Monsternado (2023)

Streaming Service: Amazon Prime Video
Movie Name/Year: Monsternado (2023)
Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Length:  1h 21min
Rating: Unrated
Director: Tyler-James
Writer: Derek Miller
Actors: Derek Miller, Chloe Karr, Graham Miller, Jase Rivers, May Kelly, Lila Lasso, Michael S. Siegel, Danielle Scott, Nick Adamson, Hannah Pauley, Daniel Subin, Adam Rojko Vega,  Charlie Kemp

IMDb Blurb: A tornado, infested with prehistoric monsters, has formed in the Bermuda Triangle, and is making its way towards land. Now the city must fight to survive against these deadly creatures.

Selina’s Point of View:
It’s been a while since we’ve done a low-budget horror flick like this, but when Cat told me she came across a movie called Monsternado on Amazon Prime, you know I had to dust off my B-movie-loving heart and throw it on.

Anyone following the blog for a while knows that I very much enjoyed the Sharknado (2013-2017) films and the intertwined Lavalantula (2015-2016) tie-in flicks.  Clearly, Monsternado paid as much homage to those as it did with a few other movies, such as Robocop (1987), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and Anaconda (1997). I imagine there were more, but on a single watch-through that’s what I caught.

Movies like this need to be judged by a different standard. No one needs to compare Monsternado to classics like Bride of Frankenstein (1935) or more modern monster favorites such as A Quiet Place (2018). That’s like bringing a rubber chicken to a knife fight. Something like Monsternado needs to be judged against flicks like The VelociPastor (2018) and Zoombies (2015).

As far as that goes, Monsternado was fun. It had pop culture references that made me giggle, wacky acting that made me face-palm, and plenty of badly rendered monsters. All of which is exactly what I would expect from a movie like this.

The problem came when it took itself too seriously.

There was a trafficker storyline was way out of place, especially near the conclusion of it, and a few moments where the levity was replaced by an odd attempt at actual drama. When it was just a bunch of actors having fun, though, it was cute.

It’s not something I’d watch to take my mind of the day, but I would throw it on with a few drunk friends during Halloween. 

Cat’s Point of View:
When I was browsing through movies on Prime Video, I couldn’t help but notice the new offering of Monsternado. Of course, we’re huge fans of the Sharknado franchise. I was hoping that this new movie would follow suit and lean in so that it fell into the “so bad it’s good” if not at least decent category.

Unfortunately, much like a puzzle bought at a garage sale – the pieces here just didn’t fit together, and it seemed like there were extra bits just thrown in because they were roughly the same size.

There were several things that just yanked me right out of the vibe of Monsternado. The first was the distracting disconnect between the setting the production team was clearly going for with the story, and the obvious shooting location. I get it that shoestring budgets don’t allow for much in the way of effects or props, perhaps, to create the illusion of taking place somewhere other than where the filming is happening. There are ways around that, however. Different camera angles or even simply temporarily hanging a canvas your art department just whipped together could easily have masked the issues here.

Why am I irked? This felt lazy or haphazard. The film was clearly shot in London, but was pretending that it was in the United States somewhere. Major London, UK landmarks were plainly visible outside of office windows, they made no attempt to mask that the vehicles had steering on the opposite side of US cars, and there was even a sign inside a building that flat out said London. I might have been able to overlook the cars if the freaking Gherkin building (you know, the one shaped like a giant Fabergé egg) wasn’t visible from the window. They could have at least just put up some paper blinds.

Don’t even get me started on the actual “nado.” It looked like the effects were swiped from the Sharknado movies and then they just threw an octopus in the spinning mix just so they could say “no, no, this is different, see?!” I really found it hard to buy it. The waterspouts were clearly 99% sharks. I felt let down that the movie had promised ancient monsters and failed to deliver on any rudimentary level outside of the weird giant bugs and the flying dinosaurs. The poster lied. I wanted my T-Rex.

Further, I get that it’s plausible for weird things to get spawned from the Bermuda Triangle, but the technobabble that the scientist in this film was, indeed, babbling about just made no sense and was clearly something made up to sound smart.

Sharknado and its sequels that followed captured lightning in a bottle. They had several factors working together that, while absolutely ludicrous, still made the whole thing work as an entertaining experience. Sharknado never took itself too seriously. They seemed to anticipate what the silliest idea would be for the story and then went after making it happen. They also grabbed a few familiar faces to pad out the cast. The sequels were fun for the quirky cameos, but the first movie was able to stand alone with its cheesy plot and clever crafting.

Monsternado, which released a decade after the first shark-storm offering, clearly tried to make a grab for the creature feature niche that was carved out by its predecessor, but failed to take into consideration the elements that made the trailblazer successful.

The movie took itself too seriously and lacked the levity and enjoyability that its template had.
Unfortunately, rather than laughing I was groaning and regretting the loss of my time. But hey, we watched it so others don’t have to. 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score –33%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 2.6 /10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2.5/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 1.5/5

Trust the Dice: Parental Advisory Rating - R

Movie Trailer: