Cruel Jaws has been released as Jaws 5 in many countries. It has nothing to do with the Jaws series of films other than ripping off footage from the first three films, as well as Deep Blood and The Last Shark. In fact, it goes so far to be Jaws that it rips off Hooper’s dialogue about what we know about sharks with some minor differences: “All they know how to do is swim and eat and make baby sharks, and that’s all.”

This one comes from the demented mind of Bruno Mattei, who also brought us crowd pleasers (if you consider me and my dog in the middle of the night a crowd) like Shocking Dark, The Other Hell and Rats: Night of Terror.

Dag Soerensen looks like Hulk Hogan, but he’s really the owner of the worst Sea World ever. His wife died in an accident and his daughter is in a wheelchair as a result, but even worse, he’s now behind on the rent. Greedy mobbed out real estate dude Sam Lewis is ready to shut him down, but Dag thinks he can capture the shark and save his little dolphin and seal mom and pop (well, until mom died) attraction.

It turns out that the shark in this one is a tiger shark engineered by the Navy to be a superweapon, yet it is now killing people all over Hampton Island. Dag and his family team up with Bill Morrisson, who desperately wants to be Hooper (even getting the stolen line mentioned above), to take out the shark with — you guessed it — explosives.

Most of the shark action — including the windsurfing scenes and the shark getting blown up — were ripped off completely from The Last Shark. Mattei also rips off Deep Blood and shark footage from the first three Jaws films, turning this into more of an exercise in sampling than an actual film. Yet I love it — where an American film would only hint at the bodies that wash up from an attack, Mattei revels in showing us gory bodies. I also adore that Mattei used the mafia subplot from the original novel that Spielberg took out of his movie. I’m certain he didn’t even realize what he was doing, which makes the end results even more entertaining.

There’s a windsurfing battle scene here — again, like I said, it’s all ripped off from The Last Shark — where one character says to another, “You’re a piece of shit. You’re vomit. You’re nothing.” while synthesizer beats bleat out of the screams of the crowd. Between that dialogue, the obvious cuts back to Castellari’s film and the fact that the two main windsurfers aren’t even moving as they race, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier with an action sequence in a movie.

As part of this week of shark infested cinema, I tried to watch modern films that came out in the wake of Sharknado and couldn’t finish a single one of them. They all ape the Troma style, letting you in on the fact that they’re basically comedies. Screw that — I’d rather watch an inept film like this, with amateur American actors being unleashed upon dialogue stolen from other films while an Italian auteur (never has that word been applied to someone who exemplifies it less) barely puts together a coherent film.

Let me state my case one more time: Bruno Mattei used the music from Star Wars in this movie. Is this a hidden comment on how blockbusters destroyed the art and promise of the New Hollywood? Of course not. That said, I was so happy when the John Williams refrain played over dudes chumming the waters that I poured a drink over my head.

Shout! Factory almost released Cruel Jaws on a split blu ray with Exterminators of the Year 3000 in 2015, before realizing how much of the film is taken from other movies. “It came to our attention through several of our fans that Cruel Jaws had several scenes in it of unauthorized footage from Jaws 1-3 and other Italian-made shark films that makes it impossible for us to release this in the U.S. & Canada without risking legal ramifications. We gave serious thought about editing out the material of course, but it’s quite a bit of scenes to remove and we knew ultimately that doing that would not satisfy the film’s fans or new ones we wanted to attract.”

If you want to see it for yourself, Revok and Cult Action have it.

Paul Andolina from Wrestling with Film is back with another holiday film. Let’s all get ready for candy canes by reading this one.

With Christmas only days away, I haven’t seen much snow in Pennsylvania. Granted winter doesn’t officially start until the 21^st of the month but I’m used to seeing some snow on the ground this time of year.

Despite all this, my Christmas cheer isn’t entirely dampened especially not after watching Slay Belles. Slay Belles is a 2018 horror comedy about a group of urban explorers with a channel on Youtube called Adventure Girls. The girls, Dahlia, Sadie, and Alexi have decided to get dressed up in festive costumes and go explore the abandoned theme park, Santa Land!

Dahlia is played by Susan Slaughter, who has appeared on Ghost Hunters numerous times. Alexi is played by Kristina Klebe (Killer Mermaid) and Sadie is played by Hannah Wagner, who is probably more known as the Youtube star, Miss Hannah Minx. All three of these women were also in either Devil’s Carnival or its sequel.

Slay Belles also stars Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show), Diane Salinger (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Batman Returns), and Richard Moll (Night Court). The Adventure Girls encounter a strange creature while exploring Santa Land that turns out to be Krampus. Santa Land also happens to be the home of the real Santa (Barry Bostwick).

Krampus has been killing kids both naughty and nice and it’s up to Santa and the girls to save the world. Of course, it takes some convincing from Santa as the girls are at first hesitant to believe that the strange biker gear clad man occupying the cottage is actually Santa.

