Product Details

• Actors: Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, Vic Chao
• Directors: Ace Hannah
• Writers: Ace Hannah
• Producers: David Michael Latt
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: The Asylum
• DVD Release Date: February 15, 2010
• Run Time: 86 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001UIY73C
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,703 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

The California coast is terrorized by two enormous prehistoric sea creatures as they battle each other for supremacy of the sea.

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty much what you expect May 21, 2009

By Daniel Fletcher

Format:DVD

Simply put, if you're here reading reviews about this movie you probably know exactly what to expect out of it, and already know if this is something you will enjoy or not.

It's a wonderfully cheesy movie chock full of over the top moments that border on being just plain silly, but that's the way I like it. If you're a fan of B movies do yourself a favor and give this a watch.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars "Octopus Approaching: 300 Meters Off The Port Bow!" August 25, 2010

By Robert I. Hedges HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

I saw part of "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus" when it had its cable TV premier on the idiotically renamed Syfy channel a few months ago. I knew I had to obtain it for my library. How could I not, it has all the stars in the cheese universe perfectly aligned: ridiculous title, ludicrous plot, complete lack of knowledge about sharks, octopi, or the military weaponry needed to fight them, preachy environmentalist plotpoints, terrible acting, and cast members that Ed Wood could only dream of, most notably Debbie (oh sorry, Deborah) "Shake Your Love" Gibson, and master cheese maker Lorenzo Lamas. It's a perfect conflagration.

The film starts in the mountains (?) of Alaska, and after a very long credit sequence, progresses to oceanologist Emma (Debbie Gibson) driving a stolen submarine under a glacial icecap while a helicopter hovers overhead dropping a secret buoy into the water which makes a pod of whales get suicidal, and ram into a glacier freeing two long-frozen combatants, a huge shark and really huge octopus from millions of years of freezer burn. For some reason the helicopter crashes, and Gibson doesn't know about the buoy, but the helicopter pilot intones over the radio that it's a secret and that it could endanger national security. But Debbie hijacked the sub, right? So why is the secret government helicopter helping her look for whales? What? Huh? This is just the first five minutes of the movie. Unfortunately it gets way less lucid from there.

Shortly Gibson gets fired from her job, and goes to live with her old brilliant professor, Lamar (Sean Lawlor) who was booted out of the Navy for running a nuclear sub aground to avoid hitting a pod of dolphins. Oh yes, there's more true-to-life backstory for you.... Meanwhile, a deep-ocean oil rig gets eaten by the giant octopus, while the giant shark gets busy by jumping 30,000 feet in the air and eating a 747 in cruise flight. Truly, Asylum Home Entertainment really pulled out all the stops on this creature feature. And the CGI is so lifelike, too!

There's a lot of extremely ponderous dialogue in the movie, much of it with a brain-addled environmentalist bent, but also lots of terrible pillow talk, ridiculous science talk, and perhaps worst of all, oodles of military and nautical jargon horribly misused by the screenwriters. A favorite example is when in a discussion of the release of the giant creatures Debbie says "Maybe this is our comeuppance." Why would that be? Oh, of course: it's because man is melting the polar ice caps with his global warming releasing these prehistoric predators. The shark and octopus dyad is also analogized to Hurricane Katrina. I am not even kidding.

There are two scenes of shark versus battleship (there are no battleships in the active Navy inventory, by the way, but that is picking at nits) and at one point the shark manages to set a hijacked Finnish oil tanker on fire after it was hijacked by pirates. How did the shark do that? Some unnamed government agency headed by Lorenzo Lamas (as Allan Baxter, complete with ponytail) interrogates Emma, Lamar, and Emma's new love interest, the pointedly Japanese Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao, who probably turns in the best performance of the movie) in a room that Lamar accuses of having "the same lighting as Guantanamo". Got to get every popular anti-government jab in, no matter how laughably executed.

After the eye-rolling exhortation "Sharkzilla's going to own the seas!" from Lamas, the scientists come up with a plan to corral them in San Francisco and Tokyo Bays for the shark and octopus respectively. But how to lure them? While working under armed guard, Emma suddenly feels...urges...and invites Seiji into the broom closet to help shake her love. It's then they get their "ah ha" moment...pheromones! They will synthesize giant octopus and mega shark pheromones to lure them to their respective bays "using UAV technology". Again...what?!? Really?

After the gratuitous destruction of an F-15/F-14/F-18 (depending on which piece of the stock footage you were paying attention to) by an octopus tentacle, we get a load of pontification from Emma analogizing herself to Einstein and Oppenheimer and the decision to build the atomic bomb. (Seriously.) After some submerged action of a highly ridiculous nature, they release the shark pheromone with much ado, the shark accelerates to 500 knots underwater (marine engineers, feel free to chime in on hydrodynamics here) and the Octopus is cornered in Tokyo Bay by similar means. The shark promptly gets loose, eats the Golden Gate Bridge (why?) and Lamas considers the nuclear option prompting disgraced Irish former submariner Lamar to say that the nuclear option is preferred by the US government because "that's the military way." This only goes to prove not only the reflexive ideology of the filmmakers, but their total lack of grasp on actual US military policy, training, or strategy. Not that I should expect much from a movie like this, of course.

Emma decides that the way to get rid of them is to have them battle each other, so a flotilla of navy ships and submarines puts to sea with more pheromones attracting the two combatants to each other. All goes about like you would expect, with massive causalities ("All five ships destroyed by octopus!") and Emma and Lamar taking their submarine through an ice floe to lose the pursuing shark (which is, of course, impossible if he can swim faster than most jets can fly). Obviously the final smackdown happens in good time, and amid clouds of ink in a ferocious battle, the two prehistoric killing machines sink out of sight. Are they dead? Wait for the sequel.

