What the hell is going on here?

Updated on July 16, 2010 By Ken Begg 22 Comments

First, there was Megashark vs. Giant Octopus. It didn’t nearly live up to our hopes, because the scanty CGI budget kept the monster action brief and repetitive. Even so, it’s heart was in the right place, with Megashark eating a jetliner, a battleship and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then came Megapiranha, was knew EXACTLY how stupid it was and just ran with it. Still not good, but actually inching close to the much more pertinent and valuable ‘entertaining’ mark.

And this…this actually looks, you know, sort of good, in a highly cheesy way. Look, many different shots of the monster, doing lots of different things! (The monster is really new, though, the one in the Italian Devilfish aka Monster Shark was conceptually similar.) Sadly, it’s likely that nearly every shot of the monster can also be seen in the trailer. Even so, suddenly, following over a decade of seemingly intentionally mandated lamemess, the SyFy movie is finally figuring out how to actually be fun.

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  • jzimbert

    That’s… a squark! From D&D!

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    I remember seeing Keith mention an idea for a movie called “Great White Squid” in one of his reviews on Teleport City. Could this mean the SyFy people are now combing the Cabal sites for ideas?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I can’t watch it until I get home, but the reference to Devil Fish tells me what movie it is. I look forward to it, but will not get my hopes up. I’ve been burned all too often by trailers lately (I’m still bitter about MSvGO.)

    Speaking of which, I see Infestation is on Siffy this weekend. I liked the trailer, and I recall people around here saying it ended up being a fun little flick. Do I remember correctly? (I’m sure I’ll watch it either way, but I was wanting to know what to look forward to.)

    Finally, I have an issue with you saying Megapiranha isn’t good and that it is only “inching close” to be entertainig. That movie is an veritable cornucopia of insanity and hilarity, sir, and I’ll not have you besmirching it.

  • Rock Baker

    Now if only they’d be willing to make a big dumb monster movie like that with actual special effects instead of computer generated cartoons! Somehow, I’m not sold on a cross between a shark and octopus that looks so much like a sewn together shark and octopus. At least the DevilFish looked like an all new creature, and at times a pretty neat one (there it was the movie itself that stunk, not really the monster). Still, I know, it’s all in fun!

  • BeckoningChasm

    “Infestation” was a lot more fun than it had any right to be.

    As for this…I dunno. The power-pop song lends me to believe it will be just as spoofy as anything else that had a promising trailer. Why make it good when you can have an ironic stance instead, at half the price?

  • Infestation is actually pretty damn good, judging it for what it is. You’ll like it.

    Megapiranha was pretty great, but didn’t really seem to me to quite reach breakout status, although it was much more in line with what I’d hoped for. (Again, much better than MSvGO, which had the right idea but too little money.) Even so, we’re seeing what appears to be a progression here. I’d really like to think that the movie will contain at least a couple of minutes of monster stuff not shown in the trailer, but I fear it won’t and that a few of the underwater shot will be repeated ad nauseum to hold the budget down. Still, the trailer is MUCH better than I was expecting.

    I’m sure Scott Foy will be filling us in shortly.

  • Rock, if you’ve never seen Frankenfish, you may want to give that one a whirl. It’s my favorite of all these DTV flicks.

  • Frankenfish and Dinocroc show how CGI ought to be used when creating monsters. Frankenfish used CGI to produce dozens or hundreds of individual monsters, which would be prohibitive the old-fashioned way, and dinocroc used CGI to make its giant monster fast-moving.

    Perhaps I’m tainted by my own background in the video game industry, but I don’t see CGI as inherently wrong-headed. It’s just a tool that can be used for good or evil. Unlike, say, stop-motion, which can ONLY be used in the cause of righteousness.

  • fish eye no miko

    Syfy, Roger Corman AND Eric Roberts… I gotta see this.

  • CGI certainly has it’s place, but too often it’s used as a crutch (for tight interaction physical props are still better, in that they fool the eye more effectively–Frankenfish wisely missed GCI and prop work), and most irksome, is used to lend monsters, especially giant monsters, often literally cartoonish speed and the ability to defy physics. This goes all the way back to Anaconda, one of the first movies to rely heavily on CGI.

  • Rock Baker

    I have enjoyed some CG stuff, but mostly in the sort of cartoonish world where it looks like it fits in (The Incredibles or Hoodwinked, for instance). Whenever it mixes with the real world, the result usually falls flat. It always comes off looking like a production of Who Framed Roger Rabbit without the talent or craftsmanship required for that sort of thing.

  • certainly CGI can be misused, and Anaconda is a primo example of it. But Dinocroc did a good job, and it’s still the only way to show some kinds of things effectively.

    I guess I’m just tirading against my bad-movie peers who loathe anything CGI. It has its place, and it’s even better used when combined with props, as in Jurassic Park for instance.

  • Foywonder

    I don’t know if Sharktopus can live up to its trailer but it certainly looks like they have the right idea. I hope between the jaws, the tentacles, and the land walking this one doesn’t fall into the same trap Corman’s recent creatures tend to fall into; repetitious attack scenes involving characters introduced just long enough to get killed by the same recycled effects shot. Sharktopus actually looks surprisingly ambitious and maybe even has a little more money behind it than usual. Like the rest of you, I hope the best money shots haven’t all been given away.

    Syfy has found something of a niche with these ultra cheesy, high concept b-movies, but the truly entertaining, outlandish, energetic ones are few and far between.

    For example, this weekend’s premiere of Goblin. After watching clips from the film (http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/38516/three-bloody-clips-from-syfys-goblin) I am not getting a good vibe from that one. Two weeks after that we’re getting Frost Giant with Dean Cain fighting a block of ice with arms and legs(http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/38436/two-clips-that-reveal-dean-cains-frost-giant). That one might have a refrigerated cheese factor going for it. I’m not going to cross my fingers.

