She Gods of Shark Reef

Two men escape from police, only to be stranded on a corporate owned native island (?) where superstitious women worship a shark god. Mayhem and Hawaiian clothing ensue.

As with many Roger Corman movies, I found this movie to be entertaining despite bottom of the barrel production values. He also paces the film reasonably, not wasting any time on unnecessary material. A very short running time results.

However, I can only recommend it to Corman fans, or to fans of low budget tropical island movies. Those looking for horror or sci-fi won't find it here.

What will stick out most in this low budget affair is that it truly is low budget. You can tell not much is spent in this story of a prison escape of two men, aided by the brother of one, to meet with a hurricane, and get stranded on an island of beautiful women who fish for pearls in shark infested waters.

But Corman does a good job of keeping things fresh. This is a "cheese" film, make no mistake, and was meant to showcase a pair of hunks and a few gorgeous gals.

You can tell no money is wasted. But we don't mind that we don't see a ship torn apart by a hurricane. Only the most hopeless of dorks would complain about the lack of special effects, so long as the story is told.

There could have been more organization, however. The credits I saw on utube don't even begin to match the names of the characters. If you look at the credits while watching the movie, you'll go "Huh?".

And the bad brother is a bit cliché in his consistent evil doings. May as well let him muse over taking over the world with James Bond as a nemesis.

Still, the ending is totally unpredictable, particularly for Corman, and particularly for modern audiences. One has to be fairly impressed that Corman can at least keep from giving us a cliché to end this one.

When Durant kills a guard during a failed arms theft, he convinces his friend (Cord) to sail to a remote island where friends will shelter him to avoid capture by authorities. Alas, the boat on which they sail capsizes in a storm and the two survivors are saved by the inhabitants of an island of women, governed by maternal den mother Gerson. The women work for an unidentified corporation, harvesting pearls, hula dancing and fishing. Sounds idyllic, except that Gerson has summoned the police to recover the fugitives, spurring them to engineer an escape - along with local girl Montell with whom Cord has become romantically involved.

It's cheap, uninspired Roger Corman nonsense; picturesque with amiable performances by Montell, Cord and Durant in particular, but little excitement or suspense. The shark reef itself doesn't appear especially threatening, the largest specimen six feet at best and looking more like a lemon shark than a fearsome tiger. Durant and Cord have obviously spent time preparing for their roles in the gymnasium, while Montell has ensured no evident tan lines blur the imagination. Gerson is a matron-like mother superior, disapproving of the boys and their ambitions for her young, impressionable charges.

The climax surpassed the meagre expectations, and generally the narrative is pretty coherent albeit very compact. If you worship the Corman factory, then "She Gods" will take pride of place on your shelf. If however you're only a casual viewer, even at barely a tick over the hour mark, this might be a bit too fast and loose to keep you entertained.

Since the early 1950s, Roger Corman has been directing and releasing films at a break-neck pace. Typically, he tosses four or five into the arena per year. This explosive productivity, of course, limits the range of quality (and budgets) for his productions. However, Corman has only occasionally released really truly bad films. This is an example.

Corman used the lovely islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago as a setting for this early color flatliner. If you have seen a few of his films, you know how important setting is to Corman. First - he never seems to have an adequate budget for his most ambitious projects, so he makes sure he films in visually interesting settings. Second - Corman often uses over-long and somewhat tedious pans ("Corman pans"). With nice scenery in the background, or a well designed set, the tedium factor for these shots is reduced. Corman's films are loaded with people moving from place to place, and "She Gods" is no exception.

The film is about a pair of vaguely likable brothers. Chris (Bill Cord) is a fairly normal, if not particularly bright, young man. Lee (Don Durant) is his evil, and only slightly less intelligent, brother. Lee is a fugitive from the law. They find themselves shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a tribe of Polynesian Amazons lead by the not-very-creepy but still rather annoying Queen Pua (Jeanne Gerson). Lisa Montell plays Mahia (Lisa Montell), who fairly quickly becomes romantically entangled with Chris, but the gods of the shark reef have apparently made it clear that both men are taboo. Chris and Lee plot to escape, and decide to take Mahia along with them, but the shark gods have other plans.

The acting is OK (with mediocre camera-work occasionally making the actors appear to be over-acting), the pace is as good as some of Corman's better works, the script is thankfully spartan, and the plot is as thin as a fish scale. The Hawaiian dancing and singing, underwater swimming scenes, shark-fight action and lovely costumes don't really succeed in making up for the virtually nonexistent story-line, middling cinematography and weakly developed main characters. Plus, some of the shark scenes (I believe one is repeated twice in the film) are laughable.

Can't really recommend this.

A simple, one-lined description of this movie would sound a little like: two guys wash ashore a tropical island exclusively inhabited by women that dive for pearls all day and worship ocean Gods… Terrific! Sounds like a movie many (male) exploitation fans would want to see. Or better yet, where can we go to book our very own holiday to this island? In reality, however, "She Gods of Shark Reef" is nothing but a good-looking package with absolutely no content. Roger Corman is one of the greatest and most important directors in (B-) movie history, but many of his obscure mini-budget productions of the late 50's really aren't worth bothering for. Movies like "Creature from the Haunted Sea", "Attack of the Crab Monsters" or this "She Gods of Shark Reef" were shot in a period of only a few days and without a real script, merely because Corman had a handful of extra dollars to spend and/or wanted to make more out of a certain filming location. The events take place in Hawaii and the beautiful images of this wonderful place are the ONLY reason to give this movie a glimpse. It's one of Corman's first movies shot in color and the place does look enchanting even though nothing really is happening there. The two male leads are supposed to be running from the law and the female leader of the island doesn't want them there, especially not since one of them is after her slave girls. The other guy is more interested in the shiny pearls, so needless to say he's not going to make it out alive. Or is he? You better not be expecting any vicious shark-attacks or virgin sacrifices, because you WILL feel cheated. The closest we come to an action sequence is when a native girl encourages the handsome blond guy to dance with her. Despite the gorgeous setting and promising (but misleading) title, this is one of the most boring films I ever watched. 63 minutes never lasted this long. Sorry, Roger