Tintorera: Killer Shark (1978)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Crappy film

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Two shark hunters flirt with an attractive British lady (Susan George) while hunting down a large tiger shark terrorizing the Mexican East coast.I know what you are thinking. A shark movie in 1977... it has to be a ripoff of "Jaws", right? I would have to say no. While we could surely accuse them of cashing in on the success of "Jaws" and riding on the coattails of shark fever, there is really nothing plot-wise that can compare the two. Heck, they do not even use the same species of shark as their "villain".But most odd, the focus here is not so much a shark, its victims, or a scared populace. No closing down a beach. No oceanography students. What we have are two guys who make a deal with a woman to have an ongoing three-way sexual relationship. We do not see them in the act, so it is not exactly smutty or even really exploitation, but it sure is scandalous...

Trying to make use of the success of a flick isn't easy. The slasher era was a perfect example were everybody tried to copy Friday The 13th (1980) amongst others. But just before the slasher era Steven Spielberg had a lot of success with the gruesome Kaws (1975). A lot of flicks tried to copy Jaws and Tintorera was trying to do that.It failed completely even as it had a few names from the genre. Susan George just came from Straw Dogs (1971) and Fiona Lewis was just casted in The Fury (1978). Being both English actors they had to play together with big names from the Mexican flicks. Hugo Stiglitz is known for Nightmare City (1980). But the main lead should have been the shark itself as it did in Jaws. Sadly, here the love stories involved were more important. Especially the gratuitous nudity by all girls involved. The shark itself was taken from stock footage and no gore is even seen in this flick. The shark do attacks but it's also easy to see that it wasn't done with the actors. Still, this flick is hunted down for so many reasons and is today available on DVD, but the search for so many is the VHS with an excellent sleeve which really looks great. Only the flick itself wasn't.Gore 1/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Tintorera (1977) * (out of 4) Shark hunters and best friends Steven (Hugo Stiglitz) and Miguel (Andres Garcia) both start sleeping with the same woman, which causes the men to feud but thankfully she's eaten by a shark so the men pick up Gabriella (Susan George) who is okay with threesomes. Soon the three are having plenty of sex but a mean tiger shark has to ruin all the fun. This Mexican picture was promoted as a JAWS rip-off but it has more in common with some cheap soft-core porn film than anything else. The American version that I watched ran 86-minutes, which is nearly forty-minutes shorter than the complete Mexican version. Typically I try and watch the most complete version of any film but the American cut was all that was available and after viewing it I'm glad I did because another forty-minutes would have had me considering suicide. This is an incredibly horrid film but then again I'm not sure what else one should expect from Cardona who has created some pretty bad flicks. I'm really not sure where to start on this one but I guess the screenplay should get a mention. All the characters are so paper thin that you can't help but not feel for any of them and it's hard to care what happens to them as well. The two men come off as some type of God as women are constantly taking their clothes off for them and you have to wonder why. The men have nothing interesting about them so it's clear that the only reason they're "sex symbols" is so plenty of young women can take their clothes off. The nudity is at an extremely high level as women and men are constantly taking their clothes off and we get countless sex scenes. There's a dance sequence early in the film, which is about as laughably bad as anything Ed Wood did. Another problem with the screenplay is that the relationship of the three characters is so poorly written that you can't help but be bored by everything going on. You might wonder why that aspect of the story should matter but it's because this is 90% soap opera and a very bad one at that. This thing might have been sold as a JAWS rip but it's nothing more than a bad romance film. The shark attacks aren't all that impressive but the trick shots of one scene where our three heroes are attack was pretty well handled. There's a lot of stock footage being used but when we see real sharks it's usually watching them die. If you're dead set against seeing animals killed then it's best to skip this flick as countless sharks are killed on screen. The performances really aren't anything good but George fans will be happy to know she does get naked. As you can tell, pretty much everything in this film is deadly bad but I do respect those who could sit through the 126-minute version. Cardona's direction is so all over the place and it lacks any style or pacing that there's really no need to watch any version of this. Plus, what's up with the breathing sound effects when the shark is coming?

