Skip to main content
Games Radar Newsarama Total Film Edge Retro Gamer SFX
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The smarter take on movies
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Best Netflix Movies
  • Best movies on Disney Plus
  • Movie Release Dates
  • Best Netflix Shows
Don't miss these
Beast of War
Horror Movies It looks like Steven Spielberg's Jaws is still the gold standard as upcoming shark horror movie opts to use practical models instead of CGI
Kaya Scodelario as Grace and Keira Knightley as Lo in The Woman in Cabin 10.
Movies The 25 best movies on Netflix to watch this week
Roy Scheider as Martin Brody in Jaws
Thriller Movies Jaws may be 50 years old, but Steven Spielberg's shark thriller is still a blockbuster in a league of its own
Ice Cube stares intensely at a computer monitor in War of the Worlds
Movies After Amazon's War of the Worlds, I watched all the 0% rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes and here are the five brilliantly awful ones I'd recommend you stream next
Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda
Action Movies Jack Black and Paul Rudd head out into the jungle to find a giant killer snake in meta first trailer for Anaconda
Ice Cube in War of the Worlds
Sci-Fi Movies War of the Worlds producer says none of the Amazon product placement was intentional in the 2% Rotten Tomatoes disaster
Indy the dog in supernatural horror movie Good Boy
Horror Movies It's pooch vs poltergeist in the first trailer for unique new horror movie Good Boy – and it's already clear why the film has a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score
Ice Cube stares intensely at a computer monitor in War of the Worlds
Sci-Fi Movies New War of the Worlds adaptation starring Ice Cube has made it into Rotten Tomatoes' 100 worst movies of all time list, even though its score has risen above 0%
Jacob Elordi as the monster in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein
Sci-Fi Movies Frankenstein review: "A classy, if somewhat safe, adaptation"
Ice Cube stares intensely at a computer monitor in War of the Worlds
Sci-Fi Movies War of the Worlds producer defends the Ice Cube-led movie despite being one of the worst reviewed films of all time: "We made a really good movie for the money we had"
Connor McGregor as Knox and Jake Gyllenhall as Elwood Dalton in Road House.
Amazon Prime Video The 25 best movies on Amazon Prime to watch right now
Ice Cube in War of the Worlds
Sci-Fi Movies Amazon's new War of the Worlds adaptation, which stars Ice Cube and is filmed entirely on a computer screen, debuts to 0% on Rotten Tomatoes
Ralph Fiennes in 28 Years Later
Horror Movies First trailer for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple makes the horror sequel look even more violent and bonkers than its predecessor
Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh in Alien: Earth
Horror Shows Alien: Earth Easter eggs – Every cameo and reference in the new series
Rachel McAdams in Send Help
Horror Movies Doctor Strange's Rachel McAdams gets stranded on an island with the worst boss ever in the first trailer for Spider-Man director's new horror-thriller
  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies

Scene By Scene: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

Features
By Andy Lowe published 16 June 2009

We watch the Asylum monster mash-up so you don't have to...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Chopper Cropper

Chopper Cropper

The camera glides and swoops over some mountains because that looks really cool.

Stock footage of a helicopter on a sonar testing mission off the Alaskan coast. Shaky camera suggests a man in a helicopter pilot's uniform is the pilot of the helicopter.

He'd better be careful where he drops that sonar device...

Page 1 of 14
Page 1 of 14
Enter Deborah Gibson...

Enter Deborah Gibson...

Stock footage of underwater research diving vessel thing.

'Deborah Gibson', the '80s pop princess who wasn't as good as Tiffany pretends to be piloting it by holding a joystick and looking into the screen.

She has a great love for the undersea world ("It's pure poetry!")

Stock footage of assorted marine life.

Page 2 of 14
Page 2 of 14
The Beasts Unleashed

The Beasts Unleashed

"Something's messing up the whale's vibration pattern!" gasps Deborah Gibson.

The camera shakes a lot and the helicopter crashes ("Holy crap!")

Turns out it's dropped a low-frequency sonar device that disturbs some whales who crash into a glacier and awaken two massive prehistoric beasts.

Film on!

Page 3 of 14
Page 3 of 14
Octo-Crushed!

Octo-Crushed!

A Japanese oiling rig seems to be doing perfectly fine until a storm descends.

This makes it dark enough for the rubbish giant octopus CGI to show up and wrap tentacles around the platform.

The camera shakes to depict the horror on-board. Close-up of a giant octo-eye staring at the riggers as it destroys them for some reason.

Page 4 of 14
Page 4 of 14
The Whole Tooth

The Whole Tooth

Deborah Gibson pulls a giant shark tooth out of a beached whale.

She argues with a pesky corporate guy from the corporation that funds her research. He fires her. ("Don't love the ocean too much - it doesn't love ya back!")

