So I obviously missed Shark Week this year. It was supposed to happen in August during this week, but sometime around the end of June or beginning of July, it got rescheduled to July 11th. The problem was that well before that time I had already planned on what to review this week, so why would I think to double check when Shark Week was happening? So here were are, a month after the actual event, watching some absolutely awful SyFy Channel original shark movies. Well, at least Ozark Sharks wasn't as bad as Mississippi River Sharks.
ugly cgi
“This thing looks like a bad CGI movie creature!”
-Bad CGI Sharks (2019)
Mississippi River Sharks (2017)
You know what time it is? It's Shark Week, mothertruckers! Time to celebrate that specific brand of fish with TV programs all about them, and for me it means watching some absolutely terrible shark-themed movies. Last year I celebrated by watching the Mega Shark franchise (released so far): Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark, and Mega Shark vs Kolossus. This year I'm covering most of the films on the "Shark Bait: 6 Killer Shark Film" DVD pack I picked up as an impulse buy ages ago. I've already covered Ghost Shark and am saving Santa Jaws for December, but that's still 5 movies on this pack to cover! I know the math doesn't add up, but trust me. Yup, Shark Week this year is going to be tight!
Lost Lake (2003)
I will admit that I have trouble deciding what to review here. I want to find the right balance between the extremes of "no one has ever seen this movie" and "everyone has seen this movie." I don't always do that well, as is the case with today's film, Lost Lake, which has only one watch on Letterboxed: my own (this is also the case for A Windigo Tale, a story of the trauma residential schools do, which is... sadly always relevant). No one has heard of this movie! Why should I take the time to talk about it? Well, how else are people going to learn about the sheer madness that is the alternate--and true--ending of this film?
Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus (2021)
I watch a lot of bad movies, but it's not often that I feel like something is actively trying to harm me with how bad it is. Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus may only be a 20 minute short on YouTube, but watching it was one of the most torturous things I have done in recent memory. I'm not even going to provide a link because I don't want to subject anyone else to its awfulness. But talking about it? Sure, why not!
Almighty Thor (2011)
I've talked about this before, but The Asylum is a film company known for ridiculous movies like Sharknado and a ridiculous amount of knock-offs. Mockbusters, if you will. Back in 2005, Blockbuster--remember when that was relevant?--accidentally ordered 100,000 copies of HG Wells' War of the Worlds instead of the Stephen Spielberg film that came out the same year, War of the Worlds. From there the company just went wild, creating knockoffs like Atlantic Rim, Sunday School Musical, and in this particular case, Almight Thor to go up against Marvel's Thor. The God of Thunder is technically in the public domain, so why not!
It Waits (2005)
Is it weird to say that I missed watching bad movies? Probably, but back when I could safely have people over at my place (what seems like a hundred years ago), bad movies were the staple of Movie Night. We'd sit around and riff on them, finding enjoyment more through our own senses of humor than whatever lame thing was on the screen. But I watched this alone, with only my growing disappointment as company. I swear we watched It Waits a decade ago--literally this time--but all I could remember was hating a parrot? Turns out that's all that's memorable about this direct-to-DVD flick.
Hulk (2003)
February is almost over, so now would be a good time to announce that March is going to be another event month! Every weekday I will be talking about a different movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it's MCU March! I'm kicking off this endeavor with a little prologue: 2003's Hulk movie, which is not actually a part of the MCU as it was produced by Universal Studios before Iron Man started the franchise rolling, and 2008's The Incredible Hulk is a reboot for the character. But it's an infamous Marvel movie I hadn't seen, so let's fix that!
Queen: The Awakening (2020)
The letter Q vexes me. Not only is it associated with one of the most batshit political conspiracies AND is a nightmare in Scrabble--seriously, how hard would it be replace the tile with "Qu" and save everyone the hassle--but in the entire first year of this blog I never got around to reviewing a movie that started with Q. But I'm here today to solve two of these problems! The first is that "QI" is a recognized word in the official Scrabble dictionary with the definition, "The vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things," in case your relatives call bullshit. The second is Queen: The Awakening, an low budget vampire movie that IMDB doesn't recognize as existing. But it's on Tubi and Letterboxd, so it counts!
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
How can I devote a month to some of the worst movies ever and not talk about Birdemic: Shock and Terror? I actually own this film (but it's also available on Tubi because of course it is) and somehow managed to not get around to it during the first year of this blog. But that oversight has now been remedied! Birdemic is infamous for being up there with The Room in terms of completely inept filmmaking. It boldly asks the question, "What if The Birds was mixed with An Inconvenient Truth with the worst CG birds you've ever seen?" It is, for lack of a better word, art.
The Amazing Bulk (2012)
One of my problems with the IMDB Bottom 100 list is that you need to meet a minimum number of ratings in order to qualify. For example, Diary of a Cannibal (the worst movie I've ever seen) has an IMDB rating of 1.4, lower than Disaster Movie, the movie in the #1 spot on the list with a score of 2.0. But Disaster Movie has almost 87 thousand ratings, while Cannibal has (as of writing) 746. There are so many movies worse than Disaster Movie but they don't have enough views to show up on official "worst" lists. All this is leading to the fact that The Amazing Bulk is an amazingly bad movie that hasn't made enough of a splash to make it on many lists. But trust me, it's BAD.
Chwineka Watches 