With this being 4th of July week and all the tar balls from the BP spill scaring people away from the beaches, I thought I would spend the week covering other reasons to scare you away from the beaches. This is Shark week. Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus is currently available on instant Netflix.

AVOID: Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus (2009) – Rated R for some language.

“After a series of mysterious disasters occurs in the Pacific, from the disappearance of a plane to the destruction of an oil rig, a group of scientists discovers that a secret military mission has unearthed a prehistoric shark and a giant octopus. When the government learns of the existence of the menacing beasts, the team of scientists is tasked with formulating a plan to destroy the phenomenal creatures. Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah Gibson star.”

“Listen screw these environmentalists. When I give the order, shoot to kill.”

Well each film during Shark week upped the ante. I started with the classic Jaws. Jaws 2 gave us a bigger body count. Jaws 3 gave us a larger shark. Jaws 4 gave us a shark after revenge! I would have loved to end this week with Deep Blue Sea (super intelligent sharks). Sadly it is not available on instant Netflix.

Instead I up the ante with Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. This is presumably the limit until we get space sharks that swallow planets. When the first words that appear on screen are “The Asylum Presents”, discerning watchers turn off the TV (alternately they run screaming from the theater).

If you have watched a movie on Syfy (ugh) that you thought had a decent B premise and it turned out that it was so awful as to be unwatchable, the chances are that it was made by The Asylum. Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus – dumbed down title, fun idea.

The film does begin with some lovely tracking shots over icy mountains and stock sea shots that are clearly taken somewhere much more tropical. We then see Emma (Deborah Gibson aka Debbie Gibson) piloting a minisub. Her nails are uncolored when we see her but when her hands are in closeup they are covered in black nail polish.

So two goofy errors in as many minutes. Also the Alaskan glaciers look wonderful but apparently Asylum did not want to spring for stock shots of ice calving so they stick in a terrible CGI scene of it. Bleh!

At what point Emma (Debbie) asks, “What did I miss?” to which an assistant replies “any kind of career advancement”. Later Lorenzo Lamas also gets to poke fun at the pop career of Debbie Gibson. These bright spots illuminate an otherwise deeply stupid script.

Writer/director Jack Perez must have realized how bad his film was as both his directorial and script credits are listed as “Ace Hannah”. This does not excuse such incredibly lazy plotting that scenes happen without rhyme, reason or even relation to other scenes.

The most hysterical scene occurs at the 18 minute mark when Megalodon (Mega Shark for those who prefer things dumbed down) takes out an airliner in midflight. It is pretty funny but seriously why? Sharks can jump out of the water and I can rationalize Megalodon leaping farther out of the water than a shark but why is the airliner flying that low to the ocean?

Anyway the laughable leaps in logic naturally get worse as the film progresses. The egregious error rate remains more of a constant but they pile up as the literacy of the script plumbs the depths. Just as the scenes often have no relation to each other, many of the lines of dialogue do not seem to relate to each other.

The acting is terrible but it would be hard to act well given the awfulness of the script. I am not sure what actors it would take to make this travesty watchable.

Hint to Asylum: since most of your films take place in the modern era and many involve armed people, try investing in a few real guns and dispose of the plastic $1.98 props.

In spite of the dreadful dialogue, plotting, sets, and acting, this still could have been fun if some love had been lavished on the special effects. Sadly while Ray Harryhausen would work over a year just on the special effects for many of his films, the CGI here looks like it was the first pass done in a few hours.

Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus is horrendously bad but not the enjoyable kind of bad. Avoid!

People Watch: In the tradition of far better directors, Jack Perez cameos as an Oil Rig Supervisor.