"There's something big out there," ponders Deborah Gibson. "Really big..."

Page 5 of 14
Page 5 of 14
Flight Of Shark-Death

Flight Of Shark-Death

Stock footage of a model airliner flying comically fast through some cotton-wool clouds.

A guy on-board looks out of the window ("Holy shit!")

The Mega Shark leaps up and chomps the plane but the shots are so brief and blurry and the camera so shaky we could only get a pic of the man's face.

Page 6 of 14
Page 6 of 14
Tooth Wisdom

Tooth Wisdom

Deborah Gibson takes the giant shark tooth to her wise old Irish professor who, in a very Irish way, calls her 'lassie' a lot.

"The bloody feds," he rages. "They'll hound you until you're leaking from every orifice!" Eww.

Dr Irish-Fella looks into a microscope and proclaims the tooth is from a Megalodon, a prehistoric shark that was made extinct 1.5 million years ago.

"That's impossible!" gasps Deborah Gibson.

Page 7 of 14
Page 7 of 14
Environmental Interlude

Environmental Interlude

Kindly Japanese scientist Dr Shimada hooks up with Dr Irish-Fella and Deborah Gibson.

Dr Shimada shares a comically unlikely lingering gaze with Deborah Gibson who later slips into a lovely low-cut number before they all watch video taken during her undersea voyage.

They all gasp as they see images of a Mega Shark and a Giant Octopus, before having a resigned chat about how humans have exploited the natural world and melted the polar ice-caps and all that.

"Maybe this is our come-uppance..." mopes Deborah Gibson.

Page 8 of 14
Page 8 of 14
Wild Fin

Wild Fin

A US naval destroyer engages the Mega Shark.

The all-out action is represented with stock footage of a US destroyer firing its guns intercut with shots of men in sailor costumes shouting ("Send that big bastard down!")

A rubbery dorsal fin approaches a toy boat in a bath.

The camera shakes. The shark wins.

Page 9 of 14
Page 9 of 14
Intervention

Intervention

Deborah Gibson, Dr Irish-Fella and Dr Shimada are arrested by the government.

Dr Irish-Fella pops out another slightly wrong and icky line ("Twenty years ago my ideas were treated with disdain and discharge!")

Plenty of unnecessary swearing here from a racist government official ("We have to find a way to stop this fucker!")

"What do you want?" asks Deborah Gibson. "Solutions!" he confirms.

They all discuss how to trap the mega-creatures.

If only something would incidentally happen that could give them an idea how...

Page 10 of 14
Page 10 of 14
Animal Attraction

Animal Attraction

The trio pour some coloured liquids into other coloured liquids.

They shake their heads a lot to depict disappointment.

Dr Shimada and Deborah Gibson kiss and enjoy an unconvincing sex scene in a store cupboard.

In the afterglow, they talk about how scent is a big attractor. Deborah Gibson has a eureka moment... ("Pheremones!")

The plan is to lure the megabeasts to separate bays using special monster perfume and then, er, trap them in some way...

Page 11 of 14
Page 11 of 14
Whipping Boys

Whipping Boys

A reconnaisance plane flies too low and is whipped and exploded by the Giant Octopus.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!" screams the pilot with remarkable foresight just before the plane is hit.

Everyone shakes their heads and looks down to depict shock and horror.

Page 12 of 14
Page 12 of 14
Gapping The Bridge

Gapping The Bridge

In San Francisco, Deborah Gibson and Dr Irish-Fella lay some pheremone bait for the Mega Shark.

But it leaps up and bites the Golden Gate Bridge in half, killing hundreds of people.

The watching racist government official shakes his head sadly to depict shock and horror.

Page 13 of 14
Page 13 of 14
Monster Mush

Monster Mush

In a protracted finale of shaky cameras, the Mega Shark and Giant Octopus are drawn together off the Alaskan coast, have a big fight (with lots of squelching) and kill each other.

"What's happening?" someone shouts. "It's impossible to tell!" a colleague observes.

Indeed it is - because the CGI is so poor they have to keep the lighting really low.

"Looks like they finally finished what they started 18 million years ago!" notes Dr Irish-Fella as the Giant Octopus strangles the Mega Shark which somehow manages to kill the Giant Octopus just before it dies.

Later, Deborah Gibson and Dr Shimada ponder their future on a beach.

They plan to visit the North Sea where reports suggest the presence of a plot idea that could lead to an unnecessary sequel.

That's it. All the best bits were in the trailer and we'll never have those precious 90-odd minutes of life back.

But at least you only had to spend three or four minutes reading this feature to learn that Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus is total and complete cock.

A third of a star. For the Golden Gate Bridge bit.

