Deep Blood — Deep Blood( Blu Ray)
Cheesy euro Sharksploitation alert- here from the folks at Severin is Deep Blood, Joe D'Amato take on the genre. And boy is it a doozy, with truly wooden acting, fleeting and badly edited shark footage, dodgy locations, and dubiously plotting. Here we a region A locked Blu Ray release of the film, taking in just the film and trailer.
Deep Blood (aka Sangue negli abissi, Wakan, Sharks) appeared in the year 1990- a year where he made three other films- dodgy fighting fantasy of Quest for the Mighty Sword, Crime drama Any Time, Any Play, and sexless porn High Finance Women. Deep Blood is a prime example of bad euro exploitation of the late ’ the 80s/ early 90’s- we have awkward acting, inappropriate interactions and dialogue, sloppy- just about competent camera work, wonky easy listening/ muzak that’s often badly placed, and general awkward/inept flow of both the action and storyline.
The film kicks off in a wonderful inappropriate/ dodgy manner- as we find a creepy looking old man approaching a group of pre-teen boys who are cooking sausages on a beach. He’s meant to be a native American priest but looks more like a creepy white bum. Fairly soon the boys are cutting their hands, and doing a blood bound with Mr sleazy ‘n’ creepy- before burying the knives, and a very crappy look wood carving in the beaches sand. Flash forward ten or so year later, and the small meant to be sea-based US town is been plagued by a series of unexplained at sea deaths. The group blood bounding of boys, now men join forces to try and track down the shark that is terrorizing their town.
Most important in a good and well-made Sharksploitation, is, of course, decent, tense, and dramatic shark action/ attacks- and Deep Blood has none of these. Instead, we get a blend of ropy stock footage, jarringly cut attack footage, and moments of clearly fake shark use. Mixed in with this we get very prolonged use of stalking underwater footage, though with non of the expected jolts or stingers. When the ‘attacks’ happen these are largely done in clearly an inland body of water, a large fish tank( I kid you not), or a swimming pool. The attacks feature very marmalade coloured blood, very hammy struggling, and at one point dodgy mannikin legs flaying in the water. The cast is largely more wooden than a pencil factory, and some of the actors can barely get their lines out. Memorable characters are a tubby and constantly sweating cop who has zero people skills, and cliched dark mulleted bad guy/ bully.
Moving onto this new Region A Blu Ray, and we get a nice bright and buoyant print of the film- which brings out both the 90’s euro cheesiness and the prime naff-ness of the effects. Sadly, no other extras on the disc, besides a trailer- which is a pity, as I’m sure there could have had an amusing and informative commentary track for the film.
In finishing if you enjoy extremely inept and cheesy late 80’s/ early 90’s euro exploitation with dodgy acting, and even more dogy shark action, surrounded by cheesy and bad plotting/ soundtracking -then Deep Blood will be for you. If though you are looking for well-made and tense Sharksploitation, then it’s best to avoid this like the plague.