the time that also made me disconnect from the "story". This is a piece of CRAP!

I have seen better acting in a high school play rehearsal. Cheesy actors (no-names with nothing to their credit, for the most part), cheesy "special effects," (if you can even call them that), cheesy story (some sort of history of the creature that is only vaguely explained), horrible attempts at humor (especially when people get attacked by the creature), cheesy creature (half octopus and half shark -- really?), and cheesy creature "action." You can actually tell without any stretch of the imagination that it's similar to claymation in front of a green screen -- and not very good animation, either. I mean, really? Was this a 6th grade video project? Eric Roberts must be just one step above destitute to have signed to to this horrible production. We should all send him $5 so he doesn't have to do another one like that. Horrible. Just horrible.

I love campy sci-fi. I expected with Eric Roberts in it for the movie to be -- well, watchable if not even enjoyable. Sadly, it was not enjoyable. Nor was it funny. It wasn't campy. And it certainly wasn't fun to watch or even amusing. It was pitiful. The scenery is the only decent thing in it.

The dialog is bad. The CGI is bad. The effects are bad. The acting when being attacked was a single action only -- scream and fail your arms around. It is possible that the idea was to make a sci-fi movie that was making fun of other such movies involving creatures of the deep. If so, they failed to do so.

Don't waste your time with this one. Try an old timer like Tremors.

I used to think Cabin Boy was the worst movie ever made, but I was wrong. There are no words to describe the terrible acting, the lame effects, the lack of flow, etc.

When the tongue-in-cheek jokes are predictable, you know it sucks. I attempted to watch it twice, but did not make it past two commercial breaks.

I am sure even Charlie Sheen makes fun of Eric Roberts for this movie. I just hope the other "actors" careers recover from this.

If you are looking to waste two hours of your life, there are better ways than watching this garbage.

Story, which is stupid and so un-original, you can read in other reviews and in plot-section. It is however very stupid and not worth of mention. Actually, think about word "Sharktopus" just for second. Yes, it is some secret government project which went wrong. That's all you need to know about story.

Acting? Visual/audio effects? Comedy? Fear? All together, very low. But that is thing you know as well.

The reason why I review this title is simple. I'm big fan of low-budget-so-bad-its-good movies. This is bad, cheap, but simply, not bad enough. Seems weird? Well, acting is not that bad, there are no very obvious movie goofs, there is some cliché in story but not much, anyway, it is bad, very bad movie, but trust me, for making-fun-of with your friends, better buy some cheap Asylum movie.

You've got to be kidding me. We rooted for the Sharktopusamagiggle thing because the acting was catastrophic. Eric Roberts is ridiculous but clearly trying his best (thank you for that my P.I.C) and the least said about the other cast members the better. Sorry, I farted. Whoopa! 2 bottles of wine, three cans of beer utilizing 4 straws could not make this film anything other than complete cack. Recommendation (for two people): get a BIG bag of green before considering watching this film for the comedic value. I will now repeat myself.

You've got to be kidding me. We rooted for the Sharktopusamagiggle thing because the acting was catastrophic. Eric Roberts is ridiculous but clearly trying his best (thank you for that my P.I.C) and the least said about the other cast members the better. Sorry, I farted. Whoopa! 2 bottles of wine, three cans of beer utilizing 4 straws could not make this film anything other than complete cack. Recommendation (for two people): get a BIG bag of green before considering watching this film for the comedic value. End. Shed Out.

Sharktopus delivered exactly what it promised. It was badly acted, badly scored, badly edited, badly shot, badly written, bad special effects, bad continuity, and probably badly catered. However I want a copy of that 'Sharktopus' song from the opening credits to use as my wife's ring-tone.

That being said, I still enjoyed watching it. I don't watch these types of moves to be challenged, merely entertained. This movie was so bad that I found myself doing an internal MST3K to it.

Congrats to SyFy to finally getting it and playing the whole thing as tongue-in-cheek as you did. These SyFy original movies are not good, and here you finally admitted (more or less) to that fact up front.

Thank you SyFy and Roger Corman for yet another (not) cinematic tour-de- force and another enjoyable Saturday night.

