Showerthought: The Sharknado movies got worse on purpose and it ruined the fun

I watched the first Sharknado again last week, then the sixth one from 2018, and the difference is night and day. The first one was a dumb, charming mess where they fought sharks with chainsaws. It felt like a real try at a B-movie. By the time they got to 'The Last Sharknado: It's About Time', it was just a parade of cameos and self-aware jokes. They stopped trying to make a bad movie and started trying to make a 'so bad it's good' movie, which is a totally different thing. The magic was in the first one's honest stupidity, not the later ones winking at the camera. It went from a fun bad movie night pick to a chore in about 5 years. Has anyone else felt a series lost its charm once it knew it was a joke?

3 comments

3 Comments

anthony_sullivan682mo ago

Ever notice how that happens with a lot of those "bad" movie series? My rule is to just stop after the second one. Once they start adding celebrity cameos for the sake of it, you know they're just making a product, not a movie. The first one is the only one that didn't know it was a joke.

laura2112mo ago

Wait, Anthony_sullivan68, you stop after the second one? I usually bail as soon as the first random pop star shows up.

stella3071mo ago

Yeah, it's like they forgot the sharks were the point. The first one had this weird respect for its own nonsense, like a broken clock being right twice a day. Later, it felt like the writers were just high-fiving each other for every dumb joke they put in, expecting us to laugh at how clever they were for being stupid. That gets old fast.