The film ends with lovebirds Emma and Seiji planning their future dreamily on a beach (their chemistry is...uh...amazing) when Lamar walks up and requests their services to help identify another giant life form in the North Sea. Groan.

I gave the film three stars. I would have given it four for camp value but the complete ignorance of the subject matter and portrayals of the US military as idiots lowered the rating. Submariners are not likely to mutiny by pulling a pistol on their skipper, but then again they aren't likely to battle a giant shark either. This film takes itself way too seriously for the subject matter, but would have made an excellent MST3K. This would make an excellent Christmas gift for the lover of cinematic cheese in your life. Read more ›

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars It's like being Lobotomized! June 8, 2010

By James Baack

Format:DVD

This movie has about as much imagination and creativity as the title!
My brain took a REAL BEATING watching this one! I really could not believe my eyes.
This film contains the worst acting in the history of cinema! It is typical TRASH from Asylum. They had such a great opportunity to make a fun giant monster movie and they blew it! They should take all the original negatives from this film, burn them, then bury the ashes in an undisclosed location, put the director in a Turkish prison, then make all the actors pay restitution to an oceanographic institution of their choice. This disc would make a better use as a urinal cake!!
This TRULY is one of the worst films I have ever seen. You have been warned!!!

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars MegaGiant Cheesy fun July 6, 2009

By Glenn Like

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you don't know that this is a cheesy movie by the title or the cover, there is no hope for you. Where else can you see a giant shark eat the Golden Gate Bridge? Or a giant octopus swat down jets? That would be enough to make me buy it.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's so much fun! September 17, 2009

By Gregorio

Format:DVD

Although this movie has a far bigger ambition than budget, it still manageed to delight and entertain me throughout all of its 89 minutes. It's by far the best movie THE ASYLUM has produced yet and while it certainly isn't up to the production standards of big budget hollywood stuff, it is often far more entertaining than the overblown hype Michael Bay and his ilk come up with. Honestly, the movie has a very striking, almost psychodelic look with loads of wild, garish lighting and lurid color schemes. The editing is fast and frantic and the visual effects are occasionally almost passable. The acting is over the top (and lots of fun) and the script is really out there. I truly enjoyed and appreciated this thing a lot. The DVD transfer is especially excellent and on an upconverting DVD player it often approaches bluray picture quality. The super aggressive Dolby 5.1 surround sound will also give your subwoofer a real workout (although dialog is sometimes a bit distorted). Plenty of surround effects as well for an emersive experience. The premise of this one is so goofy and it moves along with a giddy speed that kept me smiling from start to finish. I loved it.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A little disappointed... June 20, 2009

By J. Denson

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

...and here's why:
When I saw the previews I was pretty excited. Here was a 21st century production that reminded me of childhood Saturday's watching old Godzilla movies. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. When it arrived I got the kids together and put it on. Now, don't get me wrong. So much of this film is exactly what I expected. Silly, exciting, entertaining. What I didn't like was the moments of course language and the sex scene. Totally not needed in this kind of movie that should really be a true "G" rated film in order to rate up there with the most popular "B" movies of the 50's and 60's. If not for that, I would've easily given it 5 stars for pure "FUN"!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Plan 9 From Underwater March 18, 2011

By Bruce Barker

Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase

I don't see how they could have possibly made a worse film. I'm a huge fan of campy horror movies (I own all the Godzilla, Ghidrah, and Gamera films for example, as well as a nice collection of horror cheese from Lake Placid to House). I've always enjoyed such things. Yes, I even own many of Ed Wood's cinematic atrocities.

But, as others have said, this film doesn't even qualify in the "so bad it's good" category. Some years ago I wrote a column called "Zippers". In it, I would point out the mistakes made in films. Sometimes it was as small as a cigarette burning backwards and other times it was something huge like the self-repairing yellow Porche in "Commando".

This alleged film has so many errors that I was constantly distracted from the movie itself. For example:

1. The actual battle that the movie title comes from takes place after an hour of each creature being in separate oceans.

2. The battle is mostly made up of 2 or 3 clips, each about 2 seconds long, played repeatedly as jump cuts.

3. Several times we see the massive shark roughly 10 yards behind a sub. Yet when the sub fires the stern torpedoes at the beast, the creature is nowhere to be seen and we see the torpedoes racing through a completely empty sea.

4. A sub - complete with a super secret joystick driven control panel AND turbo power - is reported as 20 meters away from hitting an undersea rock outcropping. Roughly 20 seconds later, a crewman announces that they are now 15 meters away. Then, after still more time passes, just 10 meters away. I could row a danged destroyer quicker.

5. Ahh never mind. There were over 75 such errors I found just in a single viewing of this Blu Ray.... If I were to really list them, we'd be here for days even without me complaining about the massive loss of life in Japan that we are told about, but never get so much of a glimpse of. Way to save on the budget guys!

This clunker is more lame than a 1-legged man with a broken ankle.

I've read bad reviews of films I love hundreds of times. Some people just don't appreciate the pure campy joy of watching a deliberately cheesy movies like the Puppet Master series from Full Moon studios (or anything else Full Moon produces for that matter) or the trash masterpieces from Troma studios. This is not one of those. I LOVE such brainless fun!

Fans of the type of "funny" and low budget movies that Roger Corman built his career upon - take this from a fellow cheese-a-holic and MST3K junkie. If you buy this movie you will lose money, time out of your life, and quite possibly lower your IQ by several dozen points. If you can't survive without seeing pictures of an adult Debbie Gibson, just surf the web or watch the trailer online for free. Her presence is only there to create a curiosity factor (much like Tiffany in Mega Pirannha) and her acting while not atrocious, is not reason enough to watch this movie.

Since viewing, I've scrubbed and scrubbed and just can't get rid of this unsightly film. Read more ›