In Wednesday’s Monster Madness battle, Gamera and Predator ran away with their first-round matches. Even with the backing of many ‘Star Wars’ fans, the Rancor was outmatched by Gamera’s fiery boosters of death. Today, we have one fortuitous underwater match-up, and one in which a vegetable takes on a killer fish.

I promise that I didn’t plan this. It’s just the way things shook out. We might see a few match-ups that feature underwater creatures battling land-dwellers, but both of today’s deadly monsters inhabit the watery deep.

Sharktopus – “It’s a shark! It’s an octopus! It’s a… sharktopus?!” Whatever else it may be, Sharktopus is the creation of our infatuation with godawful Syfy network monster movies. Every time I see a picture of Sharktopus, I have to laugh. It’s like the producers picked nautical creature names out of a hat and said, “Well, this sounds as good as anything.”

Strengths: It has the killer head of a shark and the tentacle mayhem of an octopus. It can use its wily limbs to crawl out of the water and grab victims on land. Along with all that, Sharktopus exhibits heightened intelligence.

Weaknesses: It blows up real good. Also, its CGI is horribly crappy.

Giant Squid – To be more specific, we’re talking about the scary beast that attacked the Nautilus in ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’. This isn’t your ordinary giant squid. It’s ornery and hates when people invade its personal space.

Strengths: I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular squid dwarfs the size of Sharktopus. Sure, Sharktopus looks huge and can snap up a regular great white shark with ease, but this squid made Captain Nemo’s precious submarine look like a bathtub toy. Also, giant squids are really cool.

Weaknesses: It doesn’t possess the same sort of heightened intelligence that Sharktopus has, what with walking on land and all.

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This next match-up seems pretty one-sided, but let’s take a closer look and see if we can even out the playing field somewhat. Angry mutant vegetable versus angry mutant fish – which will win?

Piranha – When I was a kid, no matter what anyone told me, I honestly believed that every body of water was home to schools of vicious piranhas. This was a crippling fear that took me a while to get over. I imagined putting my foot into some murky water, only to pull it back out and see that it had been picked clean to the bone by ferocious fish.

Strengths: They’re fuming government experiments gone wrong, and their razor-sharp teeth can devour anything made of meat within seconds.

Weaknesses: Much of the piranhas’ deadliness is linked to their pack-hunting nature. I guess it’s up to you to decide whether this match-up features a lone Piranha or a pack of hungry fish.

Killer Tomato – What a wacky monster this is. The original movie culminated in one of the weirdest battle scenes ever filmed. Whoever thought it up was truly demented. Still, killer tomatoes are veggies, and last I checked, piranhas aren’t herbivores.

Strengths: The tomatoes can grow in size and gobble up people.

Weaknesses: This is where we come back to that goofy ending. The song “Puberty Love” is deadly to these veggies. When people played it, the tomatoes shrunk in size and were squashed under foot. Can piranhas carry boomboxes?

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