Der Monster-Hai

It's a poorly edited film with lots of loose ends and plots that go nowhere. A hit-man character would be better off cut, if not for the scene where he strips an informer naked and throws her into the bathtub with an on hairdryer. There is some more hardcore horror with bit-off limbs and a decapitation where the man's body is inside the fish.

It's the popular view to think of the fish itself as being cheap looking. I disagree. It's pretty lifelike for an 80's rubber monster effect and a lot more enjoyable to me than the video game styled fish in 'The Phantom Menace'.

My review was written in November 1986 after a screening at Liberty theater on Manhattan's 42nd Street.

"Monster Shark", previously titled "Red Ocean", is a poor science fiction/horror film from Europe. Since Universal is planning a fourth "Jaws" epic, there's apparently some life left in this lame material.

Yank actor Michael Sopkiw gets involved in a hunt for a giant underwater killer off the Florida oast when he's hired to rig up some electronic equipment for scientists studying the series of gory attacks on humans. Eventually they discover that the culprit is a 15,000,000-year-old ancestor of the shark, 40-feet long and hungry. Worse yet, the critter's individual cells are capable of reproduction, meaning that if it isn't found and destroyed soon the ocean will be filled with the beasties.

Cornball film relies once again for the usual conflict between gung ho scientists (led by William Berger) who want to save the creature for study, and practical types like the local sheriff (Gianni Garko) who want to kill it. Monster itself is a very fake-looking cross between shark and octopus, wisely shown in its entirety only briefly on screen. Cast is peppered with pretty women, but the acting is miserable, becoming downright funny during some exaggerate death scenes or shrieking bouts.

Surprisingly for such a routine picture, five well-known Continental helmers are credited in various capacities, wit the Italian contingent (Lamberto Bava, the film's director, as well as Luigi Cozzi and Sergio Martino) hiding behind pseudonyms, while their French confreres, Max Pecas and Gilbert Roussel, are less shy.

Moderate Italian killer-fish saga concerning a genetically created shark-squid thing munching on various extras and the marine biologists who go after it. Not enough excitement to keep things afloat plus some bad continuity (watch for the scene where a fleeing woman is tripped by the creature and her handy axe flies overboard, in the next shot it's a couple of inches away from her...) Not the horrible mess it's been made out to be, but simply boring.

I remember hiring this about ten years ago. There was a little slip left inside the video box. Written on it was an unsavory comment. Now I really had to see it. I only watched it for Michael Sopkiw, as he was an actor who fascinated me, but sadly he only did 7 films. This one is of grinning embarrassment. Oh how right the last renter was. But still, Italian cheapies are fun, and what is so amusing about this, is that the whole pathetic laughable affair is really taken seriously. It's like us, the audience have been tested to swallow his bologne. Now I happen to like this bologne, but not this bologne. We have a ginormous, and octopus, who can eat victims like Piranha, due to an experiment gone wrong. As you can guess, the victims die some pretty horrific deaths, may'be it would of been safer i Dinosaur Valley. The whole affair is unbelievably corny, though from the effort of the writers, we almost wish we could believe it. Here, watch it, but look at it more as a comedy, as it will come off better with you. This devil fish has nothing on Jaws.

The monstrous star of 2010 CGI creature-feature Sharktopus is (rather obviously) half-shark-half-octopus, which probably sounds like a fairly unique concept unless you've been unfortunate enough to experience Monster Shark, Lamberto Bava's god-awful movie from 1984, which also features this particular genetic mash-up. Italian horror film-makers are renowned for following US trends, but for once it seems like they actually got there first (and by a whole 26 years).

Don't expect much else in the way of originality from Bava, though: strip away a poorly developed subplot about a shady geneticist out to protect the vicious sea-creature and what you have is just another in a long line of uninspired low-budget Jaws rip-offs, terribly acted, poorly directed, and much more likely to bore than to horrify.

Admittedly, the incredibly bad monster does provide some unintentional giggles, and supplies the film with a few moments of shoddy gore as it chomps down on its prey, and Bava throws in a couple of enjoyably exploitative scenes in which a murderous hired thug (played with gleeful menace by Paul Branco) bumps off a few defenceless victims, but these 'high' points are few and far between; for the majority of the time, Monster Shark is a dull, derivative mess.