Good God I love movies that fail as epically as this one did! Rarely does one find a movie that attempts to mash together as many genres as The Collapsed did, but in its attempt to be a horror-thriller-drama-sci-fi-mystery ultimate combo, it proved that it couldn't pull even one of those elements off. I'm not a movie snob (as this site will well attest to), but I do believe that if you're going to make an end of the world movie, you can only really go one of two ways: option one is to have a big budget so you can make it really convincing or, option two, you make it cheesy enough to distract the audience from the lack of budget. Here, The Collapsed does it wrong again: it wants to be a very serious end of the world movie, but with no budget for the necessary mayhem and destruction. Couple all of this with several attempts on behalf of the director to make the film look artsy and all you're left with are 82 minutes of unrelenting pain and mind-numbing boredom.
A few apartment fires doth not the end of the world make.
So it's the end of the world; how it's the end of the world you're never going to find out, but 'the government', 'conspiracy', 'weapons we've never even heard of' and 'the horror' are all phrases being thrown around by survivors of this invisible apocalypse. Our story follows dad Scott, mom Emily, and siblings Aaron and Rebecca as they attempt to find safety and supplies in amongst the few apartment fires and the occasional cannibal that are ravaging their generic movie city. Dad has the strangest accent I've ever heard come out of a human being (although I imagine it's quite similar to how a Swedish person imitating a Canadian accent would sound), but despite this inherent flaw in his being he's decided that the only way he's gonna keep his family alive is to make a break for the wilderness. Because nothing bad ever happens when you run off into the woods in a horror movie.
Getting to the wilderness, however, is going to require that the family does a little road trip. This is set up in such a way that it's as painful to watch as it would be to do an actual road trip with your own family. Thrown in for not-so-good measure is a half-baked plot point about Scott and Emily's other son, who apparently has gone missing. He'll be thrown into conversation every now and then, but since we never see him it doesn't really matter. Along the way the family discovers an abandoned little shop and decide to stop in and pick up some supplies; this is when things start to go very badly for them. While they're doing a little shopping and Mom's taking a bath in a sink, a group of heavily armed men wearing gas masks arrive as well. Making a very slow and blundering escape, the group makes for the surrounding woods, hoping it will provide them with a little safety and respite.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean we can't have manners.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean that feminine hygiene should be any less of a priority.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean the risks of teenage smoking should be taken any less seriously.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean that grave-digging techniques should suffer.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean we can't appreciate an old-fashioned rifle that doesn't blow up in your hand.
Just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean that revenge still isn't a dish best served cold.
It doesn't get much cheesier than a SyFy creature-feature produced by Roger Corman, which is exactly why I was drawn to this one 🙂 Admittedly it is more of a sci-fi movie than a horror one, but when you have the opportunity to watch a half-shark, half-octopus creature swimming around and eating its way through Mexicans you really can't pass up an opportunity like that. This is a perfect example of a b-movie because it's not the acting (Julia Roberts must be so proud of her brother for being in this) that makes it bad but rather the complete absurdity of the monster the characters are faced with and the microscopic budget the effects must have been made on. I enjoyed a good few giggles staring at the screen while this played while constantly muttering 'no, no way' to myself.
The military's up to its old tricks again: not content with nuclear weapons, missiles or allowing Justin Bieber to go platinum they've decided that they need something better, something that can take out pirates (aargh matie!). So what better plan than to genetically combine a shark and an octopus? It can have the shark's teeth and ferociousness with the octopus' tentacles and intelligence. Of course if you're working in a corporation like Blue Water and need to prove that the billions of dollars used to fund this little f**k you to nature was worthwhile you need to take the creature, codename S11, for a test run. And what better way to test a creature with an antenna lightly strapped onto its head that allows you to control its movements (the only thing, in fact, that stops it from escaping) than making it chase after a small boat with rapidly spinning propeller blades? As is usually the case when idiots are testing mutant man-eaters the propeller blades cut through the strap and dislodge the antenna, making it impossible to control S11, who now gladly swims away while the people back at mission control sit and vaguely ponder what should be done next.
Now you obviously can't just let the escaped sharktopus run around the ocean on its own little mission down along the Mexican coastline so Blue Water needs to find someone with a knowledge of the waters to help them bring it back to the lab. Enter Andy Flynn, a one-time disgruntled employee of Blue Water until he asked Nathan Sands, the boss, for a raise. Thinking that asking for a pay increase is an insult Nathan fired Andy, who has been living happily in Mexico drinking tequila and swimming in the pool. Joining him and his $300 000 pay cheque on this little mission are Nicole, Nathan's daughter, and his best friend Santos. The plan: to dive underwater, tranquilise the sharktopus, bring it to the surface and launch darts into its head that will allow Nicole to interface with its brain again and command it to stop eating everyone.
There are several problems with this search and recovery mission, however. For a start this thing is really fast and can quickly grab a snack in the shallows by throwing its tentacles onto the beach to grab someone. If that doesn't prove to be effective the sharktopus can also walk on land (water? fish? anyone?) and chase after people that way. Its skin appears to act like a forcefield and repels bullets or anything else you shoot at it and, perhaps the saddest of all, nobody in Mexico takes you seriously when you tell them a half-shark, half-octopus is coming their way to eat them, so civilian casualties are rather high. Add to this the fact that Nicole's daddy went behind her back and altered the sharktopus' brain to make it a killer rather than just a hunter (meaning that it kills at random rather than just for food) and you've got an enormous list of odds stacked against you. It's now up to Andy, armed with a machine gun and against ever wearing a shirt, and Nicole, sweet and brilliant, to save the day and take down the sharktopus before more people get eaten and before daddy gets really mad.
There really are fish in the ocean.
Sharktopodes shoot ink despite having no squid in them.
Mexican women don't own clothes, just bikinis.
A woman's breasts will not get up and dance.
The military does not need to get any form of permission from government to fund really weird genetic experiments.
Chum should be used as a last resort when hunting a giant man-eating sea creature; try diving after it first.
You should shoot giant man-eating sea creatures after they've eaten your friend, not as an attempt to save him.