Tintorera (1977)
"There's a monstrous killer churning up the sea..."
Plot
Two Mexican tourists on holiday at a Mexican holiday resort love the ladies, especially the British ones whom they always flirt with. They also kill sharks in their spare time. But when a killer tiger shark takes up residence in the waters at the resort, the two decide to kill it themselves.
Tintorera is one of the more rare Jaws knock-offs around but there's a very good reason for that - it's atrocious. A joint Mexican and British production, something I don't think I'll have said before, it's possibly the worst of the Jaws inspired cash-ins that flooded the market in the late 70s and early 80s. Running more like a sleazy porn flick with a few random shark attacks spliced in for good measure, this is one of the most diabolical rip-offs I've had the misfortune of watching. For some reason, there's an unedited director's cut out there which runs at nearly two hours. The film was bad enough at eighty-nine minutes and I felt like it had gone on for days. Pity the person who tries to endure the full unedited edition!
Tintorera seems to have been devised purely as a way for some of the cast and crew to have a holiday in Mexico for a few weeks - a financial write-off as a way to balance/cook some books before the end of the tax year perhaps. There's no other reason why this should exist in its current form. Another theory is that they had planned on shooting a porn flick in Mexico, saw the success of Jaws and then threw in a few shark attacks along the way. The tiger shark becomes such a pointless side story here that you may even get roped into enjoying the continual sex and drinking, and when characters aren't having sex, they're talking about it. These characters are so sleazy that you'll want a wash afterwards. I don't care about their pathetic sexual relations and perverted shenanigans - I want to see a killer shark actually killing people as was promised. Is it so difficult to ask for?
Tintorera runs at a slow pace and the shark doesn't even turn up for about thirty minutes in. This is fine if you want to watch two Mexican guys fight over an English woman before realising their mutual love of fine women and actually become good friends, emulating a Mexican soap opera. In one of many disturbing moments, the two men like to walk around naked on their boat and they're not shy of having sex with the same woman in the same bed. Good friends they may be but this is taking it too far because their schlongs get way more screen time than any killer tiger shark does! There's far more skin on show here than any sharksploitation offering needs to present and does really detract from the vibe of the film, mainly because there's no story to develop around.
Anyway I'm ranting because there's not a great deal to talk about in all honesty. One of my major gripes with these poor Jaws rip-offs is that there isn’t actually a creature physically killing people, only various stock footage clips from somewhere like The Discovery Channel of various sharks swimming around. At least some of these shark flicks have really bad models so there can be a little interaction between the actors and the killer fish. In this flick, people are seemingly attacked by stock footage and then what ‘attack’ footage we have is clearly of an actual shark with a really cheap-looking dummy in its mouth (no doubt a dummy made of meat to attract the shark). The shark only kills about three people anyway so fans looking for a body count flick or gore-drenched feast have come to the wrong place. There are more shots of sharks and other marine life being killed by humans than anything else; the inclusion of such shocking snuff footage further underlying the seedy exploitative nature of the flick.
Even the inevitable climax between hero and shark is weak and it goes down with little of a fight. In fact, some of the women that the two main characters bed put up more of a struggle than this poor shark. Basil Poledouris, of the likes of The Hunt for Red October and Conan the Barbarian fame, is the composer but his work is appallingly repetitive. I know the composers don't usually go on set and their work is done post production but it's that bad, it's almost like Poledouris signed up for the free holiday to Mexico as well.
Final Verdict
Tintorera is an endurance test for even the most hardened exploitation lovers. It's devoid of anything even remotely interesting because usually these shameless romps have unintentionally bad moments. This has none at all and the half star score is only for the sight of some of the pretty damn fine chicks in the film being completely stark naked, though perhaps I should subtract it again for the copious unwarranted male nudity.
 |
Tintorera Director(s): René Cardona Jr. Writer(s): René Cardona Jr. (screenplay by), Ramón Bravo (screenplay by), Christina Schuch (adapted by) Actor(s): Susan George, Hugo Stiglitz, Andrés García, Fiona Lewis, Eleazar García, Priscilla Barnes, Jennifer Ashley, Carlos East Duration: 91 mins |  |
|---|