A lot of people have already commented, but I will too. The best thing about this film is the poster as it features a prehistoric looking shark and a woman that appears to be terrified. If I had seen that poster in the theater back in the day, I would have jumped at the chance to watch this film. Unfortunately, back then, posters were done in a more artistic manner and oftentimes what was depicted on the poster was a lot better than the actual film. They were also misleading a lot of times too as it looks like a hardcore shark film! Couple that with the fact this one is rated R and you just know the shark action is going to be gory because even Jaws was rated PG! Well, when the film started you might think this is going to be cool, but as it plays out you would become increasingly frustrated by said film. For one thing, the shark on the poster looks nothing like the shark in the movie. In fact, the shark in the movie looks almost like a whale and they didn't even bother giving it really big teeth! Granted, you may miss said shark because when it is attacking you are treated with so many jump cuts and shot changes if you blink you will miss the shark in many instances! The film also tries to be funny and it is not. At first the comedic touches are light, but by the end it is almost pure comedy and makes the scene with the scientist dying seem almost out of place! Nothing about the poster suggests this film is a comedy! So after the credits roll, if you had sat through this entire film you would probably be rather angry because what was on that poster did not depict what you got!
The story in this one features a girl going down into the water to set some sort of equipment up while a scientist type guy sits in a boat. There is an earthquake or something and soon the woman is attacked and blood rushes from the area onto the surface. Best scene in the film as from there you are sent to a resort where the horrific comedy begins! The manager of the resort gets angry as a shark head washes ashore and blames a couple of local fisherman who take tourists on trips and thinks he is sabotaging their hotel which makes perfect sense for them to do because if the resort closes their business would dry up. It also makes another later scene make no sense as the resort manager starts saying, "There are no sharks in this area" when he saw a dead shark! So we have a few shark attacks, everyone of the unlikable characters try to cover it up or get rich and then at the end everyone rushes into the water to kill the shark when only the previous day they were running out of the water and continued running in a panic when they were on land! As for the shark in the poster, there is a very small one that fits in a bucket that looks like the one in the poster...
This film just missed the mark, but it is sort of understandable. "Jaws" had a big budget and even they could not really show the shark much because of the problems shooting water scenes presents. However, this film had an R rating and the attack scenes of the shark were less graphic than the PG rated "Jaws"! Every attack is watching someone swimming backward and a bunch of flashes of this and that and some red water! The only reason this film was most likely rated R is there is a scene where this supermodel goes topless and perhaps a few more curse words here and there. Seriously, you're making a "Jaws" ripoff movie the only way to go is to heap on the gore and violence. Instead, we get comedy that isn't funny and a very small topless scene! They also missed a golden opportunity for a memorable kill where the topless model is in a fishing net dangled over the water. They could have had the shark rise up and snatch her, instead she goes into the water and gets killed in the same fashion as everyone else in the film.
So this film is bad, pure and simple, but then again most shark films that are not the original "Jaws" are pretty bad. A lot of people even consider "Jaws II" bad, but I rather liked that one myself. I even liked the third film, as I found it cheesy fun. This one though is not fun. Why bother making an R rated shark film if you are not going to attempt to make the kills look good? Corman had a hand in this film, which is not surprising as he made so many of these ripoff films back in the day; however, he also had a hand in that piranha film in the 70's that is also kind of a take on "Jaws", but it was actually pretty good as it had good kills and a lot better story. This one was just a bunch of humor that fell flat and occasionally a shark attacks and then turns into almost all comedy and feels like the ending of a Hal Needham film as the cast goes out to fight the shark.
The story in this one features a girl going down into the water to set some sort of equipment up while a scientist type guy sits in a boat. There is an earthquake or something and soon the woman is attacked and blood rushes from the area onto the surface. Best scene in the film as from there you are sent to a resort where the horrific comedy begins! The manager of the resort gets angry as a shark head washes ashore and blames a couple of local fisherman who take tourists on trips and thinks he is sabotaging their hotel which makes perfect sense for them to do because if the resort closes their business would dry up. It also makes another later scene make no sense as the resort manager starts saying, "There are no sharks in this area" when he saw a dead shark! So we have a few shark attacks, everyone of the unlikable characters try to cover it up or get rich and then at the end everyone rushes into the water to kill the shark when only the previous day they were running out of the water and continued running in a panic when they were on land! As for the shark in the poster, there is a very small one that fits in a bucket that looks like the one in the poster...
This film just missed the mark, but it is sort of understandable. "Jaws" had a big budget and even they could not really show the shark much because of the problems shooting water scenes presents. However, this film had an R rating and the attack scenes of the shark were less graphic than the PG rated "Jaws"! Every attack is watching someone swimming backward and a bunch of flashes of this and that and some red water! The only reason this film was most likely rated R is there is a scene where this supermodel goes topless and perhaps a few more curse words here and there. Seriously, you're making a "Jaws" ripoff movie the only way to go is to heap on the gore and violence. Instead, we get comedy that isn't funny and a very small topless scene! They also missed a golden opportunity for a memorable kill where the topless model is in a fishing net dangled over the water. They could have had the shark rise up and snatch her, instead she goes into the water and gets killed in the same fashion as everyone else in the film.
So this film is bad, pure and simple, but then again most shark films that are not the original "Jaws" are pretty bad. A lot of people even consider "Jaws II" bad, but I rather liked that one myself. I even liked the third film, as I found it cheesy fun. This one though is not fun. Why bother making an R rated shark film if you are not going to attempt to make the kills look good? Corman had a hand in this film, which is not surprising as he made so many of these ripoff films back in the day; however, he also had a hand in that piranha film in the 70's that is also kind of a take on "Jaws", but it was actually pretty good as it had good kills and a lot better story. This one was just a bunch of humor that fell flat and occasionally a shark attacks and then turns into almost all comedy and feels like the ending of a Hal Needham film as the cast goes out to fight the shark.