Last night, on the Syfy channel\u2019s made-for-TV movie Sharknado, Ian Ziering killed an airborne shark with a chain saw. Erik Estrada microwaved a tiny chupacabra in last year\u2019s Chupacabra vs. the Alamo. And in the 2011 non-hit Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, 1980s pop star Tiffany was eaten by an enormous alligator as Debbie Gibson watched, scream-crying, from a helicopter that had come to save her. This is the Syfy B-movie monster machine. It is cheap, it is stupid, and it is enormously successful.<\/p>\n
Syfy started making original movies in 2002, mostly out of necessity. \u201cThe straight-to-video market had dried up a little bit\u2014this was before DVD rentals like Netflix (NFLX)\u2014and some of our suppliers stopped making movies. So we said, What if we just commission you to make movies?\u201d says Thomas Vitale, executive vice president of programming and original movies at Syfy. They started with the alien-attack thriller Interceptor Force 2, which is the sequel to Interceptor Force, a movie you\u2019ve probably never heard of.<\/p>\n
Today, Syfy averages 24 movies a year, each with around a $1.5 million budget, or about 1\/130th of what it cost to make Michael Bay\u2019s last Transformers movie. Syfy\u2019s monsters are poorly rendered CGI characters that always look technologically out-of-date by at least a decade. But who cares? If you\u2019re watching Sharknado, cinematic realism is probably not your top priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe phrase we use internally is \u2018ridiculously entertaining,\u2019\u201d says Vitale. \u201cWe have fun brainstorming sessions, I can tell you that.\u201d In those sessions, Syfy movies are usually conceived title first, plot second. How else do you come up with something called Sharknado? There\u2019s also Mansquito (a man who turns into a mosquito), Piranhaconda (a half-piranha, half-anaconda snake), and Sharktopus (a shark that\u2019s\u2014OK, you get the idea). \u201cThe Sharktopus one came from a woman who works in the promo department,\u201d says Vitale. \u201cShe said, \u2018Hey, you guys make a movie called Sharktopus\u2019 and we went, \u2018Um, OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Occasionally, the films will be \u201cinspired\u201d by news events, such as the revelation that the invasive snakehead fish\u2014an ugly, carnivorous fish that can live on land for up to four days\u2014had arrived in North America, where it has no natural predators. \u201cMy dad saw the CNN report [on the snakefish] and said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to check this out,\u2019\u201d says Vitale. He did, and the 2004 movie Snakehead Terror was born.<\/p>\n
So who watches Syfy\u2019s movies? Older dudes, mostly. According to TV research firm Horizon Media, viewers of Syfy original movies have an average age of 52. But Sharknado may have broken the mold; the movie blew up on Twitter last night, giving the impression that everyone with a TV was watching it. \u201cOmg omg OMG \u202a#sharknado,\u201d Mia Farrow tweeted last night, while Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza joked that he was writing an article about how Sharknado would affect the 2016 elections. But were all these people actually watching? According to the Los Angeles Times, Sharknado was watched by only 1 million people, which makes it a bust, even by Syfy standards. Most Syfy originals have an average viewership of 1.5 million people, with some getting twice that.<\/p>\n
Syfy knows its audience. They like movies about sharks, snakes, and monsters. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times Killer Koalas has been pitched us. At least a dozen times by different producers,\u201d Vitale says. And he says no every time. \u201cIt\u2019s a cute, eucalyptus tree-eating animal. It doesn\u2019t inspire fear.\u201d Other things that Syfy likes: aliens, holiday disaster movies (see: 12 Disasters of Christmas, watched by 2.1 million people last year), and movies in which a recognizable landmark gets destroyed. \u201cWho cares that a monster is terrorizing a small town? But destroying the Space Needle? That\u2019s more interesting,\u201d Vitale says.<\/p>\n
But nothing beats a good shark attack. That\u2019s why in August, Syfy will debut a new film, Ghost Shark, about\u2014well, you can probably guess. \u201cIt was inspired by something my 7-year-old daughter Ava said. She said, \u2018Papa, you should make a movie called Ghost Monster.\u2019\u201d But \u201cmonster\u201d sounds too generic, so Vitale turned it into a shark. But he promises that the movie is more than just a catchy title. \u201cThere is a logical reason in the movie for it to be a ghost shark,\u201d he says. Yeah, sure there is. Just as logical as a bunch of sharks getting caught in a tornado.