Attack of the Bargain Bin Beasts
There are bad movies. There are so-bad-they’re-good movies. And then there’s Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, a film that’s so aggressively stupid it circles back around to being avant-garde. Produced by Roger Corman — the patron saint of cheap monster flicks — and directed by Kevin O’Neill (a man who clearly lost a bet), this sequel to Sharktopus doesn’t just jump the shark; it genetically splices the shark with an octopus, gives it a flying lizard to fight, and calls it cinema.
You have to admire the gall. The movie exists in that magical SyFy Channel space where CGI is optional, dialogue is optional, and physics is a rumor. It’s the kind of film that would play on TV at 2 a.m., where you wake up halfway through, see a flying fish monster attacking Conan O’Brien, and wonder if you’re having a fever dream sponsored by Red Bull.
The Plot (Term Used Loosely)
Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda begins with two things: a dead franchise and a script that was clearly written on a cocktail napkin. Marine biologist Lorena Christmas (Katie Savoy) — yes, her last name is Christmas, because subtlety is dead — discovers an egg sac containing a baby Sharktopus. Instead of destroying it, she apparently decides it’s a good idea to raise it. Because who doesn’t want to nurture a 20-foot killing machine?
Meanwhile, mad scientist Dr. Rico Symes (Robert Carradine, who must’ve lost his agent in a poker game) decides to one-up the military-industrial complex by creating the Pteracuda — part pterodactyl, part barracuda, and 100% made of PlayStation 2 graphics. The Pteracuda is designed for military use, which makes perfect sense if the military’s current enemies are beachfront tiki bars.
Predictably, things go wrong when the creature’s computer chip is hacked by a disgruntled scientist named Vladimir Futon (yes, his name is Futon), who spills his drink on his laptop, crashes his car, and still manages to cause more damage than any actual hacker in history.
From there, it’s a buffet of bad decisions, worse acting, and CGI carnage. The Sharktopus escapes, the Pteracuda flies around like a mechanical chicken nugget, and somewhere in between, Conan O’Brien gets his head bitten off. That’s not a joke. That’s the highlight.
The Monsters: Sharktopus vs. Physics
You’d think the real draw here would be the titular showdown — the ultimate clash between two poorly rendered nightmares. Instead, the monsters spend most of the movie murdering extras who wandered too close to the green screen. When they finally do fight, it looks like someone violently shaking two bath toys in front of a webcam.
The Sharktopus, for his part, has all the personality of wet sushi. The CGI is so unconvincing that it makes Jaws 3D look like Avatar. The Pteracuda, meanwhile, defies logic, gravity, and any known branch of evolutionary science. Its wings flap at Mach 3, its roar sounds like a blender full of gravel, and it attacks everything from helicopters to jet skis like a toddler on a sugar rush.
When they finally meet, their “battle” looks like rejected footage from Finding Nemo — if Finding Nemo had been directed by someone with vertigo and no computer budget.
The Humans: Evolution’s Biggest Oversight
Robert Carradine plays Dr. Rico Symes, the man responsible for creating the Pteracuda. Carradine delivers his lines like a man actively regretting every career choice that led him here. You can almost see the deadness in his eyes as he explains the science of combining prehistoric DNA with fish meat while standing in front of a blinking server that looks suspiciously like a microwave.
Then there’s Lorena Christmas (Katie Savoy), our heroine, who spends most of the movie screaming, running, or explaining obvious things. She’s the kind of scientist who thinks the best way to deal with killer sea monsters is to yell at them. Her boyfriend Rick (Tony Evangelista) tries to help but gets eaten halfway through, proving that the only thing more dangerous than the monsters is dating a marine biologist in a Roger Corman movie.
Rib Hillis plays Hamilton, the macho security expert whose entire character arc consists of taking off his sunglasses, flexing, and occasionally shooting at the ocean. His dialogue could be replaced with grunts and no one would notice.
And let’s not forget the film’s real MVP: Conan O’Brien, making his acting debut as himself. His cameo lasts approximately 45 seconds before he’s decapitated by the Sharktopus. It’s the most emotionally resonant moment in the film, because we all wish we could be put out of our misery that fast.
The Special Effects: A Tragedy in Pixels
Roger Corman is a legend for making movies that cost less than a used Honda, but even by his standards, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda looks like it was rendered on a graphing calculator. The CGI creatures never seem to exist in the same universe as the actors. They float awkwardly on top of the water, casting no shadows, defying depth perception, and occasionally phasing through boats like glitchy Pokémon.
At one point, Pteracuda attacks a helicopter, and the explosion looks like a Windows 95 screensaver got drunk and tried pyrotechnics. The water splashes have the physics of a PowerPoint animation. The blood is a shade of neon red that would make a 7-Eleven Slurpee blush.
Even the sound effects feel borrowed from a carnival haunted house — every roar sounds like a lion gargling a kazoo.
The Dialogue: A Masterclass in Inanity
The script is a beautiful trainwreck of pseudoscience and nonsense. Characters speak in exposition so wooden you could build a dock with it. Gems include:
“We combined the DNA of a barracuda and a pterodactyl — because we could.”
and
“It’s a killing machine designed for modern warfare… in the water… and sometimes the sky.”
At one point, Lorena says, “We need to use Sharktopus to stop the Pteracuda!” which might be the most insane line ever uttered outside of a preschool sandbox.
There’s no subtext, no depth — just people yelling science words at each other until someone gets eaten.
The “Action”: A Symphony of Stupidity
The action sequences are pure SyFy Channel gold: meaningless, weightless, and edited like a fever dream. Sharktopus attacks a beach, Pteracuda blows up a plane, and somehow neither event affects the plot whatsoever.
The creatures occasionally fight, but most of the runtime is devoted to humans driving cars, typing furiously on laptops, and explaining to each other what’s happening while the audience sits there muttering, “None of this makes sense.”
And yet, there’s an undeniable charm to the chaos. It’s as if the filmmakers knew they were making garbage and decided to make it smell like roses anyway. You almost want to stand up and applaud the sheer commitment to nonsense.
The Ending: The Death of Logic
In the grand finale, our heroes lure both monsters with a disco ball. Yes, really. The plan works about as well as you’d expect — Sharktopus and Pteracuda fight, explode, and somehow both die (or do they?). The final shot is a close-up of Sharktopus lunging at the camera, a blatant plea for yet another sequel that no one asked for but everyone knew was coming.
Spoiler: it did come. Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf. Humanity truly has no limits.
Final Verdict
★☆☆☆☆ — One severed Conan O’Brien head out of five.
Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda is cinematic junk food — greasy, empty, and guaranteed to give you mental indigestion. It’s loud, dumb, and proudly self-aware, like a drunk uncle at a family barbecue who insists he once fought a shark with his bare hands.
Still, there’s a twisted beauty to its badness. It’s a movie that winks at you through its own incompetence, a fever dream of terrible CGI and worse dialogue that somehow manages to entertain through sheer audacity.
It’s not good. It’s not even funny good. But it exists. And in a world where Sharktopus can fight Pteracuda, maybe that’s the closest thing we’ll ever get to a miracle.
