Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

Written and directed by Ace Hannah
Featuring Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, Vic Chao, Mark Hengst, and Stephen Blackehart
2009 The Asylum

I don’t care what anyone says; Megashark vs. Giant Octopus is the best movie ever. Ever. Not only does it star 80’s teen pop sensation Deborah “Debbie” Gibson and rugged greasy heartthrob Lorenzo Lamas, it features Scary Stud of the month Mark Hengst and cutie pie Stephen Blackehart. But not only that – it’s about a giant octopus versus a mega shark. If you understand everything I just wrote I don’t know how you could argue with me...

Take into consideration also that you get to see a giant computer shark jump out of the ocean and catch an airplane in its jaws! Aforementioned shark also bites in half the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (I hate San Francisco!) The Octopus does stuff too, like destroy submarines and have big eyes. There’s also interracial love, science-y talk, and lots of flashing red lights. This is the perfect movie.

Are you seriously going to deny that this is the best picture of anything ever?

Debbie Gibson is Emma McNeil, a hot-shot maverick submarine driver who plays by her own rules. Lamar Sanders is her Irish mentor; he’s taught her everything she knows about submarines and underwater stuff. One day they’re submarining near the Arctic when a military helicopter drops sonar bombs for no reason at all into the icy water, causing a huge glacier to melt and release the giant frozen octopus and mega shark that were frozen, alive, for millions of years, locked in a death grip. They immediately wake up and swim off into the ocean to wreak havoc.

Locked in an icy death crip, millenia untold, they are miraculously alive after being frozen to death!

Emma heads home to meet up with a Japanese sharkologist named Seiji, who thinks he can help them find a way to trap and study the giant creatures. Unfortunately, the creatures keep causing trouble! The shark nabs an airplane out of the sky; the Octopus sinks a sub or two, and the army knows its time to call in the experts: Emma and Lamar! Kidnapped from Lamar’s home in the middle of the night by guys in military garb, Emma, Lamar, and Seiji are brought to a slicked-back Lorenzo Lamas, who is supposed to be head of some kind of military operation. Because they let you have greasy long ponytails and dress like you’re in the mafia when you work for the military. I don’t know! But it’s obvious Lamas knows this is a steaming pile and loves every minute of it. He’s sappy, cheesy, and doesn’t miss an opportunity to overact. The army makes a deal with the group: if they can find a way to trap the giant sea beasts on a reef/shelf thing underwater, they won’t kill the creatures.

Lorenzo Lamas ponders octopi, while Emma (Deborah Gibson) stares at his hair

The gang goes to work in a laboratory, mixing what looks like different colors of Kool-Aid together in tests tubes for hours and hours (somehow, that’s going to lead them to an answer). But it also leads Emma and Seiji into a tender moment of interracial janitor’s closet sex. After a tussle in the closet, the two return to the lab and have much better luck coming up with a glow-in-the-dark Kool-Aid flavored like shark hormones! Using the glowing goop as ‘bait’ they will lure the giant beasts to opposite reefs for study.

Sex + Kool-Aid = Reanimator Serum, Yay Team!

Unfortunately, this is a sci-fi movie about giant sea creatures, so all doesn’t go as Emma planned! When its clear that the beasts cannot be baited and that submarines can only be driven through crevices with lots of people freaking out and saying "You’re trying to kill us all!”,

"You’re trying to kill us all!”

Emma has a great idea: let the monsters kill themselves. In a tragically and poetically silly ending, everyone watches as the two monsters engage in epic battle under the water. The primordial urges to destroy one another are stronger than their will to survive; they are monstrous beasts of both beauty and awe that we should honor and feel humbled by as they latch on to one another and, God-like, hurl each other through water and rip off each other’s tentacles and fins. Or something like that.

Locked in a deathgrip, for millenia untold, they rip off each other's tentacles and fins

Anyway they die.

And Emma has a new boyfriend! Seiji!

"Megashark? yeah, I was in that, too"

Mark Hengst, handsome comedian and actor, plays a jerk wad named Dick Richie who harasses poor Emma when she first attempts to study the un-melted creatures. He’s some kind of police officer/coast guard/who knows, but boy, is he handsome!

Mark Hengst is the fabu Dick Richie

And Stephen Blackehart, whom you may remember from Rock and Roll Vampire (un)fame, plays the US Sub sonar chief! Kudos, hot Stephen!

Stephen Blackehart doing sonar things!

What’s overwhelmingly fun about Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus is that it knows its silly – the actors know its silly, and they seem to be having a good time. It’s not anymore silly than say, Transformers, but unlike Michael Bay and Hollywood, Asylum doesn’t insult its audience by pretending something is Shakespeare when its not. Their upfront titles and candid storylines reveal their desire to make a few bucks off of big budget disaster pictures, but don’t mind mocking the establishment for the entertainment value of the viewer. You can’t get that kind of treatment in Hollywood. Nor can you see Debbie Gibson in Hollywood. Gibson just earned ten thousand respect points for doing this movie; what a good sport!

Rating: (5 out of 5):