This is not a horror or an action sci-fi movie. It is a comedy, but not your normal kind of comedy that you are used to seeing. There are no crazy characters or silly jokes. The real joke is in the acting, the directing, production design etc. Sharktopus was made to be terrible so the audience will laugh at how bad it is.

I don't understand why people take this movie seriously. With a title like sharktopus how could you? The plot is that a team of father and daughter marine biologists create a half shark, half octopus to use as a weapon for the navy. Then the remote control mechanism is knocked off and the Sharktopus goes on a killing rampage. Captian Jack (the creator of sharktopus) highers Andy Flynn, a Iraq war veteran, to capture the monster. But when Andy nearly gets killed and looses two of his friends he vows revenge.

There you have it. This is not suppose to be the next Jaws or even Deep Blue Sea. This is more along the lines of Maga Shark vs. Gaint Octopus. The director told the actors to be wooden and show very little emotion. The actors wheren't trying to win a Oscar, they wanted a Razzie. I just wish that actors would react to seeing the killings. When ever someone is eaten or torn apart in the movie who ever was witnessing it didn't react. They just stand there with a stupid look on their face. At least scream or try to help the victim. The production is minimal. The props appear to be objects the actors brought from home. The special effect are also bad with Sharktopus constantly changing size. In one scene he's big enough to eat VW Bug, in a later scene he is as big as a human. There are also scenes where the monster is walking out on land. Now I am not a marine biologist, but I am pretty sure that sharks or octopuses can't survive outside of water. Another thing that bothered me was that one of the characters who was named Nicole had some moral hang ups about her father altering the mind of Sharktopus. It is a genetically engineered monster, what does it matter if it mind is tampered with? If you watch this with a critic's state of mind you will hate this movie. In order to enjoy it loosen up and get a sense of humor.

Compared to Scy-Fy Channel's other original movies this is the best. Instead of being serious and trying scare the audience. Sharktopus is made to make you laugh. I rated this on level of how entertained I was while watching and gave it a 7 out of 10. Now if I where to rate it based on acting, directing, camera work, etc. Then I would give it a 2 out of 10.

Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts) and his daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane) are scientists who created a shark/octopus hybrid. It manages to escape their control. They follow it to Mexico where they hire local guide Andy Flynn (Kerem Bürsin).

This is dumb, but that's to be expected. The CGI is bad, but it could be worst. The sharktopus design has problems, but I get the concept. The acting is bad, but they do have Eric Roberts. This is bad camp, but it is not worst of the worst. It does have girls in bikinis, but I wouldn't call it sexploitation. Its greatest sin is that it's boring. I wouldn't recommend it.

Seriously, I thought I was watching a movie from the 60s! But I realized that this is from this year. The plot is horrible, the characters are stupid, and the CGI seems to come out from a cartoon or Windows Paint.

But I really want to know on how who writes this garbage and who gives these guys their money. Fly-by companies that think that screwing the public is funny? Or is it people in basements who take about 30 minutes to write the script? No, It's Sci Fi, a company who sold out from classic shows to these abominations of TV. When was the last time they showed a REAL movie with STARS and that was not released straight to DVD?! You can tell me, because I sure don't know.

Some of the other reviews are saying this was 'MEANT to be bad' as though this is some kind of NEW genre of movie making.

Listen, it's NOT. All this is is VERY, VERY bad, period. It was not made to be campy or a B-Movie or anything else. It was made to try to make a quick buck. Eric Roberts, the only notable name in the film, pumps out LOADS of films. Look up how many films he's made in the past and how many are current;y in production. This guy is super busy making bad films.

Here is an excerpt from an interview about the movie with Eric Roberts. The interviewer asked him where this movie would 'sit' on his resume: Eric Roberts: Well I have to be honest with you this project doesn't really fit in my resume. This budget was done for fun. And this project isn't in my resume any more than going to the gym does. Everybody knows they go to the gym, everybody knows I mean I made this movie.

But you know, I don't brag about it. If it comes up, I don't pretend it didn't happen because I made the movie because I wanted to, because you don't work for Roger Corman for money, he doesn't pay people.

So all sarcasm aside if you bring it up I'm going to talk about, and if you don't I'm not going to bring it up. That is where it fits in my resume.

I have to write this review. Simply because, against my better judgement, I watched this. It's is billed as Comedy/Horror on IMDb. I expected it to be quite amusing. Sadly I must report that it is so bad it is not even close to being funny.