"Tintorera" is a rather sleazy shark film with some big flaws.**SPOILERS**Stuck in Mexico, Esteban, (Hugo Stiglitz) is able to heal up before going back out to the beach after Miquel, (Andres Garcia) his long-time rival. After several missed opportunities, the two realize that they are each going after the same women, but soon enough they decide to meld together to be able to help themselves more. Mentioning that they are both avid fisherman, a recent spate of Tiger Shark sightings nearby prompts them out to search for it. Meeting up with Gabriella, (Susan George) an American tourist in the area, they are soon struck by more attacks by the shark. When one of them is a victim, the remaining members decide to hunt down the shark to avenge their death and help out with the area.The Good News: This one here does have some good moments. Most of this is taken up with the rather enormous helping of nudity in the film. This one has plenty of women in various states of undress, including full nudity from some as well as some really exciting sexual encounters. From threesomes to mixed versions and plenty of other forms of action. Not a whole lot is really that explicit, but the fact that it features a lot of nudity will certainly please. There's a lot of really great underwater scenes in here, as the snorkeling scenes and the hunts for the shark at least look rather interesting from time to time. Even the travelogue footage of the islands aren't that bad, and make it look like a fun destination. Of course, the real reason for the film is the shark attack scenes which, for what its worth, sit very nicely into the sex-on-the-beach backdrop and feel realistic when they're pulled off. While relying on tried and tested slight of hand style trickery, the attack scenes are not only extremely bloody but remarkably well staged, and mixed together with genuine shark footage and excellent underwater photography, they are actually quite convincing. Therefore, despite the fact that they take up just a tiny percentage of the ludicrous running length, gore-hounds may find the attack scenes worth persevering through the film for. The main one that kick-starts the film's last half is an excellent sequence, as it's a tightly handled, exciting set-piece that plays off wonderfully and contains the most shocking moment in the film, where the shark attacks two surfers in the water and bites off a leg, leading to a mad rush to shore with the still-bleeding victim leaving behind a massive amount of blood in the water. Then the shark turns back and attacks the fleeing troop, taking the victim away in an even more massive blood cloud than before. It's a brutal scene and is handled expertly, becoming the film's non-nudity highlight and a great reason to give this one a viewing.The Bad News: This one here doesn't really have a whole lot wrong. The fact that is a thinly-veiled gay love story set against the backdrop of the wild animal kingdom is the biggest flaw in the film. The fact that the real story here is the relationship between the two star-crossed perverts who find one another really comes out on the wrong end due to the fact that so much time is spent with this storyline that it really becomes more like a relationship drama than a shark film. Not that the segments are all that bad, but that so much of it happens in the film that it becomes aggravating at several points. This also has the extra flaw in exposing the fact that there isn't a whole lot of shark action in the film at all,.leaving most of it to the end of the film and making the beginning completely dull and lifeless. This really should've been trimmed up by a large margin, as there's no real reason why a film with this little shark action takes this long to get through. Several of the sexual shenanigans are a little hard to believe, such as the love triangle that happens or the fact that they actually agree to share women together is a little hard to believe. The last big flaw in the film is the fact that there's a large amount of actual animal deaths in the film. They kill about a dozen sharks in this movie on screen, in long, sustained takes which show every detail. This isn't all that fun to watch, especially the huge massacre scene where dozens upon dozens are slaughtered, and is an obstacle in itself to get over without the other features. The last flaw is that it is also hamstrung by the fact that the dialog switches constantly and rapidly from English to Spanish. These make it hard to understand and lower the film somewhat significantly.The Final Verdict: As a hedonistic travelogue of the countryside, it's not bad, but as a killer shark movie, it's too long without enough shark action. See this only for the rampant nudity or beautiful scenery on display, while killer shark fans should look elsewhere with so much time spent away from doing what it should.Rated R: Full Male and Female Nudity, continuous sex scenes, Graphic Violence and Language