'Beautiful Maidens Ruled By A Hideous Stone God!' screamed the poster for this Roger Corman quickie from 1958. Such claims make the film sound half-enjoyable, even if only on a kitsch level. Sadly, it's all rather misleading and the true fact of the matter is that She-Gods Of Shark Reef is a woeful piece of idiocy, directed in a fortnight or so by Corman while he was already on location on Kaua'i, Hawaii, for the making of the similarly-plotted and similarly terrible Naked Paradise.
Young gun-runner Jim (Don Durant) is on the lam after killing a couple of guards at a dockside arms depot. His brother Chris (Bill Cord) offers to take him to safety aboard his boat. However, their boat gets washed onto a reef during a storm and the brothers survive only because they are rescued from drowning by the women of a strange, secretive, all-female colony of pearl divers. While waiting for a ship to come along, Chris falls in love with one of the island girls, Mahia (Lisa Montell), much to the annoyance of the island elder Queen Pua (Jeanne Gearson). Meanwhile, Jim starts to get nervous that word about his crime will spread and he will be arrested once the ship arrives, so he starts planning an early escape from the island by repairing an abandoned canoe. Unfortunately, the 'criminal' in him can't resist pocketing a few of the girls' pearls before he leaves, a foolish little crime which brings about complications to his getaway
Shot against beautiful backdrops with a good-looking cast, She-Gods Of Shark Reef offers absolutely nothing beyond these attractive trimmings. Yes, the Hawaiian islands look lovely. Yes, the male leads are muscular, handsome types. Yes, the pearl diving girls are pretty little things. But when it comes to the important things – plot, pace, dialogue, narrative interest, tension, characterisation, conflict – the film has NOTHING to offer. It's a hopeless bore which somehow conspires to make its 63 minute running time seem three times longer than it really is. 63 minutes is roughly how long it would take a snail to slide across a decent-sized back yard – and, believe me, you'd have infinitely more fun watching the snail for the duration of its progress than spending the same 63 minutes sitting through this film!
Young gun-runner Jim (Don Durant) is on the lam after killing a couple of guards at a dockside arms depot. His brother Chris (Bill Cord) offers to take him to safety aboard his boat. However, their boat gets washed onto a reef during a storm and the brothers survive only because they are rescued from drowning by the women of a strange, secretive, all-female colony of pearl divers. While waiting for a ship to come along, Chris falls in love with one of the island girls, Mahia (Lisa Montell), much to the annoyance of the island elder Queen Pua (Jeanne Gearson). Meanwhile, Jim starts to get nervous that word about his crime will spread and he will be arrested once the ship arrives, so he starts planning an early escape from the island by repairing an abandoned canoe. Unfortunately, the 'criminal' in him can't resist pocketing a few of the girls' pearls before he leaves, a foolish little crime which brings about complications to his getaway
Shot against beautiful backdrops with a good-looking cast, She-Gods Of Shark Reef offers absolutely nothing beyond these attractive trimmings. Yes, the Hawaiian islands look lovely. Yes, the male leads are muscular, handsome types. Yes, the pearl diving girls are pretty little things. But when it comes to the important things – plot, pace, dialogue, narrative interest, tension, characterisation, conflict – the film has NOTHING to offer. It's a hopeless bore which somehow conspires to make its 63 minute running time seem three times longer than it really is. 63 minutes is roughly how long it would take a snail to slide across a decent-sized back yard – and, believe me, you'd have infinitely more fun watching the snail for the duration of its progress than spending the same 63 minutes sitting through this film!