31 Days of Halloween - Megashark Vs Giant Octopus (2009)

A film by The Asylum is not exactly a sign of quality. It's usually a sign of a low-budget, bad effects, terrible acting, has-been stars (usually b-level to start with), laughable stories (often ripping off some current blockbuster); essentially, a film that inspires derision.

Does this hold true for Megashark Vs Giant Octopus? Let's find out.

Synopsis

We start in Alaska, where the Navy is testing a new sonar system. Emma (Debbie Gibson, looking hotter than she did back in the Eighties) is an oceanographer and mini-sub pilot who's in the area researching whale migration. The sonar test releases an enormous shark and octopus from a glacier. The two behemoths head off into the Pacific ocean, attacking oil platforms, ships, even an airliner (a jumping shark, of course). Emma finds a giant shark tooth in a dead whale and takes it to her mentor Lamar Sanders (Sean Lawlor). After the tooth is identified as belonging to a Megalodon, a Japanese scientist Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao) is brought in. He has been investigating an attack on an oil rig by the octopus.

While the science trio looks into the available evidence, the US military tries to kill the shark, to no avail. Shady military/government figure - and scenery chewing stereotype of a hard-assed, racist, macho jerk - Allan Baxter (Lorenzo Lamas) has the science trio picked up and brigs them into his operation to kill the monsters. The science team convinces Baxter to allow them to try and capture the creatures, luring the shark into San Francisco Bay, the octopus into Tokyo Bay, where they cane be contained. This plan, predictably, fails, with both monsters escaping and heading out to sea, although not before the shark bites the Golden Gate Bridge in half.

With the military thinking of resorting to nukes, Emma suggests that they lure the two creatures into the same location and let them fight. Hey...is this Godzilla 2014? Anyway, after some CG fighting and a lot of padding, the two creatures kill each other. Emma and Seiji hook up and the film ends with our heroes heading off to the North Sea to check out a massive biological organism (Gorgo?). The end.

Analysis

As a goofy homage to Fifties giant monster films, MSvsGO kind of works. Sure, the acting isn't that good, although Gibson, Lawlor and Chao are okay. All the characters are Fifties archetypes: the plucky girl scientist, the older mentor/father figure, the jut jawed military guy, the scientist action hero/love interest. The dialogue is a mishmash of cliches and pseudo-profundities. The CG is primitive and there aren't enough monster shots. This is a movie that needed more gonzo moments like the shark taking out an airliner. The worst thing about the film, however, is that it drags. There are too many scenes of people standing around talking and the final underwater chase, in which the shark is after a sub carrying our heroes, seems to go on forever. It comes across as blatant padding. Oh, and is a reoccurring visual affectation, in which the images turns black and white for a few frames, for no apparent reason. A hint to filmmakers; if you want to visually tweak you footage, have a reason for it. Do not do it just because your video editing software has a "neat" filter you want to try.

What saves the film is just how innocuous it is. It doesn't try to be more than a silly monster movie. If you saw it in black and white and replaced the CG with stop motion, you'd have a film that was pretty close in tone to movies like Them or The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (although these are both superior films in all respects). This is a harmless time-waster and is more entertaining than not. Worth checking out as long as you aren't expecting too much.

In the manner of low-budget B-movies of the Fifties, the best scenes on shown in the trailer.