Perhaps I have been hoodwinked. Mega Piranha resparked my love of shonky B Movies like the adrenalin shot Vincent Vega gave Mia Wallace, and I immediately sought other examples.

I unfortunately forgot that adrenalin shots are not Plan A, B or C, but to paraphrase Earl Bassett in Tremors "something you do when a plan fails".

How's that I just referenced two 10 out of 10 movies to help me describe a 4 / 10 crapfest!

As good as Mega Piranha was in being enjoyably terrible Sharktopus is at being normally terrible – and the truth is both beasts (films) are only 5% different.

Sharktopus is an army funded genetically engineered amalgam of shark and octopus – if you couldn't have worked that out for yourself. It seems a little unfair to give the most efficient and dangerous underwater predator an eight leg up but they did it anyway.

(One thing I can't deny is that it would actually be a way more efficient predator given 8 legs!)

The sharktopus has a large helmet strapped to it that conveys electrical impulses sent by its scientist creators, this keeps it on the straight and narrow. Calamari control if you will.

No prizes for guessing what happens to the helmet?

...

Once free of control Sharktopus heads down the coast for some sun, surf and supper. Using the new octopian improvements and its sheer sharkiness – they can make up words so can I – it wreaks havoc on dozens of bikini clad terrible actors all the way to Mexico.

Back in the lab lead scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts – he should ask his sister for some money and avoid these films) knows the risks and sends two more over-actors to recapture the beast… in some sort of seafood basket I would expect.

The pair are his daughter Nicole (who does little but tap away at a laptop and look worried) and a staff member he fired named Andy (who also seems terribly ill-equipped for the job).

Various kooky cats get involved including a hungry reporter and her reluctant cameraman, a crazy local drunk and dozens of dozens of middling bikini chicks. One thing I will say is that for a TV movie there was much cleavage and flesh on display – all PG stuff I assure you – none of it is A-for-Alba Grade but I appreciate the effort and acknowledgment of the inevitable viewing audience, it sure wasn't my wife who put Sharktopus on the DVD pile.

Anyway the entire movie should revolve around the beast so let's expand on Sharktopus. Aside from the afore mentioned enhancements the tentacles mean that ol' Sharkey can now walk on land – funny I never saw an octopus do that – it is obviously a cheap FX job and when walking looks like an overly elaborate hood ornament.

The CGI is also distracting in that it pops out of the screen rather than blending in, meaning it is hard to take the shark/octopus hybrid seriously… did I just really write that?

Let's put a bow on this sucker: While the CGI is better than Mega-Piranha it lacks the same clumsy charm, everything here comes off as calculated and try hard where the giant exploding fish film was cheese personified.

All the deaths are the same:

Bikini clad bad actor (BCBA) noticing,

BCBA wondering,

BCBA looks surprised (and often slightly in the wrong direction),

Tentacles appear.

Dead.

Final Rating – 4 / 10. As a guy I appreciate the inclusion of some T&A, even in the form of average women in bikinis and zero nudity. But it's the other T&A that better describes Sharktopus: Tedious & Amateurish.

This is no Mega Piranha, when given the choice I can't impress just how much better that is than this film. Where Mega Piranha was ridiculously terrible, this is just terrible.

With a title like "Sharktopus", you already know what you are in for. And this movie was right on the money, oh boy, was it ever.

The story is very standard for a movie of this type. Some scientists have been altering and tinkering with nature to creature some abominable creature; enter Sharktopus. And of course the creature somehow manages to escape the shackles of its creator and wreak havoc on the world. The good guys are called in to save the day. And that is basically the story of "Sharktopus", a story seen endless times before in similar monster movies.

The effects in the movie, well they were raising mixed emotions. On one hand they were good enough and looked fine enough at certain points throughout the movie, but then on the other hand, there were a bunch of scenes that were just toe-curling-fake and you just went "oh no they didn't" when you see it.

There are also a lot of scenes in the movie that just makes you laugh, because they are so cheesy and campy. A scene where there are two men sitting on the side of a ship, one guy gets killed before the eyes of the other, and when the remaining guy gets taken he says, and I kid you not, "Oh no! Not like this!". Wow, who says something like that at the time of their untimely demise? Or an unforgettable scene like where Andy Flynn was shooting at Sharktopus at close range, and yet he magically managed to miss with almost every single shot. That was priceless. I could go on listing ridiculous scenes like these, but you are better off watching them yourselves, trust me. You will be laughing hard.

There is a lot of scenes that were entirely unnecessary for the movie, scenes that were basically just showing off Sharktopus killing people and such. Sure, they were fun to watch, some even absurd because of the reactions of people in the movie, but they weren't really important to the storyline.

The cast in "Sharktopus" was good enough for the type of movie it is. Don't except major award-winning performances, of course. Most memorable in the movie is Eric Roberts (playing Nathan Sands) and Sara Malakul Lane (playing Nichole Sands). There were lots of characters introduced in the movie, lots of them just being fillers.

One thing does leave you to wonder. Sharktopus is half shark and half octopus, alright. It is shark from the head to mid-body, then tentacles on the last half of the body. Sure, fair enough so far. But it swam like a shark, as dexterous and in the same manner as a shark. Now, having tentacles on the lower half of the body, wouldn't that actually make the creature move about like an octopus, swimming in jerk-like movement spurts? Am I the only one to wonder about this? Also, how was the creature able to support itself on dry land? How did it manage to breath out of the water, and how could it be so nimble and dexterous when out of its natural element? Questions, questions, questions...

I went into this movie with very little expectation, based on the movie's name alone. I was surprised at the overall production of the movie, however, because it could have been a lot worse that it actually was. Some scenes were really working well, and some of the effect scenes were great as well. But overall, then "Sharktopus" is just another of those b-movies about a monstrous creature on a rampage.

Actually "Sharktopus" provides good entertainment for the entire length of the feature, just go into the movie light-hearted and with the acceptance of this being just yet another b-movie to make it out to the DVD market right away.

In general, I don't enjoy these Syfy productions, and this is no exception. However, while it is pretty bad, it is far from the worst they've done and there was a kind of novelty value to it, mostly because a vast majority of it is really quite bad. There were a few things I did like about it though, Roger Corman's cameo is very goofy but hilarious and there is one good attack scene, the bungee chomp one which is overall one of the better scenes of that kind in any Syfy movie. Also I loved the title, cheesy in a way but it was a title that pretty much told us what the movie set out to do. Also some of the locations are quite nice. On the other hand, Eric Roberts goes through the motions in his role, and most of the other acting doesn't fare much better. I don't think though it helped that the characters are little more than bland stereotypes. The script is also very weak, the story predictable and the direction never rising above risible. The film's score is hackneyed and overall forgettable as well, and while the effects are less crude than you would expect there are some scenes where especially with the tentacles where they come across as fake and in a toe-curlingly bad way. All in all, it is a bad movie, but while it is laughable mostly I saw it as a kind of fun guilty pleasure sort of movie. 4.5/10 Bethany Cox