Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens

After watching Sharknado 3: The 4th Awakens, I’ve about hit my limit with cheesy shark movies, or cheesy movies in general. Almost. There’s at least a few scenes that save the movie so I will continue my quest to get through this franchise.

<img src="Sharknado4.jpg" alt="Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens.">

Photo Credit: The Asylum

Released: Jul 31, 2016

Runtime: 95 mins

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

Writer: Thunder Levin

Actors: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Masiela Lusha

PLOT

It wouldn't be Texas without a chainsaw massacre.--Stretch

The world has been sharknado free for 5 years. Suddenly the sharks are back in unexpected ways. Only Fin and his family can save the day…again.

MY THOUGHTS

I'm gonna get you, Fin Shepard, and your little chainsaw, too.--Mayor Mansfield

In this 4th installment of the Sharknado franchise, they start off in Las Vegas, and travel through Texas, Kansas, and end up in Niagara Falls! As usual, there’s a lot of kills of both humans and sharks. Even a whale and multiple cows. No favorite kills, but a few scenes that stand out.

One of the scenes is of Mayor Mansfield (mayor of Chicago) dying by a house landing on her. She was acting like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. She hated Fin and blamed him for all of the deaths so it’s a fitting death that she died in this way. As soon as they mentioned Kansas, I knew they would have mentions of The Wizard of Oz.

Another scene is Steve Guttenberg plays Colton, Fin’s friend. Gives him a car called Christine (from the Stephen King book and movie called Christine). He talks about a situation he’s dealing with a spider infestation, a reference to Lavalantula and 2 Lava 2 Lantula!, in which he’s the lead.

The best scene, in my opinion, of the whole movie is when Fin and the group walk into a chainsaw shop in Texas. We see Caroline Williams plays Stretch (which was her character's name in 1986 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ), Dog the Bounty Hunter plays Chop Top (the name used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 played by Bill Mosely), and Dan Yeager plays Gunnar (Yeager plays Leatherface in the 2013 Texas Chainsaw. And Gunnar was for Gunnar Hansen who’s the name of the actor who played Leatherface in the 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.) The whole scene screams Texas Chainsaw Massacre down to the cheesy lines.

The acting is typical, except Tara Reid was more annoying this go round. Returning actors in this movie is Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, David Hasselhoff, and Ryan Whitney as Fin, April, Gil, and Claudia. Newcomers are Cody Linley (known for a lot of TV shows and Sharknado 5) as Matt, Fin and April’s older son, who’s newly married. Masiela Lusha (known for  Blood: The Last Vampire, and Sharknado 5 & 6) as Gemini, Fin’s cousin. Imani Hakim (known for a lot of TV Shows/Movies) plays Gabrielle, Matt’s new bride. And Gary Busey (known for Silver Bullet, Gingerdead Man, Piranha 3DD, Sharknado 6, and just being totally out there at times) as Wilford, April’s crazy scientist father.

We start Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens where we find out that a company called Astro-X found a way to stop tornadoes from happening so there has been 5 years of no sharknados. Fin now lives on a farm in Kansas with his son Gil, and his mother.

Gemini, Fin’s cousin, picks Fin up and they head for Las Vegas to meet up with his son Matt who is coming home from deployment, and is getting married. Matt and his girlfriend get married in a plane over Las Vegas and then sky dive down to Fin. Unfortunately a sand storm starts up with sharks and Astro-X equipment can’t stop it. So Fin, Gemini, Matt, and Gabrielle try to stop it until it goes into the desert.

Meanwhile, Astro-X was able to get Gil off of the moon and he works for Astro-X, trying to make a mech suit to stop sharknados. Helping him is Claudia, his granddaughter, and Wilfred, April’s father. Unbeknownst to them, Wilfred took April’s body when she died and rebuilt her into a cyborg.

Fin and the gang decide to take a train back to Kansas to get little Gil, when the sand storm follows them, destroying the Hoover Dam. In order to save people (supposedly) the owner of Astro-X destroys the Grand Canyon! 

Astro-X creator Aston Reynolds wants Fin to join his team to repair their PR presence but Fin turns him down and starts heading home. In Texas, they get weapons, but the sand storm turns into a firenado, which then hits electricity and turns into lightningnado, which causes it to head to Kansas. 

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Gil and Claudia are at Astro-X headquarters and are attacked by a hailnado. They are saved by April. They thought she was dead, and April thought her family was dead. They confront her dad and he explains how he saved her by basically turning her into a cyborg. 

Fin and the rest of the group make it to Kansas just in time for a cownado (can these names get any more ridiculous?) Where Gabrielle is squished by a shark. Matt’s marriage didn’t last long. And now the cownado merges with the lightningnado. 

Fin, little Gil, Matt, and Gemini take shelter in the farmhouse. Unfortunately the new sharknado carries the house to Chicago. Gil, Claudia, Wilford, and April convince Reynolds to go to Chicago and pick up Fin and the rest of them.

They find out that the lighningnado hits a nuclear power plant, turning it into a nukenado. Reynolds realizes they need to turn the nukenado back into a regular sharknado, where his equipment can neutralize it. Fin realizes they can use the water from Niagara Falls to do it.

