Saturday, August 1, 2020

Shark Week: Cruel Jaws (1995)

Cruel Jaws (1995) dir. Bruno Mattei, Europe Communications S.r.l./Production Group

Well, if you're going to end, why not end with the biggest killer shark rip-off movie ever made? Funny enough this was even released in a few areas as Jaws 5, just to give you an idea.



This year we end Shark Week with the most infamous film made by (in)famous Italian shlockmaster Bruno Mattei.

We open with some guys on a boat. Seems there's a Naval wreck some distance below and they're aiming to salvage. They hop over the side and transform into footage from the Last Shark. They get eaten by a roaring shark and their grizzled captain soon buys it too.

We then cut to Bill Morrison (Greg Hood) driving his RV down to Florida. He chats with his girlfriend Vanessa (Norma J. Nesheim) and we learn that he's a marine biologist. He also promises to take his best gal to all the discos we wants to go to.

But first they have to make a social call to Dag Sorenson (Richard Dew) and his Sea World knock-off park. More than a few reviewers have mentioned Dag's deflated resemblance to Hulk Hogan, and I'd be remiss if I didn't make the same joke.

Dag also has two kids, Bobby (Scott Silveria) and wheelchair user Susy (Kristen Urso). He's also joined by Sheriff Berger (David Luther). Berger's reasons are more professional though, as it seems Dag's three months behind on his rent and his landlord is serving him his papers. Dag has 30 days to get the money or ELSE.

Down at the beach, Ronnie (Carter Collins), jackass son of local bigwig Samuel Lewis (George Barnes, Jr.) and his collection of stock teen types discover the remains of one of the divers from earlier.

Berger takes Morrison with him down to the beach to get his professional opinion. "This was no boating accident!" After the corner gives a slightly more professional opinion, the men are standing before Mayor Jefferson and arguing that the beaches must be closed. This summons Mr. Lewis, who makes it clear the beaches must remain open.

We get the standard back and forth arguing (windsurfing racing coming in, tourists needed, etc.). A gal starts making out with a dude on the beach and decides on a short swim before sex. She then transforms into Chrissie from Jaws and suffers the same fate. Seriously, they just used the underwater shots from 1975.

After that, well it's pretty much Jaws, Jaws 2 and a pinch of Jaws 3. The shark attacks the beach during the windsurfing competition and a bunch characters we barely know or care about get eaten, mostly via stock footage. Oh, and a bit lifted from the Jaws novel, it seems Lewis is so insistent on keeping the beaches open as he's heavily in debt to a local leg-breaker.

Our heroes go hunting for the shark to something that is clearly not the Star Wars theme while Ronnie and his jackass friends go hunting too. He doesn't get a theme so I think we're supposed to boo him.

It ends exactly how you think. I'm not sure if I've seen any film that gave less of a damn than this one. Copying film beats is one thing, but lifting whole footage? Mattei had guts, I'll give him that.




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