In the midst of a spell of hermitdom that would see New York's "Mayor of Cold River City" bow in the wake of mine own introversion,I've been lining up genre classics for examination all the while maintaining a healthy personal level of shittiness on the party front.Needless to say,I found myself venturing out on a much needed caffeine supply run at five in the morning(in Mountain Dew pajamas and Vans,mind you)as the zoot of the night before began to finally subside after spending the midnight hour carousing the thought provocative,less-wordy(which is always a good thing after a liberal dose of the Wop),extremely tit website,If It Makes Me Happy It May Make You Sad (which I've added to the blog list at the bottom of the page for those goobers too lazy to click the hyperlink I threw in just now.)maintained by Carole,an uber-rad chick on ALL fronts,indeed.It'll quickly become one of your favorites,too,if you're anything like me(Gods help you).Oh yeah,so I've decided to start the "Say No to November" movement,as being a choice vessel of Mediterranean blood I have to say,this cold weather is for the fucking birds.Onward.
Almost two years have passed since we last took a look at an Italian Jaws ripoff,when Castellari's embarrassing L'ultimo Squalo(1981) floated to the surface of the cinematic shitter like the inept turd it is.Fourteen years later,never to be out-stunk himself,Italian crapmaster Bruno Mattei under the pseudonym William Snyder(though there's little mistaking one of Bruno's deuces),finally got off the pot himself,adding his own preposterous pile of shit to the shittiest cine-shark sweepstakes,and it certainly places as number one or two,depending who you talk to,in said competition.With a storyline(and entire scenes) ripped off equally from Jaws(1975)and Jaws 2(1979),typical over the top Mattei dialogue delivered by actors with the screen presence of a dead flounder over ice,gloriously hokey icthyology,embarrasingly bad day for night shots,and the signature stock footage Bruno delights in pasting into his trainwreck movies(and even footage unbelievably cut right out of Squalo,to boot),it's hard to go lower on the limbo stick of bad movies than tonight's review.According to my mate Nige(who runs the excellent Italian Film Review site,and knows a thing or three about good bluebeat forty-fives from the sixties,as well),it'd make a killer double bill with Squalo.Yeah.If you hated yourself that much.
It is my scientific analysis that this man was mutilated by a locomotive with butcher's knives for teeth.
In the Sunshine State of Florida(where thick New York accents are abound),a Hulk Hogan lookalike(with less acting chops) named Dag Snerensen(Richard Dew)runs a Sea Worldesque aqua-zoo/water park where his invalid daughter,Heartstrings...err,ummm Susy,plays with the dolphins all day.Dag's young oceanographer pal Matt Hoo-ummm,Billy(Gregg Hood)and his selfish cunt girlfriend Vanessa(the always alliterative Norma Neisheim)pay him a visit just in time for the autopsy of a nasty bit of beachkill,which after a once over by the fish specialist,yields the following:"There's only one shark that could have done this."Huh?Tiger shark?What the fuck about the other three maneaters?Bull,Oceanic Whitetip,Great White?I'm only saying,due to the abnormally large amount of Great White stock footage we've been subjected to thus far,and zero Tigers.The mayor,with the assistance of super capitalist Sam Lewis(who Dag owes back rent to,who the mafia is putting the squeeze on,and whose daughter is romantically tied to Dag's son Bob,mind you),influences the coroner to change the death to boat propeller accident to avoid a panicked populace with the upcoming regatta scheduled(sound familiar?).Then there's the sheriff,who can leap a minor handrail in a single awkward bound with extremely dated eighties muzak piped into the background.Let's see Chief Brody pull that off.When the sheriff asks Billy what sharks are,he delivers the following classic professional evaluation:"They're locomotives with butcher's knives for teeth that swim,eat,and make baby sharks."Wait,it gets worse.
Cue the Miami Sound Machine soundalike,we're shooting the handrail stunt!
Lewis' son Ronnie,who's pissed that his sister is involved with Bob,ratpacks the guy with his two Italian new wave buddies,then has the nerve to try and poison Dag's dolphins,who thrash the water with their tails afterwards,calling Dag to come running to the scene of the crime,where he picks up a fish,smells it,and automatically knows it's poisoned.Once the mayor finally caves and puts a bounty on the killer rogue's head,Lewis's son and Vanessa eat cartillagenous streamlined death,spurring the sheriff on to fish for the shark from a helicopter dangling a hunk of hooked meat on a winch rope over the water.You know,exactly like in L'ultimo Squalo.Guess what happens.Billy then ties the shark to a nearby Navy wreckage,surmising out of the blue that the shark was captive-bred and trained to attack the enemy.The mafia henchmen go fishing for the beast themselves and get chewed up like Courtney Love's pussy.Finally,Billy,Dag and Bob(What,no Quint?) embark on the voyage to plant dynamite around the wreckage that,according to the icthyologist's "territoriality" theory,the shark calls home.While the boys dive to plant the charges,Dag stays aboard the ship,randomly firing a pump shotgun at stock footage of great whites and culled clips from Jaws.In the end,they blow the menace sky high(more direct shots from Jaws),Dag wins the reward money,gets to keep his water park,and everyone laughs as a seal pushes Lewis into the pool.All's well that ends well.
With a well-placed fish sniff that day/night,Hulk Hogan surmises that someone's poisoning the dolphins.
It must've taken Bruno ten years to release this gem,as I swear the soundtrack music is comprised of dated generic eighties pop that would make Gloria Estefan blush.Footage from Spielberg's Jaws series,Castellari's L'ultimo Squalo,and Massaccesi's Deep Blood blatantly re-appears here with no apologies given for the theft.I could understand ripping off Spielberg,but Massaccesi??Claudio "Up 'n Down" Fragasso provided the over emoted screenplay full of golden dialogue like "Dick brain! Dick brain! Dick brain!","Be careful!That shark was trained by the navy!""That's alright,I was a marine.",and "You're staying up here UNTIL! THIS! THING! IS! OVER!".Not nearly as piss-yer-pants funny as Castellari's movie,but still impressively rotten,just the same.It boggles my mind that a director could be so lazy as to shoot scenes into a film just so he could incorporate footage stolen from other movies.But that's Bruno Mattei for you.Hunt down a bootleg or pal dvd and see for yourselves.One terrible-good Wop.
Hey Bruno,Enzo called,he says he wants his hokey footage back.
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