Movie Review: Sharktopus vs Whalewolf (2015)

Synopsis: Dr. Elsa Reinhardt seeks to use gene splicing to create the perfect human and thinks she has finally found the ideal subject in baseball player Felix Rosa. However, the experiment, which uses DNA from a wolf and killer whale, instead turns Rosa into a monster. To make matters worse, a sharktopus has arrived in the area and is already killing humans too, leading to a fight between the two hybrids.

Who's in it? The movie stars Casper Van Dien, Catherine Oxenberg, Jennifer Wegner, Akari Endo and Jorge Eduardo de los Santos.

Review: After being horribly disappointed by Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, I wasn't overly anxious to see this third movie in the series. However, my wife wanted to watch a movie last night, I didn't have anything else lined up and didn't want to spend half the evening looking for something, so we gave Sharktopus vs Whalewolf a try. It ended up being exactly what I expected it to be...bad. 

The movie had pretty much the same issue as the first sequel did. The title promises an epic battle between the two monsters, à la King Kong vs. Godzilla. Instead, the film focuses primarily on the human characters with the two monsters having limited interaction with each other. This didn't necessarily need to be a problem, but it wasn't as though there was anything interesting or likable about the humans.

The film also focuses a bit too much on the comedy part of the comedy/horror. Don't get me wrong, movies like this are expected to have some goofiness. It's just not everything needs to be done for comedic effect, especially when people are dying. A great example of what I mean would be any of the Abbott and Costello monster movies. The comedy dual was funny while the plots themselves were still relatively serious. In the case of this movie, the filmmakers completely destroyed any illusion of the monsters being a threat by making them spoofs of themselves.

It also didn't help the movie to have a bunch of unnecessary characters and subplots. The part relating to voodoo, for example, was just dumb and ultimately had very little impact on the overall plot. It maybe would have made a difference had it been the primary storyline, with the sharktopus being controlled by magic from the beginning, but we'll never know.

Final Opinion: I'm not going to lie, the movie did have some funny parts that made us laugh, which is the lone reason it isn't getting a failing grade. However, I was glad this was the last movie in this franchise. Even if I'm mistaken and it isn't, it will be the last one I watch at least.

My Grade: D