    Here’s a list of other Syfy originals (creature features, disaster flicks, and fantasy flicks) yet to come:

    Ice Road Terror
    The Doomsday Scrolls
    Camel Spiders
    Witchslayer
    Ice Quake
    Behemoth
    Earth’s Final Hours
    Cold Fusion
    Morlocks
    Seeds of Destruction
    Sinbad and the Minotaur
    Unearthed (underground plant monsters)
    Lake Placid 3
    Red (little red riding hood)
    Scream of the Banshee
    The 8th Voyage of Sinbad
    Monsterwolf

    It appears the press Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Piranha received and their new co-production deal with Syfy has also led to The Asylum embracing over-the-top camp as opposed to the soul-crushing tedium their films used to be more well known for. They’ve already announced two new “mega” movies. Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus is their official sequel to Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. They’re also partnering with Syfy to produce Mega Python vs. Gatoroid starring Eighiest pop singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany (they will also fight it out in the swamp) and Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz. I also understand they have an “updating” of Moby Dick planned for later this year that should have Herman Melville spinning in his grave: modern naval forces trying to stop a monstrous white whale terrorizing the ocean. And let’s not forget next month’s release: Titanic 2, with a second Titanic ship launching on the 100th anniversary of the original’s sinking and in a shocking turn of events nobody could have possibly seen coming, history repeats itself.

    We’ll see how long this trend continues. They’re going to eventually run out of gimmicky premises or just burn itself out. I mean how many giant fish or reptile and versus movies can Syfy/The Asylum crank out before the novelty wears off?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I look forward to Infestation.

    I don’t automatically hate CGI, just how it’s often used. I prefer props, but there have been excellent examples of it working in tandem with more traditional effects (a few already listed). Returning to Megapiranha, it was almost all CGI in that movie. However, they did such batshit crazy things with it, things they could’ve never done with props, that I totally did not care and ate it up. The hero bicycle-kicking a conga line of airborne piranha, for example. Same with the big-ass shark eating a goddamn jet in MSvGO.

    Sharktopus…I dunno about that design. I was expecting something different, something more hybrid-looking and less “We stuck tentacles where the shark’s tail would be and called it a day.” I liked the scene with it walking, though, which opens up attack possibilities. If they have a lot more monster stuff, we could have something fun here. I chuckled at the “homage” to the opening scene of Jaws, and the bungee jumper scene was just as delightful as I anticipated. I’ll give it a go and hope for the best.

    Finally, I throw my support in for Frankenfish and Dinocroc. Especially the former, which was a welcome relief after the tedium of Snakehead Terror.

  • Petoht

    “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid starring Eighties pop singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany (they will also fight it out in the swamp)”

    Come for the monster, stay for the nostalgic fan service?

  • BeckoningChasm

    CGI is like color film; it’s a tool like any other.

    In the early years of extensive CGI (ie, more than a couple of morphs), effects guys did a lot of cool stuff with it. Jurassic Park, Mars Attacks and Starship Troopers all had effects leagues better than the stuff done in the last couple of years.

    I think the reason is that, back then, the artists had control over how things were done. They were figuring out how to do things and were using imagination. Nowadays, I suspect the effects are being done by folks who have passed some courses and are certified–in other words, they’re just spitting out what they did to make a passing grade, and the idea of doing something creative is once again squelched in Hollywood.

  • GalaxyJane

    My friend’s sister did the sound work for “Infestation”. I have no idea why I think y’all want to know that or how it’s germane to the conversation, but whatever, I vaguely know somebody completely non-famous who did something behind the scenes of a low budget movie about bugs.

    :)

  • Rock Baker

    I’m not sold on the position that CGI can do things that you can’t do with practical effects. I’ll buy that CGI allows you to do some things cheaper than with practical effects, but I’d say anyone with enough ambition and talent could pull it off with physical effects (and likely it would look far better than the digital stuff).

    Even if that’s not the case, the CG stuff just isn’t very engaging. I recently saw Team America: World Police (and I’m trying to supress most of it). One thing that did strike me was the bit where they were caught in an air-battle over the ocean. Now it was intentionally done to look as chintzy as possible, but I found myself reflecting on how it was the best such sequence I’d seen in years from a Hollywood movie. It wasn’t realistic (but neither is CGI usually), but it had a raw energy that, for that brief bit anyway, pulled me in and blew my socks off.

  • Jane — I think that is very cool! Please let them know that one b-movie fan has been pushing the film. I hope she was pleased with the final product; I certainly was.

  • I get my latter-day monster movie needs met satisfactorily through Bay’s Transformers movies. Go ahead and laugh, I’m used to it. But all the classic tenets of great movie monsters are there, and they never skimp on the destruction or let you down.

    Two great examples are in Revenge of The Fallen. 1., When Ravage infiltrates the secret military base where the ‘McGuffin” shard is held, and 2., when Megatron is resurrected on the ocean floor and piledrives a submarine as he hauls ass for the moons of Saturn.

    Anyone who truly loves the thrill of monster movies, and can put aside their contempt for Bay (as is often done for Corman and HGL), will enjoy the living daylights out of at least those two scenes. Bay’s TF movies cream anything coming from the Syfylis Network, that’s for DAMN sure.

  • Gabriele

    What’s really cool is that the “scientific institute” at 0:33 is the opera house of my city, Valencia (Spain)!

  • @lukmandisini, (haha) betul itu.. tapi aku cuma penggemar.. neorenggana´s last blog ..I Hate You But I Love You