Cruel Jaws — Cruel Jaws(Blu Ray)
Cruel Jaws(aka Jaws 5, Shark Terror, The Beast) appeared in 1995- though felt a lot more late 80’s then mid 90’s, with all its mullets, men in muscle shirts, and women huge padded shoulders. The film is fairly typical of Bruno Mattei(as William Snyder) output, with the just about competent/ at points haphazard filming, which is more often cut in fairly jarring/ non-sensical manner. The acting though-out is largely pretty bad, though at times amusingly so- with the occasional moments of over the top hamminess.
The film's plot is very, very textbook- really at points wholesale stealing from both the original Jaws & later rip-offs. It’s set in the seaside town of Hampton Bay Florida- and the annual Regatta celebration just around the corner, which will bring huge crowds to the sleepy town. And you guess it a nasty people eating 25-foot Tiger shark swims into the towns waters- which we later find out has been somehow man modified to be the ultimate killing machine, and the greedy town mayor won’t shut down the beach. Going on around this we have a shady real-estate deal set up by the owner of the local amusement park, who has got involved with a group of mobsters. The films main hero is Dag Snerensen(Richard Dew), who looks like a weedy/ lo-rent Hulk Hogan- he runs the local dolphin show, and has a teethy/ annoyingly positive young daughter who has lost the use of her legs, and is big chums with the dolphins.
As we move through the film we get a blend of murky undersea footage, shark stock footage, with very fleeting looks at dodgy & plastic mouthed shark. There’s not really any great or tense shark action- it either cut just as it’s getting good, or we get lame shots of the shark trying to swallow legs. So if you coming here for a good, tense & thrilling shark film- you’ll be both disappointed & bored. What the film has in spades is the dumb, at points surprisingly sweary dialogue- that at times is most chuckle-inducing. We have a great selection of clichéd & stereotyped characters, and some oddly jaw drop & cruel moments- like a group of youths trying to poison the dolphins, and someone attempting to pull the shark up by a wince of a choppy, and as you can imagine this doesn’t end well- though it’s finished with sloppy cuts & bumbling effects. So this is more for the fans of bad film-making, and not those looking for a competent/ original take on the killer shark genre- as it’s a million miles away from that.
Moving onto this new region A Blu Ray release- and we get an HD remaster of the film which has it’s pros & cons, on the good side the colours look bright/ clear, on the bad side the stock footage & crappy effects don’t look great. You get two cuts of the film- US original cut, and The Snyder Cut – Unreleased Japanese Extended Cut- which adds a little more gore to the mix. On the extras side, we get The Great White Way – this is a twenty-minute discussion about Sharksploitation films with Rebekah McKendry- it finds her first talking about the release & impact of Jaws- moving onto talk about the first cycle of Sharksploitation films & stand out films. She goes onto discussinng the re-emergence of the genre over the years- but it big budget or zero-grade fare- it’s a well put together & interesting featurette. Next, we get These Things Got Made! – a twelve on-screen interview with Jay Colligan who played one the looking for trouble teen gang members in the film- he talks about the films film location & his interaction with the dolphins off set- like one waving its fin at him, and young dolphins been taught how to feed. He moves onto discuss Mattei shouty direction, some of the more dodgy things done by the Italian crew, and how some of the dialogue is very tacky/ at points puzzling due to the translation from Italian to English- all in all, a good/ worthy interview.
It’s nice to Severin releasing another one of Bruno Mattei bad movie gems, and once again they’ve done a good job with the new scan & the extras- so if you’re a fan of bad Italian rip-offs that are so blatant & amusing, Cruel Jaws will most certainly be for you.