Long before the initial airing of Sharknado became a cultural watershed moment on SyFy, the template of the “shark movie” was already well established as representing the bottom of the barrel when it comes to bad movies. Ever since the low-budget rip-offs of Jaws that proliferated in the 1980s, shark films have always maintained perhaps the lowest average level of quality of all monster movies—something that makes them both endearing and ripe for occasional parody.
We can’t quite call Sky Sharks parody, but it does look memorably bad. This is as clear a case of gimmick infringement as I’ve seen in a while, as the writer here has borrowed heavily from both Sharknado and the Iron Sky series of Nazi action movies, fusing them into a single entity where Nazi sharks prowl the skies. Naturally, you have the one obligatory familiar face for genre geeks, this time in the form of Candyman Tony Todd as what appears to be the U.S. President. Just check out the synopsis on this bad boy:
Deep in the ice of the Antarctic, a team of geologists uncover an old Nazi laboratory still intact where dark experiments had occurred. In order to conquer the world, the Nazis created modified sharks who were able to fly and whose riders are genetically mutated, undead super-humans. A military task force called “Dead Flesh Four” – reanimated US soldiers who fell in Vietnam – is put together to prevent world downfall.
Judging from the number of spelling errors I just corrected in that synopsis (it was more than you’d think), you know you’re in for a good time here, right? Although in all fairness, the CGI on display in the trailer below actually looks far better than the likes of what one sees in a typical B-movie from The Asylum. Perhaps Sky Sharks can rise above its creatively bankrupt premise to be fun in its own right? Yeah, and maybe sharks will literally start flying.
Sky Sharks hits VOD everywhere today, Feb. 2, 2021. Check out the full trailer below.