Sharknado: The 4th Awakens Behind the Scenes

Sharknado is back and sharkier than ever! Take a look at some behind-the-scenes fun from the set of Sharknado: The 4th Awakens.

Even though David Hasselhoff’s Gil was last seen stranded in space in 2015’s Sharknado 3, the original Baywatcher is back as the father of Ian Ziering’s Fin Shepard. And Ziering is over the moon. “David’s got such a great sense of humor; he’s just an all-around awesome guy and a consummate professional,” he raves. “It is always great working with the Hoff.”

Oh, this bites. Set five years after the last movie, the new film finds Fin fished out of retirement in Kansas after a family vacation to Vegas goes wildly off the hook. Sharks in the desert? “Well, we could have a sandnado,” the actor hints. “And through the magic of Hollywood, we were able to find a way, creatively, to transform that into a sharknado.”

They’re on a boat! Previous ’Nados have spoofed space operas, theme-park horror movies and action flicks, so this time, Ferrante decided, “Let’s do a mini pirate film.” Which explains why Ziering and Ryan Newman (back as Fin’s kid, Claudia) are brandishing blades. “We have a little bit of a sword fight in this one!”

Transformers has nothing on Ziering, who says his unlikely hero straps on this 20-pound mech suit to “level the playing field” against the latest batch of flying fish. “Fin is an ordinary man doing extraordinary things and going to great lengths to keep his family safe.”

“You know, he came down for a bite,” Ziering jokes of buddy Vince Neil (center, posing for a selfie with Ziering and a fan). We know Neil plays himself, but we couldn’t bait franchise director Anthony C. Ferrante into revealing if the Mötley Crüe frontman winds up chum in the movie: “Let’s just say we kill a lot of people in Vegas.”

Bigger than the mystery of what will be on that green screen behind Ziering and Tara Reid is the fate of her character, April. Fans got to vote #AprilLives or #AprilDies after last summer’s falling-space-debris cliffhanger. “Well, she’s in the film,” Ferrante hedges. “But nothing is ever as it seems in the Sharknado movies.”