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.

It seemed (I thought) to be such a noble goal. To review all the movies on the Treeline Films DVD compilation '50 SciFi Classics'. And after 'The Incredible Petrified World', 'Queen of the Amazons' and 'Robot Monster'; to this bad film aficionado, it would also be most enjoyable.

But then came 'She Gods of Shark Reef'.

One can only imagine the good people at Treeline discovered the day before it released '50 SciFi Classics' that their collection only contained 49 films. So, in their need to find a filler fast, we end up with this non-SciFi film that was seemingly videotaped off a TV station whose reception you can only get by plugging the aerial into the toaster. Except, such a movie would never be played by one of those TV stations, due to its fear of losing an audience.

Even the Treeline plot summary on the DVD sleeve gives you the tell tale sign that your in for a painful experience, as the best thing they can say at the beginning is 'Filmed in Hawaii'; which to my surprise, turned out to be a colour production process that seemingly gives this film a maximum of only 3 colour tones at any one time.

I will not give you a plot synopsis as I strongly recommend you don't watch this film. It manages to find that special 'woeful' niche, where it's not bad enough to be enjoyable, yet hardly good enough to be watchable.

However, I know that no matter how appalling it is, lessons can be drawn from a movie. The three lessons I learned from this film were:

(1) its OK to hit a woman, provided she is fat and ugly

(2) no matter how you film it, a dead shark looks very obviously like a dead shark, even if you push it to the intended shark attack victim, or drag it in the water to give the impression that its swimming

(3) if there was an award for 'Smallest Killer Shark in Film', the poor little dead creature used here would win (and by more than a fin). In fact, if it were any smaller, it could easily be mistaken for krill.

I have sacrificed myself to the She Gods so that you may forego the pain. I recommend that you take the opportunity instead to turn off the TV and go outside for a pleasant 70 minute walk and talk with a friend or loved one. The type of thing people probably did before the invention of film.

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

She Gods Of Shark Reef is a Roger Corman film where two fleeing Americans are washed up on the shore of an uncharted desert island with nothing but females inhabiting it. Bill Cord and Don Durant are the lucky guys and the main industry of the island is pearl diving. Despite the fact that one of them is a fugitive from the law these two think they've got it made.

But as the old adage goes if something looks too good to be true, chances are it is. These women worship the shark as a deity and that's a deity that forever needs feeding. And somehow in their religion as in many others they've divined that the shark likes virginal women.

Other than they don't like outsiders in general Queen Jeanne Gerson of this Amazon culture also feels that with these two healthy American men the virgin supply might start shrinking. Though you have to wonder how without men did these Amazon cultures start and keep going.

All I can say is that Roger Corman did Happy Days one better by having a whole film devoted to shark worship. And the Happy Days folks thought just the Fonz jumping a shark tank was the be all end all.

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.