Yeah, doesn't that poster remind you of "JAWS"? In fact, the billboard for "Amity Island" features a girl on the raft, which was later vandalized by having a shark's fin chasing after her.
It even looks like the other "JAWS" poster with the woman in the Shark's mouth!
Anyway, the film I'm about to review is better known as...
OK, so tell me if you've heard of this plot before? A sleepy summer town is preparing for its big annual summer wind surf race. However, a loan shark is terrorizing the waters of this summer town, and feeding on helpless swimmers. An Author and a salty sea Captain who kills sharks, plan to kill the shark and cancel the event, but the town governor wants the event to go on. After the event goes wrong, everybody on the Island wants to kill the shark, including our two heroes who go off to sea. Hmmm, a shark terrorizing a summer town; a Salty sea Captain who kills sharks; a town public official who wants to keep the beaches open; everybody, including inexperienced people want to kill the shark; the heroes going off to sea to kill the Shark. This film is mostly "JAWS" in a nutshell, despite some minor changes.
Let's start with the characters and see if they bare any resemblance to the characters in "JAWS". Our Brody of the film is an Author played by James Franciscus. Granted, he's nothing like Brody, since he's not a Police Chief, nor is afraid of the water, but he still stands out like Roy Scheider's character due to his actions of being the hero, by trying to get the beaches closed, and being the one to kill the Shark (I don't think I'm giving anything away). James Franciscus gives a very bland and forgettable performance, and not once was I ever interested in him or his character. By the way, the character's an Author, but it's only mentioned and shown after his first appearance, after that, it's never addressed that he's an author again. Also, his name is Peter Benton, which sounds very close to the author of the Novel "JAWS", Peter Benchley. The Governor of the Island played Joshua Sinclair is without a doubt a complete rip-off of the Mayor from "JAWS" that Murray Hamilton played, just minus the interest, the character, and the love to hate aspect. He's just as forgettable as our lead. The film's real human villain is a camera man, who despite getting perfect Shark footage of the shark, decides to endanger the lives of many innocent people to get some gruesome footage of the Shark. Yeah, he's just a bland and undeveloped villain that's only forced into the story, so the film wouldn't be too much like "JAWS". Finally, we have the Salty Sea Captain played by the great Vic Morrow, who is obviously a rip-off of the salty and crazy Sea Captain that hunts Sharks from "JAWS" Quint. I'm going to be honest, despite being a Quint rip off, I was hoping that Vic Morrow would be badass in the role, however, he is sadly boring and laughable at times. He lacks character; whatever accent he's trying to pull off sounds really horrible and laughable; and his modeled look after Quint is so obvious to the millions of people who've seen "JAWS", that it looks like he's trying to play dress up as Quint. So the characters are horrible boring copies of the classic film that this film is ripping off.
The Shark in this film is a giant Great White shark, like the Shark in "JAWS", and the film not only rips-off the effect for the Shark like in "JAWS", but does a poor job at doing it. Of course, you have the underwater shots of seeing through the Shark's eyes and seeing peoples feet in the water like in "JAWS", which is so similar to "JAWS" that it's no wonder why Universal sued this film. During, the underwater sequences by the way, we hardly get any music, which was the number 1 reason what made "JAWS" so scary. The music that this film has is crap, complete crap! It's not scary when it tries to be; and the majority of the soundtrack is bubblegum upbeat pop songs, which is very out of place in a horror film. The film also creates the illusion that the Shark is underwater, by having it being attached to a Buoy which we see it move on the surface, which is the same effect that was used when the Barrels were attached to the Shark in "JAWS". Another huge failure at making the Shark scary in this film is that we see it, not only for most of the movie, but we see it with different failed effects for it. There's a phony giant puppet of the Shark, that just shows its head sticking out of the water like the Shark that you'd see at a Universal Attraction, and all it does is roar and move its jaws up and down. We get plenty of gritty stock footage of sharks that look nothing like the cheap puppet shark that we keep seeing, and if the film decides not to use stock footage or a puppet shark that can do one thing, then it will film an obvious rubber shark for the underwater sequences. The effects for the Shark suck and not a single time did I find it scary, cool, or real (Not counting the obvious stock footage).
So what else did the film steal from "JAWS"? Well, the look of the film looks very similar "JAWS", with its style and shots. We get a panic on the secured Beach scene, as our hero screams into a megaphone to get everybody out of the water, just like in the Beach panic scenes in "JAWS". A guy on a small boat during the Beach panic scene gets knocked off his boat and gets eaten by the Shark, like the guy in the rowboat in "JAWS" who gets eaten and loses his leg in front of Brody's son. Speaking of that scene in "JAWS", the Author's daughter not only has an encounter with the Shark like Brody's son, but also loses her leg as well. After that, we cut to a hospital scene of the Governor apologizing for what happened to the author's daughter, and is upset that his kids were there too, an obvious rip-off of the hospital scene in "JAWS" with Brody and the Mayor. There's a scene when the camera man ties meat onto a pier to lure the Shark, which comes and destroys the pier with people on it, exactly like the scene with the two guys on the pier luring the Shark with meat tied to the pier, which gets destroyed by the Shark in "JAWS". The author, and the Captain look at a towed-in sunken boat with part of a body inside it belonging to a fisherman, like when Brody and Hooper find a damaged boat with a fisherman's head inside it, before they tow it in. The film even rips-off "JAWS 2" by having the Shark take down a helicopter, and chase after innocent civilians who are stranded in the middle of the ocean. The ending to the film itself rips-off the ending to "JAWS" as well. The Captain gets eaten, and the Shark gets blown up by our main hero after cursing at the Shark. By the way, here's a shocker for you; "JAWS 3-D" ripped off the ending to this film. The Captain is in the Shark's mouth with an explosive attached to him, and the author has the detonator to set off the bomb. In "JAWS 3-D", a dead scuba diver is in the Shark's mouth with an explosive, and our hero sets it off. What do you know, the crappy "JAWS" sequel, ripped off, the "JAWS" rip-off.
The film, despite being a bland horribly made rip off of "JAWS" does have a few dumb moments that are silly or don't make no sense. Whenever the Shark knocks over a boat, a Pier, or a Sailboard, it explodes in slow motion! What sense does that make? Did Michael Bay work on this film? There's a scene when a surfer is listening to the radio and making fun of the D.J., and for some reason the D.J. knows what he's saying, and knows that the surfer is flipping him off. How does the D.J. know that this Surfer is actually listening to his broadcast and making fun of him? There's a random scene on the beach when a girl puts a coin in a box, and all of a sudden there's a Bob Dylan look alike singing inside the box. What the hell is that all about? The people who try to capture the Shark in the film are just as idiotic as the two guys on the pier in "JAWS". They lure the Shark with meat, and when the Shark comes they don't have a plan, and wind up as victims. The most laughable scene in the movie is when the governor slaps his son for trying to kill the Shark. Why is it funny, because the sound effect for the slapping sounds way too cartoony for what is supposed to be a serious moment.
This film is not only a huge rip-off of "JAWS", but everything about it sucks, even if you haven't seen "JAWS". It's not scary, the acting's lame, the effects for the Shark are horrendous, it has plenty of dumb moments that don't add up, and the film rips-off so many scenes and aspects from "JAWS" that it makes me cringe with disgust. I'm glad that this movie got sued, and that Universal won the case, because this film is so bad that it shouldn't have been made to begin with!
RATING 0/5
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