Dir: Sam Qualiana
Release Date: 2018
“In the post-apocalyptic future, the world is at war. The newly instated Soviet Russian Army has invaded the USA with the assistance of an evil German scientist who has created an army of superhuman soldiers, half-man and half-shark.”
Similar to my Llamageddon review, if you are going into this expecting anything remotely approaching a good movie, you are entirely to blame for your own, inevitable, disappointment. If you hit play, fully expecting a piece of low budget shit with terrible acting, childish dialogue, awful special effects and an extra helping of stupidity, then sit back and try to enjoy the show.
The opening credits give me hopes as they promise me Debbie Rochon of Troma fame and more besides. I have had a crush on Debbie Rochon for many years so this was an absolute bonus as I didn’t know she was in this and viewed on title alone. As expected, Debbie is the best thing in this film but, I digress. Let me get you up to speed on the plot……
We start with the News telling us of a huge war and some shit about defence. We are then treated to our first piece of outrageous overacting from 2 scientists who are just laughing maniacally at a tiny rubber shark toy. One of these scientists (character name Siegfried Schroder) turns out to be the writer and director of the film, Sam Qualiana. They give us an attempt at the 1931 Frankenstein quote of, “It’s aliiiiive”, which we actually sample in our podcasts intro, and they add more crazed laughter.
Turns out it is actually just a man wearing a totally shit papier-mâché shark mask with the fin on the top.
Way to go, science.
Even the President isn’t safe. He gets attacked mid speech by one of these shark commandos who I assume gets past security because he is wearing a Visitor pass.
Name: Keith Chomper. Date 5/12.
The President dies from his wounds. A sad day indeed.
Buck Morgan (another Qualiana) gets an intro as a Militia leader who, after leading his entire platoon to death, solo charges in slo-mo while a Commando Shark talks shit.
“America will triumph!”, Buck cries with his band of Southern looking survivalists. Pretty much all of the American characters in this are stereotypes and ridiculous while all of the Russians who aren’t shark heads are wearing the furry hat and Soviet badge and we are treated to some awful CGI gunfire.
Buck is killed and we meet Marty Warbuck who is an idiot mechanic in a Stars and Stripes bandana and also one of the Qualiana family. He is enlisted by another fat guy called Dante Buchanan and he also shouts “Chaaaaaarge!” as his platoon is wiped out by 2 guys in furry hats and a shark head idiot walking slowly towards them.
Meatball is a very fat guy dressed up as a soldier – he is down with fake intestines all over the place, he suggests he needs only some Duct Tape to sort himself out. A female character is also shot down. Some ducks run away suggesting it is just taking place in their local park and The Last Post is played while Meatball has his intestines pulled out even further. Marty Warbuck somehow survives.
We meet some overacting American scientist now and he is pretty much the most annoying character in the whole thing which is pretty impressive to be honest. He looks kind of like Kevin James and he explains how he has failed to create his own super soldier but has somehow managed to make his St. Bernard dog, Bruno, talk. It’s not funny and it will be back later to still be unfunny.
We finally get Debbie Rochon (it’s actually only 14 minutes in but it seems like a lifetime) as a Sergeant who is chewing up the scenery (also just the same park I think) but she at least gives us some amusing dialogue. This dialogue proves to be comedic genius compared to the next scene which finds some civilians drinking beer in their yard around a fire and talking about politics, throwing in some jingoistic xenophobia and sexism. Thankfully this is all cut short by a Commando Shark turning up, biting the head off the main idiot and attacking the others until Marty Warbuck turns up and shoots it dead.
“Did you shit yourself?”, the girlfriend asks,
“I suppose I did. God bless America”, is the response of the boyfriend. End of scene.
Dante Buchanan has been tied to a chair with what appear to be Christmas tree lights and is being questioned about the location of the Resistance HQ with the threat of a truth serum. In fairness, he resists pretty well apart from revealing his favourite colour, until he is simply asked for directions to get there and he can’t help himself. He is then killed by a bite to the head from a Commando Shark.
For those completists, Dante Buchanan’s favourite colour is green.
“Russian Soldier Number 1, come in”, says a Commando Shark on the radio much to the annoyance of Russian Soldier Number 2 who questions why he is disrespectfully not using their names. After explaining that they are all expendable (aren’t we all?), he kills him and we head back to Marty Warbuck making his way to the Resistance HQ and some captioned characters including the gorgeous Debbie Rochon. We meet Captain Bubba Dick Henry who misses all you can eat pancakes, General William Spark who claims never to have smiled in his life as he’s been too busy defending America (I’ll admit, I liked that one) and Sergeant Diane Packert (beautiful Debbie) who claims she is single, likes trying new things, likes bowling, movies, live bands, traveling and dogs. She also has a Troma mug with her coffee in. To be honest, if she didn’t get killed in the next couple of minutes, I’d have looked her up. Turns out Marty’s intel is bullshit they already knew so the whole thing (apart from Ms Rochon) is pointless though he is offered a gift bag on his way out.
The Russians arrive at the HQ and just walk straight in and stand in front of them unnoticed. When pressed, the General grabs an almighty Stars and Stripes bomb (similar to Wile E. Coyote in style) but fails to throw it in time before being shot dead. This bomb blows all 3 of the previously captioned characters to death. Poor old Debbie Rochon. The Russians then shoot everyone in a CGI nightmare before some terrible shark related one-liners and they leave.
More captions for yet more pointless characters :-
Rollo ‘Patch’ Kennedy: Lost an eye in a lawn dart accident. Tough as nails, slow as molasses.
Barry Marbles: Known for his legendary stupidity. Makes up for his lack of smarts with the ability to make the best omelette in free New York.
Frank Vargas: Sharks cut out his tongue as a POW on Staten Island. Not said much since.