Once at Niagara Falls, Reynolds tries to do the plan all by himself so he can get the glory. Only it backfires and doesn’t work, resulting in Reynolds falling over the side to his death. They then decide to have Gil use the mech suit he was working on to detonate the storm. As he walks to get to the suit, he is swallowed by a shark. So Fin gets in the suit. 

Meanwhile, to escape the storm, little Gil gets into a barrel. Which quickly gets picked up by the storm and into the water. April flies into the storm to save little Gil. Fin is able to set off the “bomb” to use the water to get rid of the nukenado. Unfortunately Fin and Matt get swallowed by sharks and Gemini falls over the side. We see this montage as each shark is getting swallowed by a bigger shark until a huge whale swallows the sharks and lands on the ground. This pisses off little Gil and he pulls a chainsaw out of a stump and saws into the whale. And then he saws into each shark pulling Claudia, Matt, Gil, and Fin out of the sharks. 

Astro-X uses their equipment, causing the sharknado to dissipate. As April uses her cyborg powers to defib Fin back to life, we see Gemini slowly climb back up. Everyone is happy to see all the sharks fall from the sky.

And then suddenly, the Eiffel Tower flies into shot and lands. You see a small figure wave and Fin realizes it’s Nova.

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I wanted to take a quick break to let you know I found these great deals on Amazon for Sharknado merchandise. I’ve applied to Amazon’s affiliate program and if I can get three purchases I will be accepted into the program. This will be of tremendous help with starting my small business.

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Overall, Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens, was hard to get through. Way too many questions. How did April survive? All of a sudden Al Roker is still alive? I did like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre mentions. It was nice seeing Caroline Williams and Dan Yeager. I think that is the only thing worth watching in this movie. So unless you are a completionist or just a TCM fan, then skip this one.

And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:

  • Cody Linley replaced Charles Hittinger as Matt Shepard in this movie. This is the second time a Shepard child has been replaced. This was a necessity, as this movie takes place five years after the events of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.

  • We see a car with a license plate that reads "SHKNDO4".

  • A reference to The Terminator: As she rescues Fin from the wreckage at the farm, April reaches out to him and says, "Come with me if you want to live." This is what Kyle Reese does and says to Sarah Connor when he first rescues her from the Terminator.

  • When Fin and Gemini arrive in Las Vegas, they see a Chippendale's dancer, who asks Fin if he'd like to be a guest host at the club. This is a nod to Ian Ziering's real-life guest stint at Chippendale's in Las Vegas.

  • The scene where Tara Reid saves the young boy by holding up the old car, is taken from Action Comics #1, where Superman is holding a similar car over his head. A similar scene appeared in Superman, shortly after the Kents discovered the toddler Kal-El in the wrecked spaceship. Young Kal-El saved Jonathan Kent from severe injury, possibly death, after the truck nearly fell on top of Jonathan, by lifting the tail end of it up.

  • Towards the end of the movie and in reference to Fin's question about the tech suit, "Does this take quarters or tokens?", Colonel Sherpard replies, "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts." This is exactly what Han Solo says about the Millennium Falcon to Luke when Luke sees the Falcon for the first time and says it's "a piece of junk" in Star Wars.

  • Christine, the red 1958 Plymouth Fury from Stephen King's book and movie of the same name, is given to Fin by Colton (Steve Guttenberg). To push this reference even further, Colton says, "She has a mind of her own sometimes" when Christine arrives without an apparent driver. Additionally, the music playing when Fin and Gemini first see the car, is from Christine, and the California license plate, CQB 241, is the same as in Christine, the movie and the book.

  • "Petunia" (a stuffed opossum which makes an appearance in each movie) can be seen in the "chainsaw shop" during the Texas Chainsaw homage.

  • There are two clear references to The Wizard of Oz. Mayor Mansfield, the Mayor of Chicago, is a take on the Wicked Witch of the West. When interviewed by the news, she says, "I'm gonna get you Fin Shepard, and your little chainsaw, too," which is a take on the Wicked Witch's line, "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too." The Mayor dies when the tornado drops a house on her, revealing her striped stockings and her ruby red shoes (just like the witch).

  • When the Shepherd family are on a pirate ship, the music theme is as close to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme as possible without breaking copyright laws.

  • The character Captain Fett is played by the actor who played the young Boba Fett in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

  • At the end of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, a piece of the spaceship lands on April. After this event occurs, a screen comes up saying you can vote #AprilLives or #AprilDies for this movie.

  • At the end, the Eiffel Tower lands in front of the group, and we see a small figure. Fin says "Nova?" This alludes to Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.

Have you seen the other Sharknado movies? Check out my other reviews here: Sharknado Franchise.

Let’s get into the rankings:

Kills/Blood/Gore: 3/5

Sex/Nudity: .5/5 Just for the Chippendales. Nice!

Scare factor: 1/5

Enjoyment factor: 3/5

My Rank: 1.8/5

IMDB: 3.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: critics:  1.4/10  audience:  2.5/10

Letterboxd: 1.8/5