Les dents d'acier

Rene Cardona Jr's TINTORERA (1977) is one ridiculous JAWS ripoff made by this Mexican film maker who is also known (among many other films) as the director of jungle exploitation film TREASURE OF THE AMAZON (1985), a much better film.

TINTORERA stars Susan George and the film involves a bunch of people having a vacation on some paradise island in which there seems to be nothing but happiness and beautiness and not a trace of the outside world. Soon, however, after some 30 minutes of the film, finally the nasty shark starts to eat and kill people and also return the vacationers back on earth from their dream world. What really amazes me in this film is how long it takes for the shark to finally arrive because as far as I know, this was supposed to be another "shark film" that would appeal to the same audience than Spielberg's JAWS (1975) did.

The film has absolutely incredibly slow pace and it will be too much for most to watch without falling asleep. There is plenty of scenes depicting sharks being killed by people or each other and also the "sharks attacking human being" scenes are pretty dull and thus funny. There's plenty of naked skin and bodies and also some blood so the exploitation elements are there as they were in TREASURE, too. And exploitation TINTORERA is almost as much as it is trash. Very much, that is!

Still the Mexican locations and beaches are truly wonderful and very beautiful and by watching them it is much easier to sit the film through. Rarely has nature's beauty been captured this stunningly on trash film like this, so the film isn't completely without its merits. Otherwise I'd recommend this for fans of ultra low budget grade Z cinema only and of course for fans of the Cardonas. 3/10

The technical ocean photography portrayed real sharks in action, seeking anything in sight, made JAWS look like a Disney flick. This picture had a great deal of realism and presented a very clear picture of the world in which the sharks of the ocean dwell. Susan George and Priscilla Barnes held you spellbound with love and romance and the fear of being eaten alive by the "TINTORERA". If you are a Susan George fan, view this picture.

The film starts off promising. Right off the bat, we see the shark, a tiger shark to be exact (a.k.a. Tintorera), accompanied by darkly brooding theme music. Once the title hits the screen, the music changes into an upbeat jungle/disco rhythm hybrid... and disturbs the mood, completely. Potential is lost from here on out, and everything else escalates in a downward spiral... reminiscent of a "flush rinse", and about as enjoyable.

Our main characters, Esteban and Miguel, are a couple of happy-go-lucky/shark-poaching knuckleheads who love to hang out together, on the poopdeck... in the nude. Oh, and they also have a penchant for the ladies. The ladies must dig them for their lack of morals and hatred for underwear. The yachting type, to a tee.

ANYWAYZ... Our story continues to shamble along, and all the essentials are here: nude swimming, crazy sex, more nude swimming, gratuitous stock footage of sharks getting killed for no reason, dry land conversation that occasionally lapses into another language, a few chicks here and there, even more nude swimming, close-up after close-up of Hugo Stiglitz and his beard, yachta, yachta, yachta.

Fiona Lewis, Susan George, Jennifer Ashley and Priscilla Barnes are just a few of the lovely ladies, that join Esteban and Miguel, from one occasion to another. Summer flings don't mean a thing, 'less you got that love sting.

If you enjoy seeing real sharks getting senselessly slaughtered for no reason, then there is plenty to see here. One hopes that these scenes are stock footage, and not created for the purpose of this film. Either way, it is crass exploitation, at it's worst.

There aren't enough good things to keep this film afloat. Ultimately, the film's poster along with an interesting score by Basil Pouledouris, the man who would later give Arnold Schwarzenegger his trademark cues, with his score for "CONAN THE BARBARIAN", are the best qualities. A major waste. A good film could have been made, but wasn't.

Barnes, George and Lewis all appear in shoddy nude scenes, that may give this film it's only appeal.

As for the director, Rene Cardona, he has fared much better in previous films. If only he had teamed the shark against the aztec mummy, we might actually have something worth seeing!

Along with the equally uninteresting "DEEP BLOOD", this one ranks as one of the lesser films to come out of the "JAWS" knock-off trend.

Reporting from my schooner, sans clothes... -Nathan.

Let me get this straight: it's an awful movie. But imagine this: you are on vacation in Mexico, exactly in the places where the film was shot, and one evening it happens that on a local TV "Tintorera" is aired. It suddenly becomes a must-see. Even now I can't believe how much I laughed: incredibly plain and stupid plot, bad acting, poor dialogs, male nude scenes while the only good thing about in the film was the beauty of the actresses, shocking pointless ending...this movie got it all! As if it wasn't enough, it also showed me how the Mexican coast was before the wild tourism colonization: a real natural paradise that no longer exists (or at least changed too much). A punch on the chin.

Pure crap but, unintentionally, really comical. 5 out of 10 only for the laughter

Most of the action takes place on land, and nothing of substance happens there. The film is lowbrow to the extreme (every single female character is an airhead that's ready to go to bed with a stranger THE MINUTE she meets him - the ultimate male fantasy, perhaps?), but at least you get to look at some beautiful landscapes, and of course there is also a lot of nudity to keep you going between the all-too-infrequent shark attacks. (*1/2)