These fools are all playing cards when Meatball arrives (I think it is him anyway though he looks different) still looking for Duct tape for his still visible intestines. He heads into another room to find some while some Russians and a shark enter and kill all 3 of the newly introduced characters only for Meatball to re-enter the room (all covered in Duct tape), sees the carnage and vomits all over Patch’s face. He then tries some comedy by adding, “I’m sorry. You’d think I’d have heard all this happening from the other room.”
Seeing as this is directed at us and he can’t hear us shout, “Shut up!”, he then just shrugs and leaves as the scene ends.
An old Radio broadcasts the last scene to some old Irish guy called Nelson, Marty Warbuck and some idiot from earlier called Alfonso but adds that their secret hideout in Niagra Falls is still safe and gives the exact location in yet another attempt at humour by saying that Russians won’t be listening to their radio broadcasts. It’s not funny and it takes too long which has been established by now as a common theme in this film.
Another case in point is ‘Jimmy’s End of the World BBQ Bash!’, which takes place next and introduces us to yet another list of pointless but mercifully brief characters. We meet Stacey, a sexy but drunk neighbour who is trying to flirt with Jimmy, we meet some gay neighbour and there is an insanely drunk guy spinning around in the background along with a girl pushing a pram who keeps wandering into shot. Thankfully, the Russians and a Commando Shark turn up, burn Jimmy’s face on the barbecue and kills him. When a Russian questions the shark and insists these are civilians, the shark nonsensically replies, “Let me ‘school’ you in ‘fin’ dining, comrade, white meat is ‘jawsome’”, and kills them all. Awful effects again.
‘Somewhere in Siberia’, is the caption we are shown at this point and we learn that North Korea are bombing the Russians. This is both a rubbish CGI effect and a totally pointless newsflash as we never hear of it again. We meet Wolfgang Sokolov who is the leader of the Soviet Army and he is not best pleased when he hears about the commando sharks killing civilians. He even states, “When I dropped the nuclear bomb, it wasn’t to hurt civilians”, to prove he means it.
He’s going to put a stop to it.
As warned, we get more of the idiot US scientist and his talking dog, Bruno now and he is still failing in his quest to create a super soldier. Bruno suggests that instead of testing on animals, he test on humans. This is now the plan. I really have saved you a lot of excruciating dialogue there by cutting that scene so short. Shame they didn’t do the same for me. Some more pointless scenes recreating the same shit to pad the time out and then Wolfgang arrives in America to have it out with head scientist, Siegfried Schroder.
After some more overacting, Schroder injects Wolfgang with the serum which will turn him into a commando shark after a period of time. All of them are apparently controlled by Schroder himself and HE is the real mastermind behind it all.
I’ve honestly never cared less about a plot revelation in my life.
The US scientist picks up some homeless guy so he can experiment on him and turn him into a super human were-dog for some reason as if they are the natural enemies of sharks.
He injects him and the idiot barks.
Wolfgang releases a video to the media where he restates everything he has already said in his previous two scenes for some reason and goes over the whole plot again. Siegfried Schroder and his assistant scientist are indulging in some maniacal laughter again and rightfully so because they have created the worst CGI since Sharkenstein in their new project; GARGANTUA-SHARK! An awful looking thing green screened on to tower over people running and looking scared.
We head back to the annoying barking homeless guy with the US scientist while Bruno throws another suggestion of just using shark repellent. Naturally, they have some and, when they are attacked by Russians and Commando sharks, he uses it to spray in the shark’s face then shoots him dead.
Kind of odd they need any kind of repellent if they can just shoot them dead in the first place but I’m not gonna start questioning this film now, I just want it to be over.
Bruno is licking up a growth steroid which got spilled during the melee and we leave this scene behind.
We get a montage of Russian soldiers turning on and killing the commando sharks and vice versa (not the 1988 Judge Reinhold/Fred Savage movie) while Wolfgang has finally turned into a commando shark himself.
There is a final battle scene reminiscent of such recent battles as, say, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, even Gladiator.
Actually, every film that has a battle scene is better than this one. They have to be because this one is so shit it nearly made me kill myself.
There are about 8 fearless warriors on each side of a small patch of dirt in their local park and a car with the corresponding flag on it so we know who is who. There is a guy with bagpipes and a sword on the side of the USA which is odd but this doesn’t save the shocking impact of this shit. Awful CGI gunfight and the Russians all say sorry. Gargantua-shark appears and kind of just roars a bit because it isn’t really there so has no way to influence the scene. The American scientist turns up with a shrink ray, and, after somehow making me hate him more than ever before, he shrinks Gargantua-shark back down to a small toy and stamps on it. We get another gunfight which is terrible and then an even more terrible CGI chopper appears carrying Wolfgang Sokolov the commando shark who bites and kills Siegfried Schroder while he engages the killswitch.
They both die. Good.
Super-size Bruno appears in another shit green screen scene and the USA national anthem plays until the inevitable last effort at humour with ‘Fin’ caption and the end credits roll. These are interrupted by an extra scene of an egg carton spaceship and some painted eggs with animated mouths discussing invading Earth on behalf of their Egg Overlord.
They spell possess incorrectly during this with a singular ‘s’ on the end of the word which really was the end for me and I smashed my tv to pieces.
With my own face.
This film is massively awful from start to finish and I hope, even if this took some time to read, you can begin to appreciate what I go through on your behalf so you don’t waste even longer in watching these kind of films.
I’m now dead and I’m better off this way.
A total shambles. Avoid or catch it now on Amazon Prime. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
FAVOURITE CHARACTER: Debbie Rochon
FAVOURITE MOMENT: Debbie Rochon
FAVOURITE LINE: Debbie Rochon
FAVOURITE DEATH: Debbie Rochon