Andy and a group of his diver friends go into a cave to find S-11, although the creature attacks them, killing everybody except Andy. He, Nicole and Santos then encounter Stacy, Bones and Pez, although Pez is killed by S-11 before it runs off. Andy, Nicole and Santos pursue it, resulting in Santos being killed. An enraged Andy radios Sands and tells him he's going to kill S-11 despite his orders. Andy and Nicole track S-11 to the mainland, where it kills a few people before Sands and his men arrive and hold Andy hostage. Nicole reprimands her father for wishing to further the experiments, although S-11 arrives and kills Sands's men before Sands himself is killed saving Nicole. Andy and Nicole encounter Stacy and Bones again, who drive them to a resort which S-11 is attacking. Nicole creates a plan to shoot S-11 with a device that will allow her to blow up a computer chip in its brain using her computer. The group arrives at the resort and Bones soon quits as Stacy attempts to put his life in danger to record S-11. However, S-11 then kills them both. Andy manages to shoot S-11 with the device, and Nicole hacks into the chip before overloading it, causing it to explode and kill S-11. Andy and Nicole reunite, and walk off to safety.
Cast
Eric Roberts as Dr. Nathan Sands
Sara Malakul Lane as Nicole Sands
Kerem Bürsin as Andy Flynn
Héctor Jiménez as "Bones"
Liv Boughn as Stacy Everheart
Shandi Finnessey as Stephanie "Stephie"
Megan Barkley as Lisa
Peter Nelson as Commander Cox (credited as Calvin Persson)
Elgar Horowitz as Ellie Loveshaft
Greg Norte as Gordon
Roger Corman as Man On Beach (uncredited)
Ralph Garman as Captain Jack
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, Sharktopus has a 50% approval rating, based on 6 reviews, with an average score of 7.0/10.
Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures described it as "cinematic junk food" and gave it 3.5 out of 5.
Annalee Newitz of io9 wrote "Sharktopus represents both your guilt, and the assuaging of it, all in one tasty morsel" and called it the Inception of giant monster movies.
And the review site Bloody Good Horror said of it: "Sharktopus" is absolutely not a good film. The acting is slightly above amateur-level, the plot is pretty formulaic and predictable... and the CG is the absolute worst I've ever seen. (...) But you know what? It all works. Despite its flaws, or perhaps because of them, "Sharktopus" is an insanely entertaining film and easily the best thing I've watched for BGH so far in 2011."
Sequels
A similarly themed movie, Piranhaconda, was released in 2012.
Two official sequels were made: Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, which was released on August 2, 2014, and Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf, which premiered on July 19, 2015, during Sharknado Week on the SyFy Channel.
Influence in sporting culture
Amateur soccer team named after the franchise called Sharktopus FC, playing in the Seattle Recreational Adult Team Soccer, made headlines during the qualifiers for the 2026 US Open Cup. The referee of the match was discovered to be a former player for the semi-pro team that beat them, Bellevue Athletic from the United Premier Soccer League. As a result, and following a complaint by Sharktopus FC, the match was voided and must be replayed, with US Soccer announcing the need for safeguards to avoid such a conflict of interest from reoccurring in the future.