Granted the plot is so bonkers that you shouldn't expect realism (A shark crossed with an Octopus being used as a Navy weapon against drug runners is a good pointer here) but there are so many errors, obvious goofs and terrifyingly shonky special effects that it actually becomes painful.

It is an awful film when Eric Roberts is the best actor in it by a country mile and you know he's not even trying. The supporting cast are a bunch of no-hopers not even good enough for a supporting role as a corpse in CSI. The "special" effects are so awful they're not even good enough to be a school project. Add to this the complete ignorance of basic biology and you have something that's not even laughable.

I thought it would be so bad it's good. Unfortunately it really is just... so bad.

I really really wanted to give this a better mark than After Earth but it falls short by a very long chalk. It only gets a 1 out of 10 because I watched it to the end. I wish I hadn't.

Sharktopus is a good example of terrible movie making. The script and the dialog are absolutely pitiful. People sit and wait for the creature to attack them; a couple watch three people die and decide to go fishing like nothing happened; a reporter (the usual stupid stuff) allows people to die and just worries about the story over lives; and the scientist in charge feels that it is alright for people to die in the search for scientific advancement. This is the same horrible grouping of clichés from every single SyFy bad horror movie. This movie is a mess and not worth watching at all. In a struggling economy, it is a miracle someone gave money to people to make a piece of trash that is this bad.

Why did I rate this so high when it's clearly so bad? Because this movie knows exactly what it is and treating it like a full feature film would be patently ridiculous.

As the name implies Sharktopus is about a half-shark half-octopus government experiment gone awry and loosed to feed on the surprisingly slow to grasp the situation public.

Citizen Kane it ain't but Sharkopus knows what it is. Most of the story is structured around several set pieces that are more hilarious than horrendous. The movie sags a bit towards the end but the tendency for characters to recognize and joke about the horror and B-movie clichés the movie embodies keeps the mood light and funny.

Syfy original movies work best when the writers and directors "get it." When they know that none of what they're doing should be played straight is when these movies turn out best and Sharktopus gets it.

Would have given it a 10 were it not for the ending which was abrupt, left the fate of a main character kind of fuzzy, and because the creature suddenly developed stormtrooper syndrome when confronting the hero.

It's been obvious for some time SyFy's in on the joke about how campy these hokey effect mutant monster flicks of theirs are. Just ridiculous hokum for some MST3K style cheap laughs. The latest rampaging beast is a shark/octopus hybrid creature set loose by (let's say it all together): genetic testing by a rogue scientist being backed by the military. Yay for those generals and scientists dopes! They've done it again, given us a hungry mutation that chomps anything that moves (except the main stars; it just growls at them with a dumb blank look).

SyFy's own reality show "truth investigator" guy Josh Gates adapts his "this legend is hooey" show narration tone to riff the movie with trivia about its cheap and shoddy production standards. Cast members appeared to poke fun at it in these bits too. Subtly, it seems nobody took this seriously.

It's a Roger Corman B-movie, and even Roger joins in the self mockery fun. He had a cameo that would have been creepy in a normal movie; here it's just goofy (intentionally so). There's plenty of the routine fodder of these kind of deliberately dumb monster movies, (in addition to those already mentioned): bad-acting bikini-clad extras who show up for one scene (and exit quickly in a painful manner if you catch my drift), incredibly bad CGI, a hero standing two feet away from an explosion and being totally uninjured, lots of extras constantly running around playing, dancing, or riding boats, and of course the monster showing up on cue to kill somebody a moment after they say the creature doesn't exist. There are some clever attack scenes, the bungee chomp was classic. Also included: obnoxious journalist with attached cameraman flunky, hero's flunkies, main villain's flunkies, and even an annoying big-mouth DJ with poorly written lines to say.

It's as completely stupid as was intended. Fans of this type of idiocy will find it funny.

Well, I knew it was going to be bad just because of the name. But I've been pleasantly surprised before and, as I've said in previous reviews, I also have a tendency to enjoy lame sci-fi/horror movies, so I gave it a shot. And boy do I wish I hadn't.