The movie boasts a fun score, some awesome cinematography, featuring a wider array of colors, and some cool costume work. The Krampus looks and feels like it was lifted right out of a book of Germanic lore. Santa’s constant use of profanity is hilarious and the Adventure Girls prove to be badasses. There is no snow in the film as it was filmed on location at Santa Land, a real place located in California. It doesn’t showcase a white Christmas but the festiveness of the season is very much present.

I really want to encourage everyone to check this movie, because I can’t convey just how much awesome fun this film is. If you’re a fan of horror with a comedic bent then this film is definitely for you. It’s an excellent little film, only 77 minutes in length. However, it packs so much entertainment in its run time you’ll want to watch it again after it ends! Get ready because “Santa Claus is coming to town, bitches!’

After the events of the last Piranha film, where Lake Victoria was attacked by prehistoric killer fish that were continuing to evolve, the lake has drained and the town itself has been abandoned. But what if there were a new waterpark that could drum up tourism? That’d be cool, right?

At another lake, two farmers (Gary Busey and Clu Gulager!) find a dead cow that’s filled with piranha eggs, which hatch and kill them. Obviously, the piranha are not as eradicated as we’ve been led to believe. Which I guess is good, as otherwise, we wouldn’t have this movie, directed by Feast‘s John Gulager (who is Clu’s son).

That’s when we meet marine biology student Maddy (Danielle Panabaker, Killer Frost from the DCU shows) who is home for the summer and at the waterpark that she co-owns with her stepfather Chet (David Koechner). That’s when she learns that he’s about to re-open the park as Big Wet, complete with strippers and a grand opening featuring David Hasselhoff.

Of course, all oceanic hell is unleashed all over again. Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) returns from the last film, missing his legs and being helped by former cameraman and current therapist Andrew Cunningham (Paul Scheer), who is trying to get him back into the water. Luckily, his titanium legs have been outfitted with a shotgun with endless ammo, which will help.

There’s also a scene where a piranha swims into a woman’s nether regions and bites off the member of the man who is attempting to deflower her. Keep in mind that she has had the fish inside her for several hours and that will tell you all you need to know about this film and whether or not you should watch it. There’s also a scene where the decapitated head of a man motorboats the bloody breasts of a woman, so just know what you are getting into.

Christopher Lloyd returns as Carl Goodman, continually explaining how the fish continue to evolve and the connection between the park and the underground river where the piranha make their home. Interestingly enough, the sound of the piranha was not accomplished in this film in the way that Joe Dante did it — recording a dental drill with an underwater mic. Nope. In this film, they’re the sound of a chihuahua barking. Trust me, I have a five pound one of these dogs and it may be the most frightening sound you can be awoken by in the middle of the night.

Guess how they kill the fish? Yep. They blow them up real good. Then one of them learns how to walk and kills a small child, with the film ending with people taking selfies of the dead kid.

If you’re looking for a movie that’ll get you through the afternoon and perhaps make you laugh, I guess this will fit the bill if you’ve already seen all of the other Piranha films.

One would imagine that by now, I wouldn’t be snowed by a great poster. But nope. This Italian-Spanish-Mexican film is proof that if the poster looks awesome and has sharks murdering people, I will ignore all the warning flags and dive right into a movie that lulls me into a fugue state of sheer pain.

David (Treat Williams) just wants to live in quiet along with his neighbor Paco (Antonio Fargas, Huggy Bear!) and his man-eating shark buddy Cyclops. However, his brother gets all tangled up in a conspiracy involving a businessman named Rosentski (John Steiner, who we all know was Overlord in Yor, Hunter from the Future).

There’s also an appearance by Janet Agren, who was the few bright spots of Panic and Ratman, two other movies that had awesome posters and not much else to write home about. Then again, she’s also in Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and Eaten Alive!, two much better movies than anything else that will be discussed in this article (she’s also in Hands of Steel, a movie that has an incredible poster that promises more than the movie delivers, yet I’m coming around on that one).

Plus — Christopher Connelly — Hot Dog from 1990: The Bronx Warriors and the dad from Fulci’s incomprehensibly awesome Manhattan Baby — plays a priest in his final film role.

I’m just telling you these facts to cover up the fact that I could barely make it through this movie. Seriously — a movie where a man uses traps and a shark to fight gangsters couldn’t sustain my interest.

Maybe you’ll like it better than I did. You can watch it on Amazon Prime with a subscription.

When Mill Creek boxed this up for their Excellent Eighties 50-film box set . . . never say never: R. D Francis took it to task a second time.

Is it a stretch to believe that the maker of this giant shark movie also directed 3 Ninjas, While You Were Sleeping and Cool Runnings? I guess anyone can make anything and Jon Turteltaub lives up to that. But we’re here to talk sharks. And this flick has a big one — a 75-foot long megalodon, a prehistoric shark through long extinct. The trailers and posters for this one whipped audiences into a frenzy as it seemed like non-stop giant shark action was about to swim onto summer screens. We finally saw it once it hit blu ray and are ready to share our thoughts.

