Snark, Critic and Pop!

There are two kinds of people in the world.  1) Those who cannot fathom spending an hour and a half watching a low-budget movie called 2-Headed Shark Attack.  2)  Cinematic masochists who cannot wait to spend an hour and a half watching a low-budget movie called 2-Headed Shark Attack.   If you’re like me — and I know I am — you just spent 90 of the greatest minutes of your life watching a pre-release copy of 2-Headed Shark Attack (thank you, Asylum!). 

The set-up for Doublemint Jaws munching is a semester on the ocean.  It’s cool Professor Babbish (Charlie O’Connell, appearing mid-way in transformation from brother Jerry O’Connell to pseudo-Kevin Sorbo), his wife/assistant Anne (Carmen Electra), and a very crowded boat full of college students/shark appetizers.  The students are a lively bunch, very compliant at standing two-by-two, an equal distance apart, to allow the 2 headed shark to perform simultaneous chomps to the audience’s delight. 

The cast is full of buxom babes in bikinis, and some hunky dudes for the ladies too.  King of the meatheads is Cole (Geoff Ward), whose vain, macho character is full of great material.  Cole goes from cocky muscle man to cocky coward out to save his own skin at the expense of his friends.

Notable among the students is Hulk Hogan’s daughter, Brooke Hogan, trading in her reality-TV fame for a chance to act.  Brooke is not that good an actress at this point, but there are some even worse than she among the throngs of students (some are better than others). 

The learnin’ must take a break when the boat hits the carcass of one of the 2-headed sharks victims, stopping the motor and creating a very, verrrrry slow leak.  Babbish takes his students to a nearby atoll to continue edumacatin’ the kids there as the crew repairs the boat.  One assumes they are safe there, in no danger atoll.  But wait!  People have lived at the atoll, but their huts are abandoned.  There’s a giant hole in the ground.  It seems some nuclear tests have happened, which would put 2-headed shark in good company as far as mutated beasts caused by nuclear experimentation (Godzilla vs. 2-Headed Shark, anyone?).  To top it all off, the atoll is unstable, and may sink at any moment. 

Say what you will about the premise — pretty perfunctory when pertaining to a picture promising multiple headed sharks — but this may be the first shark and/or sea monster movie not to feature a surf contest the protagonists seek to postpone for fear of monster mayhem, only to have the monster unleash aforementioned mayhem. 

The film is well paced, and with only brief breaks between monster attacks, there’s enough interesting things going on that you never get bored.  

There are sooooo many fantastic scenes and highlights, but two stick out.  One is the 2-Headed Shark’s awesome kill, where it tosses a hapless victim into the air, gets a swimming start, then leaps out of the air to catch the poor sap in mid-air with its dueling jaws of death.  Awesome.  The second (*spoilers!*) features the big kiss between stars Charlie O’Connell and Carmen Electra.  As awesome as it is for Charlie to kiss Carmen, it happens when there’s a tidal wave carrying a 2-headed shark directly in their direction.

2-Headed Shark Attack is at the Redbox on Tuesday, January 31st.  If you like the Asylum’s previous monster movies (Mega Piranha, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, etc.) you’ll love 2-Headed Shark Attack.  If it’s not the best Asylum monster movie, it’s easily the best Asylum monster movie not to feature “Mega” in the title.  This is monster movie awesomeness personified.