User reviews

One way of looking at this movie is that it's one of the worst to come from its time and place. In this context, we see two young, good-looking hunks, both outlaws, who end up stranded on a tropical island inhabited by primitive hot white women who all speak broken English and cling to weird taboos and traditions, such as believing the sharks are gods, or some such nonsense.

Another way of looking at this movie is that clever editing could have turned it into a touching story about two men who, while vacationing in Hawaii near the Hospital for Brain Damaged Women, discover just how attracted they are to each other soon after one of them tries to stop being gay by dating one of the native women. In this sense, one could consider this movie a well done piece of cinema history, especially since it was ahead of its time on the topic of civil rights.

It is by imagining the latter scenario that this movie can be made entertaining enough to sit though. If you watch this by taking everything at face value, this flick is way too boring to finish. I'd say the only major motivation anyone would have to watch this movie is if they'd purchased some sort of boxed set that includes this, which is, incidentally, the only reason I watched it.

The full synopsis goes like this: Two young, well-built dudes end up stranded on a Hawaiian beach and decide to never wear shirts again. They encounter a civilization of aforementioned broken English-speaking women led by a psychotic mother matron character who is obsessed with local tradition, which involves human sacrifice to appease the shark god. This means feeding a few of the young hotties to a mid-sized shark that may or may not be alive.

One of the guys, Chris (Bill Cord) eventually falls in love with one of the native babes, Mahia (Lisa Montell), much to the irritation of Chris's ambiguously gay partner, Jim (Don Durant). Since the mother matron (Jeanne Gerson) is a nasty old woman who hates men, she decides to have Mahia sacrificed to the shark god to make herself feel better about neither Chris nor Jim finding her attractive.

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF: it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's far from the best. The good news is that this sucker is, I do believe, public domain. Those who might search for it could possibly locate it online for free.

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

Since the early 1950s, Roger Corman has been directing and releasing films at a break-neck pace. Typically, he tosses four or five into the arena per year. This explosive productivity, of course, limits the range of quality (and budgets) for his productions. However, Corman has only occasionally released really truly bad films. This is an example.

Corman used the lovely islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago as a setting for this early color flatliner. If you have seen a few of his films, you know how important setting is to Corman. First - he never seems to have an adequate budget for his most ambitious projects, so he makes sure he films in visually interesting settings. Second - Corman often uses over-long and somewhat tedious pans ("Corman pans"). With nice scenery in the background, or a well designed set, the tedium factor for these shots is reduced. Corman's films are loaded with people moving from place to place, and "She Gods" is no exception.

The film is about a pair of vaguely likable brothers. Chris (Bill Cord) is a fairly normal, if not particularly bright, young man. Lee (Don Durant) is his evil, and only slightly less intelligent, brother. Lee is a fugitive from the law. They find themselves shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a tribe of Polynesian Amazons lead by the not-very-creepy but still rather annoying Queen Pua (Jeanne Gerson). Lisa Montell plays Mahia (Lisa Montell), who fairly quickly becomes romantically entangled with Chris, but the gods of the shark reef have apparently made it clear that both men are taboo. Chris and Lee plot to escape, and decide to take Mahia along with them, but the shark gods have other plans.

The acting is OK (with mediocre camera-work occasionally making the actors appear to be over-acting), the pace is as good as some of Corman's better works, the script is thankfully spartan, and the plot is as thin as a fish scale. The Hawaiian dancing and singing, underwater swimming scenes, shark-fight action and lovely costumes don't really succeed in making up for the virtually nonexistent story-line, middling cinematography and weakly developed main characters. Plus, some of the shark scenes (I believe one is repeated twice in the film) are laughable.

Can't really recommend this.

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.

I personally found this movie to be quite watchable compared to many others, especially useful as a late night movie, and I really do not see it as a bad movie at all with regard to either the acting or the way it was filmed, even regardless of some of the ludicrous concepts.

You probably are familiar with the plot; two men, one "good", one "bad", end up on an island with exotic women and try to both kill each other and save one another at least once each.

