Les dents d'acier

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

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.

I missed this movie on its original release way back in 1977 (?) - I was really pleased when I found out it was (finally) getting the DVD treatment. The DVD finally arrived last week and I settled down with beer in hand to watch.... Well - It certainly is no JAWS movie - very little shark attack action at all - more of a soft porn movie with a few shots of a large Tiger Shark swimming around. It is beautifully photographed and the underwater shark shots are cool but that is about all....We get one attack sequence that is obviously a homage to the JAWS opening sequence -but it is certainly not of the same standard. Not a bad little movie if you like a double dose of "cheese" - pleased I bought it for my collection but it will never be hailed as a Shark "classic" !! Give it a go - you may like.... ??

I expected a Jaws clone and got a movie about threesomes. After I got over the initial shock I actually found Tintorera to be a sweet, almost classy, little male fantasy. Tintorera is actually a sex/beach-flick, and thus perfectly captures the feel of the seventies take on sexual revolution; an era of hedonistic disco parties, sexual experimentation and short, loveless sexual encounters. Rene Cardona Jr. regular Hugo Stiglitz looks great as a wealthy boy on vacation, Esteban, who "finds himself" in a three part relationship with the cute Gabrielle and his former sexual competitor Miguel, the Shark hunter. Meanwhile the feared Tintorera, a big-ass tiger shark, is having a feast on the sexed-out beach community. The "f***-and-die" concept, usually seen in slasher films, is clearly visible and you could say that Tintorera's attack on the swimmers are really an attack on the sexual revolution. If you want cheese you'll have no trouble finding it (the Darth Vader-like breathing of Tintorera or the underwater conversations between Esteban and Miguel directly springs to mind...), but don't look to hard since the larger parts of the movie is actually pretty well-made and totally undeserving of its bad reputation (which I think is more due to the whole idea of a shark/sex movie, than the movie itself). Chances are you might actually enjoy it, as I did.

Also, if you are a gay man interested in exploitation cinema you are bound to like it: the homosexual overtones between Esteban and Miguel are painfully obvious and there are numerous shots of Hugo Stiglitz cute little ass.

7/10 on a regular scale

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