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Cruel Jaws


From Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead, Rats The Nights of Terror, The Other Hell) comes this cheap Jaws ripoff. The story follows much of the plot of Jaws, with a shark terrorizing a resort, and the greedy landowner who is hesitant to close things down because his annual start of summer race is coming up. They even have a scene where a shark is killed and the landowner goes on with business, despite the scientist proclaiming that they may not have caught the killer shark. The big race goes on, and several people are attacked by the title fish, resulting in a group hunt to kill it.











The movie uses a bunch of stock footage, as well as clips from the various Jaws films, and Italian movies Deep Blood and Great White. This results in lots of footage of a great white, despite the title terror being a tiger shark. The dialogue is ridiculous, the acting is awful, and the ripped off plot all add up to a fun b-movie. As long as you don’t take anything seriously, you’ll enjoy it.











Some of the funnier sequences involve the race that turns into a bloodbath, especially when a little girl who’s in a wheelchair and her young caretaker are running towards the ocean instead of away (?!?), resulting in the wheelchair rolling off on its own and dumping the kid into the water. There’s also some fun scenes of people getting eaten, as well as a boat accidentally blowing up, and a helicopter being dragged into the ocean by the shark. Several subplots involving young romance and the landowner’s dealings with shady partners are also filled with humorous, bad aspects.












Cruel Jaws is the typical awful but fun offering from Italian director Mattei. If you’ve seen some of his other “gems”, then you know you’ll be in for low budget, nonsensical shenanigans. This movie was also released under the title Jaws 5, but has more in common with the bad sequels than the original hit. It’s available to stream on YouTube.












 

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