I don't understand the title, though, as there are NO "she gods" (whatever happened to "goddess", anyway?), only unseen "shark gods" (represented by an ugly idol) and an island full of women who collect (and protect) pearls for "The Company" (which we never learn much about or actually see, even though it is implied we will see them).

One important thing that I learned from this movie is that it is okay to throw young girls into the ocean for the sharks to eat, as long as you report any suspicious strangers to the local police on the next island over! Weird! We are also supposed to believe that this "queen" (who oversees the sacrifices made to the shark gods) somehow is able to tell if anyone is correctly reading her maritime signal flag messages just by glancing into the horizon when you can't even see any other island!

I'm also wondering how both Lee and Pua easily swam all the way back to the island with no trouble at all in those shark-infested waters!

Anyway, the parts just prior to the ending were somewhat confusing and there ARE a couple of other incredibly dumb scenes. For example, the part where Queen Pua brags about having saved and taken care of Mahia, when she was the one who had thrown her to the sharks! She even cries about her sailing off away from her! Weird!

The color on my DVD copy was fairly bad; the ocean kept changing between purples, greens, pinks, and blues, but the overall style and filming is somewhat attractive.

5/10. Not bad, not great. Again, it's fine for a late night watch before finally falling asleep.

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.

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.

1956 was an extraordinarily prolific year for director Roger Corman. It saw the filmmaker complete no less than eight (8!) pictures, including four that would prove among his most popular: "It Conquered the World," "Attack of the Crab Monsters," "Not of This Earth" and "The Undead." Toward the end of the year, Corman & Co. repaired to the Hawaiian island of Kauai and shot two films simultaneously: "Thunder Over Hawaii" and "She Gods of Shark Reef." Hardly on the same level as those other four films, the first was a tale of modern-day pirates, and the latter a story about two brothers, one a murderer on the lam, who are stranded on an island (in the Philippines or Indonesia, the viewer must infer) that is populated solely by pearl-diving women. These gals are ruled by a shrill-voiced termagant in a muumuu, and worship the sharks that infest the local reef. (No viewer, apparently, has ever been able to figure out who the titular "she gods" are!) Ultimately released in 1958, the film is a fun little "B picture" that, at 63 minutes, flies by fairly quickly. Corman has since been quoted as saying, in reference to these Hawaiian productions, "Visually, these two movies are probably the most beautiful I've ever shot." Sadly, you'd never know it by looking at this DVD from the never-dependable Alpha Video. Colors look completely washed out and blurry (although not quite as egregiously as on this company's DVD of Corman's "Swamp Women"!) and the sound is horrendous, often buried under the crash of perpetually booming surf. Indeed, this DVD looks so very crummy that it is almost impossible for a viewer to imagine "She Gods" in a "beautiful" pristine state, as theatre goers must have seen it 50 years ago. I cannot conceive of anyone but a die-hard Corman completist finding any satisfaction from this dismal-looking product. Thanks again, Alpha Video!

When Durant kills a guard during a failed arms theft, he convinces his friend (Cord) to sail to a remote island where friends will shelter him to avoid capture by authorities. Alas, the boat on which they sail capsizes in a storm and the two survivors are saved by the inhabitants of an island of women, governed by maternal den mother Gerson. The women work for an unidentified corporation, harvesting pearls, hula dancing and fishing. Sounds idyllic, except that Gerson has summoned the police to recover the fugitives, spurring them to engineer an escape - along with local girl Montell with whom Cord has become romantically involved.

It's cheap, uninspired Roger Corman nonsense; picturesque with amiable performances by Montell, Cord and Durant in particular, but little excitement or suspense. The shark reef itself doesn't appear especially threatening, the largest specimen six feet at best and looking more like a lemon shark than a fearsome tiger. Durant and Cord have obviously spent time preparing for their roles in the gymnasium, while Montell has ensured no evident tan lines blur the imagination. Gerson is a matron-like mother superior, disapproving of the boys and their ambitions for her young, impressionable charges.