This film walks the very fine line between laughably bad and just plain bad. There were a couple of enjoyable moments. Not nearly enough to make up for the rest of the movie, unfortunately. I suppose it could be really fun if you watch it with a few friends, the sound muted, and make up your own dialog.

The writers clearly put some effort into it. Just... not enough. The dialog and characters weren't too bad. If only casting had chosen people who can actually act.

Clearly, the standards for acting have gone way down in recent years. Expecting Oscar-worthy performances on a straight to TV movie is unreasonable, but I do expect at least *some* talent. I don't think I heard one single convincing scream during the entire movie. There was a lot of physical acting (mostly running) required, so the screams should have been a breeze. Apparently not for this cast. I'm thinking the majority of them were chosen more on the basis of looking good in bathing suits than anything else. At least, the male lead was. Washboard abs aside, I wasn't the least bit impressed. The female lead was just as unconvincing.

While watching this, my mom made a comment about whether or not Eric Roberts uses his sister's name to get parts. I find that highly unlikely, particularly in this case. If he was, he'd certainly have used it to get a much better gig than this one. Maybe that's why he put forth so very little effort for the role. He does, however, pull off the required creepy, cold-hearted and extremely unlikeable aspects of the character. Sadly, his was the best performance.

The creature... Well, the name itself is a big enough warning. I am willing to overlook the fact that it's so unrealistic looking because of the obvious absurdity of combining a great white shark and an octopus into one animal and the clearly low budget. I suppose it could have looked cool if they'd had the money for better special effects. I'm also willing to overlook the fact that the tentacles look more like those of a squid than an octopus to me. (A very disturbing bit of proof that I need to lay off the nature documentaries, let me tell, ya'.) However, I do take some issue with the ends of the tentacles being sharp enough to pierce flesh like a spear. Seriously? The twenty-foot reach, suckers and enough strength to crush people into jelly wasn't enough? This little extra was probably put in just to add more blood and gore.

By the way, someone needs to sit the director down and explain to him that this is not a 3-d film and having fake blood splatter the camera lens is not cool. It doesn't make it look or feel more realistic and certainly does not add to the experience. It added to my eye-rolling, but that's about it. He also needs to tell his actors when they're doing a crap job. But he did get some really nice scenery and aerial shots in, so he didn't do a *completely* terrible job.

Basically, you may get a few laughs. That's about the only redeeming aspect of the movie. Everything else is just eye-candy and drivel. In my opinion, not even worth one watch. But I have seen a lot worse. If you want to watch it, have very low expectations and you won't be disappointed.

The SyFy Channel may finally have achieved what appears to be its self-imposed objective - to create the ultimate bad movie! Having done so, we may all hope that SyFy will simply stop making movies and save the world from more of its seemingly unending video trash.

At first, the very idea of the movie seemed to be too stupid to be believed (three people refused to believe that there was actually a movie with this name). Viewing the first few minutes with the atrocious acting and ludicrous concept suggested that it was actually a farce or a parody. This seemed to be reinforced by having Josh Gates (from Destination Truth) act as host to the movie, making sometimes amusing comments during the commercial breaks. Also, there were a few scenes when it did seem to be playing for humor (ex. The "There is no sharktopus" scene with Captain Jack) and over-the-top lack of believability. Unfortunately, the writers forgot to include either humor or farce in most of the final version of the script; or perhaps they simply confused stupid for funny. Regardless of the reason, Sharktopus comes off as actually taking itself seriously through most of the movie.

Only the chance to watch what should go down in history as one of the worst movies ever made kept attention on the screen after the first five minutes. In that short period of time, the movie provided the viewer with at least seven flat out factual errors, a couple of severe improbabilities, a level of acting which would not be acceptable in a high school play, and absolutely no reason to suspend disbelief or like anything about the movie. A less masochistic person would undoubtedly have changed the channel before the first commercial.

The one interesting scene in the movie (excluding the obligatory bikini beach scenes) was Captain Jack apparently reprising the concept session in which the movie was first proposed - that is, a drunken fool spouting a ridiculous plot which a five year old would have rejected as the subject for a few minutes of unimaginative play.

This movie may be taken as probable cause for the authorities to raid the offices of the SyFy Channel, as someone would have to be on some serious drugs to ever have thought that this was a good idea. It is time to replace whoever is making these decisions, and for Roger Corman (the producer) to stop making movies.