Sangue negli abissi

Deep Blood (1989)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Joe D'Amato's next to last horror film is yet another Italian rip off of Jaws. After a group of friends take a blood pack, their friendship is put to the test when one of them is eaten by a shark. This is without question the worst of the Italian rips I've seen but I do have two more coming to me. The film has one suspenseful moment, the first attack, but after that everything is pretty dull. There's not a fake shark used throughout the film. Instead we get stock footage of a real shark that naturally never matches up to watch we're seeing in the other footage. Since no fake shark is being used, all of the attacks are rather silly.

This is the worst italian movie ever, quite possibly the worst movie of all time! Joe D'Amato is of course no cinematic genius but many of his movies are interesting and watchable. Unfortunatly this is not one of them. Its cheesy and boring....waaaaay boring. If you want a movie to MST3k, get Troll 2, if you want a movie to put someone into a coma, get deep blood!

I like to think of myself as a bad movie connoisseur. I like to think that the films most people label as the worst of all time I can easily withstand.

But...there are exceptions. I can only recall three movies I have had the misfortune to see that I have repeatedly used the fast-forward button for large chunks of the story. Those movies are The Mighty Gorga, Night of the Seagulls, and this little crap, Deep Blood.

In the world of Jaws ripoffs, this falls off the scale. Deep Blood doesn't have the realistic storyline of the original Crocodile, nor the incredible effects of The Sea Serpent, nor the commentary of Tintorera. No, instead we are treated to a handful of teens from any random failed '80s public access sitcom battling bullies and the local sheriff.

Shark attacks are realized by quick cuts of documentary footage with actors thrashing about in the water, occasionally with a bit of what appears to be orange-ish paint thrown into the water. Not a minute of original shark footage exists in this celluloid waste dump.

Normally, I, or somebody like me, would read a dismal review like this one and say "cool, I gotta find a copy of this!" That's the same thought I had when I read another viewer's review on this very site. How wrong I was.

So...from one bad movie fan to another...let this collect dust on the shelf...grab Up From the Depths or The Great Alligator instead to satisfy your need for something evil lurking in the water.

Still together as adults, a group of childhood friends is brought back together when a series of strange attacks in their seaside town is thought to be done by a massive shark, but when the authorities fail to stop it, they realize a blood-oath taken as kids might be useful in stopping the bloodthirsty creature once and for all.

There wasn't a whole lot to this one. Among the film's better features is the rather enjoyable and unique setup that comes across differently from most killer shark efforts. Taking the idea of a childhood blood-oath triggered by stories from an Indian chief aware of such a creature existing in the area and then utilizing the returning-creature-in-the-present idea so that they can reunite to fend off the creature is a far more creative idea here for a killer shark film. That this turns the film into a workable imitation of the genre storyline involving the missing persons' cases that are thought to be resolved once the shark has been caught. Once it comes back around to involving that aspect in the story things pick up nicely where it generates some nice ideas where it's useful for bringing a different taste to the hunting scenes. As well, there's also the films' decent enough attempts at suspense before the shark attacks strike. Featuring lengthy scenes of the camera prowling through the water to signal the creatures' point-of-view before finally zeroing in on the victim floating on the surface or swimming unaware of the danger around them before the fateful attacks are carried out in bloody, graphic fashion. Since these are more realistic in that there's no decisive killing blow immediately after the creature attacks as the majority of these scenes feature a bit more carnage and interaction than usual, there's a nice bit of realism here even with the sharks' supernatural origins offered as a means of introducing where it came from. With an energetic finale that brings about some enjoyable action underwater with the sunken wreck being a fine source for combating the creature, this one does feature some good parts to it. However, there are some big problems with this one. Among the main issues here is that there are no original shark sequences placed throughout the film, relying almost exclusively on stock-footage shots of sharks for its time and then editing that around the actors which results in choppy, discordant attack scenes. Not only are the scenes obviously unconnected with no visible wounds or biting on the victim and then having everything obscured by a cloud of red and orange churning water with no shark visible since it's all taken from various sources. With no visible marks anywhere and no sequences, later on, showing the impact and damage the creature had on the victim to give us an idea of what's going on and how powerful it is, this one somewhat misses the boat when it comes to the main shark rather strongly. The other issue with the film is the relaxed and generally bland pacing in the first half that rarely brings about much excitement or interest. The scenes of the friends returning and reuniting have the potential to be a great reconnection factor but it completely misses out here when it brings up a series of plotlines to utilize them but does nothing with them. The interaction with the bullies is dropped after two brief sequences and the reluctant father angle goes nowhere since he brings him out immediately after a conversation rather than continually declining until forced to do so at the end of the film which makes more sense. These interactions are laden with conversations about their preppy lifestyle and childhood oath that are just boring and bland taking up time from the shark attacks which would've been far more enjoyable. These elements here hold this one back the most.

Rated R: Violence and Language.

Compared to the mass of shark movies, this one is not very different from many others.

From the start of the movie to it's end, a lot of scenes are so generic that they could occur in every other shark movie. You could probably cut out some scenes and exchange them, not many would notice. The story is standard, the effects are below average, the music is boring to annoying.

What really hurts is the amount of useless scenes in this film, nobody needs. Diving down and planting dynamite over and over again feels trashy and I don't understand how somebody can watch this and say "Yes, we need to see him plant three more dynamite packs".

Another really annoying fact is how you can see the back of the pool in some of the shark scenes. Come on, everybody has to spot this.