The climax surpassed the meagre expectations, and generally the narrative is pretty coherent albeit very compact. If you worship the Corman factory, then "She Gods" will take pride of place on your shelf. If however you're only a casual viewer, even at barely a tick over the hour mark, this might be a bit too fast and loose to keep you entertained.

I didn't know this was Corman. I can usually find something amusing about a Corman film even if I found it worthless. Yes, this film is apparently worthless. The boom-mic poking into the scene or not getting out fast enough was amusing and, frankly, not something I would have expected from Corman.

And doesn't Roger usually have a story more compelling than this even if the budget doesn't muster? It is obvious this film had no real budget. But not even a larger budget would have helped this turkey. The story isn't intriguing enough to store in the mind. Even if you don't know what's going on, which I didn't at first, it won't matter because it doesn't matter. You'll figure it out. Absolutely no depth here. The characters are strictly cut-out - good, bad, love interest, antagonist, etc.

The dialog is, well, not good.

The acting is, well, not good either. This combined with the dialog made the characters seem unsure how to say their lines. You can hear that unstable twang as they search for the proper emotion to no avail. This makes some of the relationships seem unsettled. It is bad enough that the two male leads have to play brothers, but they don't even resemble each other and even if they weren't related it wouldn't have mattered.

Some of the scenery is beautifully filmed. I almost thought I was looking at a glass painting at first. The underwater photography is done well. Too much time focused on dancing. I thought I was watching a travelogue for awhile.

Bottomline: IMO, nothing but the scenery here. One of the few movies I've ever seen where it doesn't matter whether I had seen it or not on so many levels.

This was one of my first films to star in my name is BILL CORD this was the proof that you can work a low budget film The talent of roger corman to use the great out doors for sets the script was not very strong.photgraphy was out standing. thank you bill

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.

Sandwiched between 'Glen or Glenda' and 'Some Like It Hot' comes this early cross-dressing drama in which shipwrecked hunks Bill Cord and Don Durant spend most the film wearing abbreviated versions of the local girls' sarong skirts: "These will replace your trousers, sir. This is an island of women, we have nothing else."

This reasonably engaging Pathecolor Corman quickie resembles one of those 'Star Trek' episodes in which Captain Kirk finds himself in an idyllic primitive paradise, sheds his shirt and drapes himself in a comely big-haired local maiden. Normally Kirk would end up having to literally fight off a jealous equally scantily-clad male rival; but this island paradise being populated exclusively by females, the opposition instead comes from the sternly watchful (with good reason) Queen Pua, played by Jeanne Gerson, who gives easily the best performance, and supplies the otherwise anodyne proceedings with a tasty sprinkling of vinegar.

Corman himself retains fond memories of the two week holiday with pay in Hawaii this film provided, and sixty - yes sixty! - years later it retains a stupid charm, despite sadly existing only in rubbish public domain prints.

Aside from having Roger Corman's name on the cover of this film there is a picture of a wet blond just wearing only a strategically placed lei.

No blonds.

No She Gods.

And the lei is broken.

Looks like Roger was distracted by the other movie he was making at the same time "Thunder Over Hawaii."

The basic story is a bad guy (who gets into killing and gunrunning) flees authorities with his brother's help. A storm arises and they get shipwrecked on a mysterious island with native girls, sharks, pearls, and a nasty old woman.

So, who gets the native girls, sharks, pearls, or worse yet the nasty old woman?

Classic Corman tactic of combining genres. Here we have his nautical horror (sharks,) his on-the-run-from-Johnny-Law (a man who accidentally killed another man,) and sexploitation (girls stuck on a Hawaiian isle with no men.)

Neither the story nor the acting were all that great. The setting was beautiful, and Corman always seemed to do great underwater shooting despite the tight budget and given the technology of the day. The girls were ok, there was a little suspense. Overall, probably one of my least favorite Corman films.

