The Beast - Unheimliche Tiefe

"William Snyder" is aka Bruno Mattei, the hack behind Zombie 3 (replacing Fulci), Strike Commando, Shocking Dark, Rats and other celluloid atrocities. As many pointless hours of "entertainment" as this guy has given me, i can't hate him,if just for his sheer audacity. And true to form, Cruel Jaws is the king of bad Jaws xeroxes. Most people will feel severely ripped off, but if (like me) you're a conoisseur of this form of twisted, inverted crap worship, you should have a ball (have some beer as well). My favourite part is the slight alteration of the classic line of dialogue from Jaws, feel your jaw hit the floor as a character actually remarks "We're gonna need a bigger HELICOPTER"!!!

A rogue tiger shark proceeds to dine on all the chump humans who enter its watery domain off the coast of Florida. Various concerned citizens take it upon themselves to rid the locale of the finned predator. Among our characters: an aquarium owner (Richard Dew, an obvious Hulk Hogan impersonator), an angry Sheriff (David Luther), a young shark expert (Gregg Hood), and a stereotypically greedy, sleazy land developer (George Barnes Jr.).

Complete with a dopey script, *hilariously* ridiculous lines (characters keep threatening to tear each others' manhood off), inane characters & performances, and gloriously awful shark effects (the fish here makes Bruce look good, even on his worst day), "Cruel Jaws" is one of the kings of truly bad shark cinema. What's more, this is a Bruno Mattei joint, and the late Italian schlock filmmaker never met a plot he couldn't rip off. Here he and the writers scrupulously copy (if not outright steal) characters, plots, and scenes straight from not only Hollywoods' "Jaws" franchise, but from Joe D'Amato's "Deep Blood" and Enzo G. Castellari's "The Last Shark" as well. If you are like this viewer and are intimately familiar with the "Jaws" franchise, you'll recognize the stolen shots when you see them, as brief as they are. The result is a priceless, ludicrous stew of shark movie absurdities. Even the score is imitative: sometimes emulating John Williams' classic "Jaws" theme, it even goes so far as to sound like his main "Star Wars" theme at points!

Cast with an assortment of non-union locals, the movie has definite amusements, especially Mr. Dew, who's required to give pep talks and educate locals on shark "facts". The young cast may be insipid in terms of any actual acting ability, but they're certainly attractive. Mattei and company even throw a wheelchair-bound child (Kirsten Urso) into the mix. And hey, the dolphins and that seal are of course cute. The seal is involved in two gags involving the sleazy antagonist.

Worth noting is that this flick actually incorporates the idea of the antagonist being involved with the mob, an element dropped from the original Peter Benchley novel for the classic 1974 Hollywood blockbuster, and approximates scenes from the novel such as a family of jerks who show up at the beach, hoping to see the shark, who annoy the Sheriff.

Good fun for people who can't get enough of cheesy shark cinema.

Five out of 10.

Cruel Jaws (1995)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Italian director Bruno Mattai is probably known for being the biggest hack of the past thirty years. He made a name for himself by creating some really strange horror films that borrowed music scores, scenes and direct dialogue from whatever movie he was ripping. His most famous film, Hell of the Living Dead was a rip of Romero's Dawn of the Dead and with this film he goes after Jaws. A tiger shark, created by the Navy to kill our enemies, is loose in the ocean and killing everyone. The (sound familiar) nice sheriff wants to close the beaches but the Mayor doesn't want to lose the summer money. People get eaten. I've seen quite a few Italian rips of the Spielberg film and this one here is one of the best actually but there's also the classic Mattai moments where he rips off scenes and dialogue. All four Jaws films have scenes and dialogue redone here and I even noticed some dialogue from Porky's. The attack scenes are done very well even though it's obvious that the shark isn't real. The film drags on a bit too long at 97 minutes but if you don't mind cheese then you might enjoy this.

i am in awe, that the makers of this piece of trash aren't ashamed about their "work". most of the shark scenes are taken from the jaws movies! and those sharkscenes with a real shark are that of a white skark, not a tigershark! that aside, the whole plot and the "actors" (if you would call this untalented bunch this way)are beyond bad! watching this movie makes you angry for wasting the energy to keep awake during this fiasco!

As co-founder of Nicko & Joe's Bad Film Club Show here in the UK, all I can do is stand on my chair and applaud wildly. A true, true instance of a great bad movie, it's come a very close second to Shark Attack 3, which is of course THE BEST bad shark movie EVER.

The best thing about the film though is being able to see all of my favourite shark movies in the one film! Genius idea. So many times I've been stuck watching a movie like Star Wars and thought, jeesh, this movie is great, but it could do with a few Star Trek cut aways.

There are moments of true hilarity and you have to admire the balls it takes to put a film like this out there

Bravo, no, really, BRAVO.