Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus

The Asylum

All Region NTSC

The Asylum produces B grade titles which have similar themes to current or major releases. In 2009 thus far we have had The Terminators and Transmorphers 2 among others, for example. This one, however, is out of left field and looks like it has been influenced by international creature horror films such as The Host.

It is a truly bizarre animal spectacular about a shark and an octopus causing havoc around the globe and then going toe to toe against each other. But these are not normal size animals, not even big animals, they are super-dooper, mega size monsters – Japanese Godzilla size to be precise !

The story opens with lots of stock footage and very average CGI (which continues throughout). We have an underwater vessel exploring the great beauty of nature at some depth under the ice. It is piloted by a rather sexy young lady with very long fingernails, not what I would expect as undersea pilot, but what the hell. Soon an illegal sonar charge is dumped into the water by naughty military folk and a large pod of whales are killing themselves by smashing into the iceshelf.

This obviously has some consequences, some more obvious (and believable) than others. First the helicopter that dropped the charges crashes, poetic justice you may say. While the exploration vessel hits major turbulence and sustains damage the two members of the small crew survive. However, all is not well as our sexy whale lovin’ underwater lady sees something she cannot believe.

Did she see a giant shark and octopus frozen in the ice and set free by the disaster or was she smoking weed before the journey. I tend to believe the later, but no, monstrous creatures ARE on the loose.

Soon these big beasties are attacking all and sundry, one of the better shots is when the shark jumps out of the water and takes a chunk out of the plane ! The reaction of one of the passengers is a rather downbeat “Shit” as the plane disintegrates. I think I would say a lot more if a giant, monstrous shark jumped out of the ocean and bit my plane in two ! There are lots more BIG scenes too including the octopus wiping out a petroleum rig and the shark attacking a bridge teeth first…

This is truly rip-roaring laughable entertainment, packed with stock footage of meaningful underwater scenes, new age music, terrible CGI, shocking acting and more. It stars Deborah Gibson, the old Eighties teen star – ahh well, she must have needed the work.

It was originally called Mega Shark Versus Giant Squid but supposedly market research thought octopus were more scary than squid, figure that one out. Whatever the title it is so bad it will burn itself on your memory for quite some time…

There is so much silliness in this film that every moment is a laugh and a smile. It is fun, stupid and is one of those films you simply cannot believe they got the go ahead to make. One of the best things is the superb movie poster !

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.3 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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