I too am working my way slowly through the 50 sci-fi classics, along with the 50 horror classics, etc. Unlike the previous reviewer, I simply couldn't finish this god-awful excuse for a movie. I agree that it had to be stuck in at the end, when they realized that cannibalizing all the Italian dubbed sci=fi movies they could lay their hands on hadn't quite filled the slots. The color is so awful that you wish there was a way to convert it to Rey scale. The plot is non-existent. I gave up after the third meaningless hula dance. I didn't go outside for a walk because it's been pretty cold, but went downstairs and did some weights to work off the frustration. I noticed that this dog just appeared for free on the internet archive feature films site. Overpriced at that.

This is a very early Roger Corman film, though it bears little similarity to most his brilliant films. While this is a low-budget film, the dialog, acting and direction are so lackluster that it's hard sticking with the film.

The dull mess begins with a couple crooks doing bad things (such as bashing a guy over the head). Eventually, their boat is wrecked and they find themselves on a Polynesian island (actually one of the Hawaiian ones) populated with only women. Apparently some company owns the place and the women spend their time working for the pearl diving industry. The crooked guys want in on the action and the ladies are amazingly dull and listless--so it's easy to understand that they seem somewhat immune to their charms. There's more to the film than this, but who cares?! The film lacks the cheesy charm you'd find in a Corman film like "Wasp Women" or the humor of "Bucket of Blood" or the creepiness of his Poe-like tales. Instead, it looks like it was just an excuse to go on location for a working vacation.

Dull and pointless.

This is not a science fiction movie as the collection states. It begins with a theft of some guns. It looks promising. Who are these people the men are stealing from? How will they retaliate. They do their deed and off they go. The next thing, they are washed ashore on an island full of Polynesian women (well, most of them are). They are welcomed in and given some pretty cool swim suits. The hang around but realize that when "the boat" comes, one of them is going to have to face the music for his checkered past. The good brother falls in love with a young woman when he realizes she is going to be sacrificed to the shark god. He rescues her and then kidnaps the old lady who runs a pearl diving business on the island. She obviously does business with non-islanders but also continues to do these ritual sacrifices. Apparently, the population of the island is getting smaller. The young women seem to go willingly. The movie ends about as suspected. It's just an endless, talky, somewhat pointless piece of seaweed. Now where can I get one of those swimsuits?

Completely forgettable! Don't waste an hour of your life on this one. The 'plot' might have been good (That's why I give it a 1 star instead of a 0) if everything else was totally different. The women were NOTHING like the cover picture. Ugly & fat is being kind. Sharks ~ There were a few canned shoots of different full sized sharks. Anytime a shark was shot near people it was a 2' long baby shark that was more afraid than the actors. The aquatic tiki god was a no-show for the better part. It's part in the story is only barely established. The plot was about a 'bad' brother who gets into trouble and goes to his 'good' brother to bail him out of the situation. They escape one island in the 'good' brother's boat but it hits a reef. They are stranded on an island run by 'The Company' (Good socialist economic and class warfare propaganda) that puts the females-only inhabitants on the island in peril diving for pearls in shark infested waters. The brothers decide that they must flee the island before the police arrive. The 'bad' brother steals the pearls and 'angers' the tiki god. In the end the 'bad' brother dies at the hands (teeth?!?) of the shark & the 'good' brother escapes the island with one of the divers...

A film with this title should at least offer something, however, I have learned from experience that some of the worst films out there have some of the best titles. This is no exception.

There is precious little to recommend really. There isn't really any She Gods, nor for that matter any sharks (unless you count the unfortunate dead two foot creature that they feature in this one). The basic plot involves two blokes who end up on a tropical island populated by a tribe of women. You don't really need to know much more than that because there is not much more than that to know. This is a very uneventful movie that seems endless despite being just over an hour long (it's one saving grace). Actually, there's one other good thing about this - the most obvious visible boom-mic shot I have ever seen; seriously, it almost takes someone's head off.

If you absolutely must watch a trashy women-on-a-tropical-island movie then try The Wild Women of Wongo. It's a far more entertaining experience than this.