The 25 Best Syfy Channel Movies, Based on Title Alone

In the 1950s, Samuel Z. Arkoff found B-movie success with a simple formula that he later referred to as the ARKOFF Formula. It stated that any low-budget movie should include each of the following: Action, Revolution, Killing, Oratory, Fantasy, and Fornication. It also needed to have a killer title—and it was the title itself that often preceded anything else, including story. After all, with a name like Reform School Girl or I Was a Teenage Werewolf, do audiences really need to know any more?

Since its launch in 1992, the network formerly known as the Sci Fi Channel has adopted a similar philosophy, producing dozens of made-for-TV movies with chuckle-inducing titles that often involve the melding of two already-scary creatures or one modern-day monster and some sort of natural disaster. These are The 25 Best Syfy Channel Movies, Based on Title Alone.

RELATED: The 50 Best Sci-Fi Movies

RELATED: The 50 Best Villains in Movie History

RELATED: The 50 Worst Special Effects in Movie History

Related: Best Sci-Fi Movies Streaming on Netflix

Related: All Time Best Sci-Fi Movies

Written by Jennifer M. Wood (@j_m_wood)

Tagline: 100 years later, lightning strikes twice.

Albert Einstein once famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Which is an apropos description of any passenger willing to hop aboard the Titanic 2, a luxury liner that sets sail on the 100th anniversary of its namesake. Tsunamis and icebergs ensue. The only thing that could make this one more perfect would have been to title it Titanic II: Electric Boogaloo.

Tagline: The tsunami was just the beginning of the terror.

Malibu Shark Attack is the rare Syfy movie where the title doesn’t quite do the plot line justice: When a tsunami (yes, again) strikes Malibu, it unleashes a pack of unruly prehistoric sharks, who immediately set their feeding frenzied sights on a submerged lifeguard station.

Tagline: The earth will bring forth destruction.

No, you won't see Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum in this disaster flick, premiering on June 27th. But you will see pretty much the same storyline when a kickass kinda guy and a renegade scientist team up to defend their planet from an alien attack.

Tagline: Hell has frozen over.

We’re pretty sure Syfy has used some variation of this tagline at least a dozen times over the years (hey, if it works). But the idea is painfully original: A magical snow globe has the power to unleash natural disasters in the real world when shaken.

Tagline: Get ready for a hot time in the big city.

Just when you thought there wasn't an inch left of undiscovered terrain in Manhattan, up pops a full-on volcano, which is leaking lava into the water supply and causing violent tremors and explosions throughout the city.

Tagline: The heat index is about to rise.

Things are about to get hot in Miami. Real hot. An illegal drilling operation is about to trigger an eruption in a volcano that lives below the city. Fortunately, there's a vulcanologist on the case to save the city's scantily-clad residents.

Tagline: Hell has just frozen over.

Extreme temperatures are a staple of Syfy’s filmography, as evidenced by this tale of giant, people-eating spiders run amok at Utah’s Lost Mountain Ski Resort, where a group of young skiers are training for the next Olympics.

Tagline: Six soldiers. Full moon. No chance.

The title sort of says it all, but it’s fun to repeat: A group of soldiers are dropped into the Scottish Highlands for a training mission, but quickly become the prey of some mischief-making werewolves.

Tagline: Your worst fears will surface.

Jersey Shore Shark Attack is Syfy at its campy best, capitalizing on the never-ending thirst for a good shark attack movie coupled with the (former) popularity of MTV's Jersey Shore. Characters include Nooki and The Complication.

Tagline: It feeds on fear.

The Roger Corman-produced Dinocroc is one of the earliest examples of a formula that has served Syfy well: merge an already-scary creature with a prehistoric one. Dinosaurs rule!

Tagline: One escaped. The other is about to be unleashed.

When you’ve got two brilliant titles—and mythical beasts—like this, why stop at just one movie? Six years after Dinocroc slithered his way on to the small screen, legendary producer Roger Corman brought him back for a second feeding, this time pitting him against a gigantic alligator.

Tagline: Fear what's just below the surface.

It's hard to resist all the bad science happening in this movie, which follows the deadly path of a prehistoric shark that has settled in Puerto Vallarta for feeding time.

Tagline: 1 body, 2 heads, and 6,000 teeth.

Two heads are better than one, particularly when it comes time to ratchet up the B-level horror. The party ends for co-eds when their Semester at Sea ship is sunk by a two-headed shark, who follows them to the island they swim to for safety and attacks when it begins to sink.

Tagline: Welcome to the perfect tourist trap.

All you need to know about this movie can be summed up in four words: Sharks. Venice. Stephen Baldwin. You’ll never look at a gondola ride the same way!

Tagline: Screaming, scratching, biting... and that's just THE GIRLS!

Putting aside the sexist tagline, this movie—in which giant pythons eat more than 70 alligators in a matter of days in the Florida Everglades—actually shines a light on the delicate eco-system that really does exist.

Tagline: Not a city was standing, not even a house.

On the first day of Christmas my Syfy gave to me... a yuletide day of reckoning. Based on the Mayan calendar's prediction that the world would end in 2012, a series of natural disasters are blamed on a young girl who turns out to be the "chosen one" to save us all.

Tagline: 50% shark. 50% octopus. 100% deadly.

Roger Corman strikes again with this monster that's got teeth like Jaws an eight arms with which to capture you.

Tagline: Mythical monsters force a new last stand at the Old Alamo.

Erik Estrada and his fellow Lone Staters take a last stand against a group of deadly chupacabras at San Antonio's most famous historical site.

Tagline: Death rises from deep below.

An adventurer is forced to choose between saving his life's work or all of humanity as he faces off against a nest of Mongolian death worms tasked with protecting a legendary tomb.

Tagline: Half snake, half fish... all death.

While it's officially the sequel to Sharktopus, the two films—or the made-up creatures in the center of them—really have nothing to do with one another. In this case, two piranha/anaconda hybrids, one stolen egg, a film crew, and a kidnapper collide for one schlocky good time.

Tagline: Boston is about to make history... one last time.

The official synopsis tells the story best: "All hail breaks loose when super-strength tornadoes hurl large stones over Boston."

Tagline: The world will quake in fear.

An earthquake awakens a nest of gigantic—and very, very hungry—spiders in New Orleans.

Tagline: Welcome to the bottom of the food chain.

It's humankind versus fishkind when a school of genetically-engineered snakeheads begin killing residents of a small Louisiana bayou town.

Tagline: First they hunted for a cure. Now they're hunting a monster.

It's also known as Mosquitoman, but that's just not as fun. It's also really just a ripoff of The Fly, in which a pharmaceutical company's attempts to solve a deadly disease end up turning some of its test subjects into blood-sucking monsters.