Page 14 of 14
Page 14 of 14
Andy Lowe
See more Movies Features
Read more
Beast of War
It looks like Steven Spielberg's Jaws is still the gold standard as upcoming shark horror movie opts to use practical models instead of CGI
 
 
Kaya Scodelario as Grace and Keira Knightley as Lo in The Woman in Cabin 10.
The 25 best movies on Netflix to watch this week
 
 
Roy Scheider as Martin Brody in Jaws
Jaws may be 50 years old, but Steven Spielberg's shark thriller is still a blockbuster in a league of its own
 
 
Ice Cube stares intensely at a computer monitor in War of the Worlds
After Amazon's War of the Worlds, I watched all the 0% rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes and here are the five brilliantly awful ones I'd recommend you stream next
 
 
Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda
Jack Black and Paul Rudd head out into the jungle to find a giant killer snake in meta first trailer for Anaconda
 
 
Ice Cube in War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds producer says none of the Amazon product placement was intentional in the 2% Rotten Tomatoes disaster
 
 
Latest in Movies
Yuji Itadori being possessed by Ryomen Sukuna during Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 episode 18
Japanese government officials say manga and anime are "irreplaceable treasures," ask OpenAI to prevent copyright infringement, and insist Japan should "take the lead" in regulating AI
 
 
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi poster by Drew Struzan
Drew Struzan, the legendary artist behind the iconic posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones and more, dies at 78
 
 
The Justice Gang flying in Superman
One death in Superman had a bigger knock-on effect than expected as James Gunn reveals Rick Flag's motivations behind his Salvation plan
 
 
Rachel McAdams in Send Help
Doctor Strange's Rachel McAdams gets stranded on an island with the worst boss ever in the first trailer for Spider-Man director's new horror-thriller
 
 
Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men star Evan Peters would "love" to play Quicksilver again to properly explore the mutant's backstory: "I always sort of played it like a guest spot"
 
 
Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man
Despite stealing the show in No Way Home, Andrew Garfield doesn't think The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will ever happen
 
 
Latest in Features
Aaron Paul's character Robert Robertson in Dispatch, stood holding a dog in an elevator filled with strange superheroes
Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul has "always wanted" to be in a game, but The Boys-esque superhero comedy Dispatch was the first truly irresistible role: "Nothing really felt like the right fit"
 
 
Olden Era
I've been playing Heroes of Might and Magic since I was 6, and after putting 10 hours into Olden Era's huge Steam demo, the strategy series has never felt better
 
 
Photo of a black gaming mouse sitting on a Final Fantasy TCG playmat, with a Lorcana playmat to its left.
I swear by using TCG playmats as mouse pads, and that's never going to change
 
 
Atsu riding her horse in Ghost of Yotei with the black bars disabled
Ghost of Yotei's art director wanted the RPG to look like a "living painting," but the detail required stresses even me out: "When the wind blows, the trees know how strong the wind is"
 
 
Yahya Abdul Mateen II in Wonder Man (2025)
Wonder Man release date, trailer, cast, plot, and more news about the upcoming Marvel show
 
 
Silksong Karmelita boss header image
It took 8 hours of losing to find my favorite thing about Hollow Knight: Silksong
 
 
  1. A pink-haired trainer and a Chikorita sit outside a cafe in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.
    1
    Pokemon Legends: Z-A review: "Fast fluid real-time fights and a world worth exploring make this finally feel like the anime come to life"
  2. 2
    Little Nightmares 3 review: "An overly safe, uneven, and half-baked follow-up where co-op is a hindrance instead of the evolution it should've been"
  3. 3
    With a new season on the way, is Blood Bowl's second edition still worth a look?
  4. 4
    Battlefield 6 review: "More refined than innovative, this FPS is on target with multiplayer even if its campaign is just a big shrug"
  5. 5
    Absolum review: "Classic beat 'em up systems pair beautifully with a run-based structure in this fleet-footed, wonderfully varied Hades-like"
  1. Tron: Ares
    1
    Tron: Ares review: "Misses out by swapping the Grid for the real world"
  2. 2
    One Battle After Another review: "One of the best studio movies in years and an instant classic"
  3. 3
    The Conjuring: Last Rites review: "Not bold or memorable enough for the Warrens' final chapter"
  4. 4
    Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle review: "Roars past Mugen Train as Demon Slayer's best adventure yet"
  5. 5
    The Long Walk review: "One of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made"
  1. Splinter Cell Deathwatch
    1
    Splinter Cell: Deathwatch review: "A pale imitation of the long-dormant stealth franchise"
  2. 2
    Marvel Zombies review: "A fun expansion of the What If episode with delightful MCU Easter eggs and truly gross R-rated kills"
  3. 3
    Gen V season 2 review: "As strong as the first season, if not stronger"
  4. 4
    Wednesday season 2 part 2 review: "Ortega shines, but it's a zombie who steals the entire show"
  5. 5
    Peacemaker season 2 review: "Darker and sadder than the first year, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with the 11th Street Kids."

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...