Cyclone

Well, fully fallen on the snout: I thought there was a disaster here with pretty shark attacks (yes, yes, that sounds morbid - and I mean it that way!). Unfortunately, there is very, very little predator action, but really just a bunch of people bumming around on various boats. The cast of "Tornado" is quite good - among others the Mexican acting legend Hugo Stiglitz takes part -, but there is really little action. In short: lame. There were and are dozens of better films like this.

You'd have to be a truly unscrupulous and slightly decadent Mexican trash-director in order to take a real-life human tragedy, like that of the plane crash in the Andes, and maximally exploit its storyline and horrific elements. René Cardona Sr. already directed a fairly truthful and impressive re-enactment of the real disaster in 1976 ("Survive!), but apparently his own son was jealous at the money-making concept and decided to make pretty much exactly the same film, only set in a *slightly* warmer climate and with a handful of sharks thrown in for additional menace. The result is a preposterous and severely unpleasant film that falsely aspires to be an intense drama, but actually it's just shameless excuse to depict the mental downfall of people and slowly build up towards cannibalism for the sake of survival. "Cyclone" opens with cheerful postcard images of a sunny holiday resort where tourists make boat excursions near the coastline. Then the calamity displayed in the title brutally interrupts the holiday spirit and, for several long minutes, Cardona Jr. simply edits together a compilation of random National Geographic documentary images to illustrate the harshness of the cyclone. Castaways from a tourist excursion and a fisherman's boat, as well as survivors of a sea-crashed plane gather together in a tiny sloop and face several long days of hunger, mental & physical exhaustion, desiccation, hopelessness and of course the inevitably increasing feelings of mutual hatred and competition. If all this painful human suffering isn't enough yet, the waters are also infested with bloodthirsty tiger sharks. After nearly a dozen days of despair, some of the survivors see no other option than to feed on the flesh of the deceased, but this socially sensitive suggestion really tears the group apart. Like I said, "Cyclone" is an incredibly unpleasant viewing experience and it hardly appeals to any cinematic target group. The film is far too heavy-toned for horror fanatics but simultaneously it's too uneven to please disaster-film freaks and too repulsive for admirers of dramas. The characters are bleak and the script draws their personalities rather inconsistently. Carroll Baker's character, for example, is initially portrayed as a real bitch that protects her poodle from the burning sun rather than to rescue fellow human beings, but when the climax approaches she suddenly transformed into one of the most amiable people on board. Same problem with Arthur Kennedy's priest character! At first he's comprehensive and helpful, but later it actually seems as if he wants to prevent people from saving themselves. Do not, repeat NOT, raise your expectations too much regarding the shark sub plot. The exact same shark footage is shown no less than four times and, if my memory serves me well, these scenes also already featured in Cardona's other sea-adventure "Tintorera". The last half hour of this extremely overlong (120minutes) exploitation ordeal is literally disgusting and actually discouraging for those who were still expecting a happy ending. The gore and bloodshed is shocking, indeed, but you can't possibly neglect the many moments of boredom and the overall execution of "Cyclone" is downright tasteless and sick.

Good effect for an old movie, good cast. Bad timing 5 star for the effort and remember Mexican movie

Certainly an intense and at times campy little cult gem from Rene Cardon Jr. I'm a fan of the disaster film. Coming into this ,I wasn't quite prepared for some of what I saw. It has an interesting cast of European cult films, including Olga Karlatos from ZOMBIE. Just think of your standard disaster film with some shocking exploitation scenes. A friend told me after viewing that the filmmakers used real corpses to feed the sharks! Don't know if those folks donated there bodies to science, but even so its an entertaining obscurity. Warning to anyone with a weak stomach as this is quite out there in some scenes,in the gross-out department. As well as anybody who might own a poodle, you might like to turn away in 1 scene. All that said, CYCLONE, is much better than Cardonas other more known disaster film, SURVIVE.

In CYCLONE, a boat full of tourists, an airplane full of passengers, and a fishing boat are all thrust into a hellish fight for survival when they are hit by the storm of the title. Each group faces the disaster separately -though they start meeting up during the lengthy aftermath. This is all very dramatic.

Unfortunately, the storm ends at about the 30 minute mark, and the dullness ensues. Oh, there's the occasional interruption in the form of a shark attack, an act of doggy murder, human fish bait, or cannibalism, but mostly it's just waiting, bickering, and more waiting to be rescued.

Said rescue is launched, and is equally boring, with naval types lethargically murmuring their lines. The dubbed dialogue doesn't help, with some of the characters speaking as if they're performing a eulogy! This goes on for many days, and the viewers face the same relentless torture as the survivors!

Recommended only for the stoutest fans of cinematic agony.

Co-stars Olga Karlatos (ZOMBIE), Arthur Kennedy (LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE), Carroll Baker (THE DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES), and the inimitable Hugo Stiglitz (NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS, NIGHTMARE CITY).

P.S.- This review is for the full, 2 hr (!) version of this movie...