Wopsploitation: "Tintorera"(1978)d/Rene Cardona, Jr.

First of all, to those of you woprophiles out there who have only managed to catch the truncated 85 minute American cut of tonight's entry thus far, that might feel like they've missed out on witnessing the missing forty or so minutes, I say this.The uncut Tintorera experience is pretty easily summed up, really. It's like a two hour long made-for-cable episode of Love Boat, if Captain Steubing was a Speedo-clad Hugo Stiglitz and Gopher was a hispanic shark fisherman with red hair (unconvincingly dyed Kool Aid red, methinks), as written by Bob Guccione, with the Mexican equivalent of Umberto Lenzi behind the camera, screaming wildly for more real animal killings, bad disco dancing, and casual nudity.I apologize if I've made any of this seem appetizing to the refined Cult palates of Wopsploitation readers out there, because it really isn't in the least.If you're on board for a gripping, Jaws-inspired cinematic adrenaline rush, it sucks to be you.You're not even getting unintentional Jaws rip off laughs a la Castellari's Great White here.If you're looking for daring, exploitative seventies sex unapologetically depicted in front of the camera, you're shit out of luck, as well.What you will see, is yachtfuls of juvenile sharks getting their skulls pulverized with bats, when they aren't being fatally harpooned in the labonza, that is, by two male characters so immersed in constant macho competition that they've gone fluttery in the flippers for each other, despite having a seemingly neverending supply of willing beach babes with less sexual inhibitions than clothes, a fully stocked houseboat, and piles of cash at their disposal.Personally, I'd sink the houseboat in the shallows by overloading it with sexy ladies to party with and be done with it, but maybe I'm simply not the target audience here.As many exploitative elements as this film has going for it, the viewer shouldn't be daydreaming about their next nap, the way I was on more than one occasion during this mostly boring waste of fucking time.The convoluted story goes like this...

To Esteban(Hugo Stiglitz), vacation means hedonism.
After work, coffee, and chainsmoking lead to his eventual breakdown(as if that was possible!), a doctor prescribes three months in Cancun to a reluctant Esteban(Hugo Stiglitz) who borrows a yacht, and hires Coronado(Roberto Guzmán),a gangly redheaded shark fisherman as his personal assistant during his sun-baked rehabilitation on the beach.Esteban immediately hooks pillow-chested Patricia(Fiona Lewis), before losing her to professional Mexi-stud Miguel(Andres Garcia), who bottoms her out himself before she goes for that nude swim at sunrise,a wigged prop head full of guts in the mouth of a tiger shark signalling her premature exit in our tale.Miguel uses his charms on a jilted Esteban, who decides becoming best friends in hedonism with his competitor makes a lot more sense than searching for the woman he may have fallen in love with, now missing.The new pals hook up with two hitchiking honeys,Cynthia and Kelly, who laughingly recount how they consented to rape from two horny fruit picking Mexicans in the back of an orange truck just to get there.Now there's one their kids'll love hearing about years from now, and a perfect cue for an ensuing evening of drinking, dancing, casual sex, and partner-swapping on Esteban's boat.In a momentary pause from their womanizing after a hung up Esteban angrily busts up an impromptu disco marijuana party on the boat, the men enjoy some scuba diving* the next day(*bravely harpooning some undersized, sleeping sharks on the ocean floor).They encounter Gabriella(Susan George),a British tourist they're both instantly taken with(translation:making bets as to which will bed her first), who agrees to go fishing with the self-proclaimed "shark hunters" the next day.

Clearly, not much of Fiona Lewis' salary went towards costumes.
Impressed with how adept they are at whacking everything that swims(including a manta ray for some inexplicably worthless reason), Gabriella agrees to an uncomfortable love triangle where she wholly belongs to both men and they both wholly belong to her.If you think that's weird, wait 'til you see the establishing montage that follows.The unorthodox three way bond continues to evolve, with Gabriella and Miguel moving onto Esteban's boat full-time and sharing duties, clothes, and errrrvrythin'; until just when you're sure the men are about to dump the broad and kiss each other, that titular tiger shark you probably forgot about by now decides to graphically eat Miguel, swimming around with his disembodied head in his toothy yap as a pair of severed wetsuit legs float lifelessly to the bottom.After you've wiped the tears of uncontrollable laughter from your eyes, you'll notice that a grieving Gabriella bows out of the reduced love equation, herself.Back at the starting gate, Esteban respects his dead pal Miguel's wishes and parties like nothing ever happened, even reuniting with the loose hitchhiking tourist chicks from earlier in the movie.His brooding even finds him burying the hatchet with the unwanted party guests on his boat, and in a fine display of friendship, he invites them all to skinny dip their way to his boat at night.Yeah, that's probably not a great idea, Esteban.Tintorera again makes the scene, swimming in and out of the shallows full of terrified nude swimmers(I'm thinking they pulled a sizeable dead tiger shark on a tow to achieve this impressive sequence), making off with one of the girls' shapely pegs in the process.Esteban vows to the girl's father to kill the offending cartillagenous culprit, which he seemingly does after another underwater sequence where he jams his spear gun into the shark's yap, but not before the tiger relieves him of one of his arms(or not,I dunno at this point).We see Esteban bandaged in the hospital, reminiscing about his time with Miguel and Gabriella.If you think that's headache-inducing confusion, just wait until we cover Hugo's Incubo sulla Citta Contaminata in the future...

Severed Mexican gigolo heads: Antonio the Tiger(Shark) sez, "They're GRRRRRRRRREAT!"
There's nearly as much underwater footage of tiger sharks here, handled by Mexican marine biologist/author of the novel, Ramón Bravo, as there is of hairy male asses(arguably the Ben Hur of naked male ass movies, no doubt, if that's your thing.Not mine, by any stretch of the imadge, droogies.).Making matters worse is an embarrassingly rotten disco soundtrack supplied by the late Basil Poledouris, who would later score films like Conan the Barbarian and Starship Troopers.Perplexing to think a biologist like Bravo would be cool with the wanton, pointless death of so much marine life that transpires in front of Cardona's lens here.Not trying to sound like the hip new President of PETA here or anything(sharks are indeed quite delicious), I just think it was wholly unneccessary and made me a little uncomfortable, as it has to anybody else I've shown the movie to.In closing, Tintorera has all the potential elements needed to satisfy cult, horror, and exploitation fans, but somehow manages to lifelessly float upside down at the surface; a mostly boring and inept mess.Just one big one on the scale.