Based on Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten, this sat in development hell for over a decade before finally getting an approved script a few years ago. Eli Roth was originally going to direct but dropped out over artistic differences.

A few years ago, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) was trying to save the team of a sunken nuclear submarine when an unknown creature attacks. Taylor is forced to leave two divers behind to save the rest of the crew and is blamed for their deaths by teammate Dr. Heller (Robert Taylor, Agent Jones from The Matrix and Longmire from, well, Longmire) as he belives that Taylor has gone mad from pressure-induced psychosis.

Billionaire Jack Morrie (Rainn Wilson) has financed Mana One, an underwater research facility, with Dr. Minway Zhang and his daughter Suyin. Their goal is to explore a deep section of the Mariana trench that has been covered by a thermocline frozen cloud. A submarine piloted by Toshi (Masi Oka, Hiro from Heroes), The Wall and Taylor’s ex-wife Lori try to penetrate the trench, but are attacked by an unknown creature and their vehicle is lifeless on the ocean floor.

James “Mac” Mackreides suggested that they get Taylor down there, as its very similar to his last mission. When they meet him in Thailand, all he wants to do is drink and stay lost until he learns that his ex is in danger. Meanwhile, Suyin takes her own sub to try and rescue them before a giant squid nearly crushes her craft, being saved at the last minute by a massive shark.

Toshi sacrifices himself to save the crew and when they get to the surface, all of Taylor’s stories of a mysterious shark suddenly sound a lot more plausible. Oh yeah — Suyin also has a young daughter named Meiying who comes face to face with the Megalodon, which they soon catch.

But yes, you guessed it, there’s a catch (sorry, punny today) and another even bigger shark attacks their ship, eating that dead giant shark and nearly all of the crew, minus the two I didn’t mention, Jaxx Heard (Ruby Rose) and comic relief DJ (Page Kennedy).

The elder Zhang dies of injuries and Morris claims that he’s alerted local governments and naval forces, then evacuates the crew. However, he’s really trying to kill the shark for himself to save his company from lawsuits. If you guessed that he gets killed himself, you’ve been paying attention to shark movies. Big points to him for trying to blow up the shark, as we know that usually works 100% of the time. However, this shark is so smart that it uses a whale as camoflauge. Yep. A super smart monster shark from the past.

You’d think with a premise like that this would be more exciting. And it’s fine — but maybe I’ve been spoiled by completely goofy exploitation versions of shark movies. Once the beast makes its way to a crowded beach, I was hoping for some carnage, but it’s nowhere near the scope of insanity that I was hoping for.

That said — the ending where multiple sharks attack the Megalodon is pretty awesome. But I was kind of hoping for that level of inventiveness throughout. I did kind of like the nod to Jaws with the fat child asking his mom if he could go swimming, as well as the fast version of the classic theme that played while Suyin was in the shark cage. Also, when the crew watches the presentation of the Megalodon, it looks like Matt Hooper is in the photo of the shark’s jaws. There are also kids riding a banana boat just like Jaws 4, which is one of Becca’s favorite movies ever in defiance of the rest of humanity. There’s even a dog named Pippin, much like Pippit from Spielberg’s film. And the biggest Jaws cue is that the sound of the Megalodon dying is the same as Jaws (and the truck in Duel) meeting its maker.

They definitely set up a sequel here, but this was one expensive movie. With a  production budget of around $175 million and a $140 million marketing spend, it needs a lot of money worldwide to break even. That said — it’s obvious how much of this film was created to appeal to the burgeoning Chinese market for American films.

Enzo G. Castellari gets plenty of love around these parts. After all, he brought us 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Escape from the Bronx and Warriors of the Wasteland, amongst others. Of course, we already covered his Jaws Xerox that is The Last Shark this week, but that’s not the only shark movie he made. And get this — he’s bringing Franco Nero along for the ride. And you know how we feel about Franco (Top Line), for he makes all things crappy, wonderful.

Mike Di Donato (Nero) is a man with a past, living a hermit’s life on a sea island while his woman works at the market. We meet him after he beats up an entire bar full of people with no problem just to rescue one loud troublemaker, who becomes his partner.

The past never stays buried — an unidentified organization wants Mike’s help in taking back the one hundred million dollars that have sunk beneath the ocean. Mike’s the only guy who can do it — but he planned on grabbing it himself. There are also tons of sharks (and a comical paragliding sequence) to contend with.

There’s also quite a bit of wacky music from the De Angelis brothers, who also recorded as Oliver Onions. They did the music for a metric ton (well, maybe 1000 kilograms, as Italy follows the metric system) of Italian films, such as Torso, Death Rage, A Blade in the Dark and, of course, Yor, Hunter from the Future. Becca would like everyone reading this to know that they basically take one song and loop it for the entire movie. So if you like this song, you’re in for a treat.

You can grab this on DVD at Revok.

Straight up, let me be honest. This movie is crazy. I say that a lot in conversations about movies that defy description. I may exclaim, this movie is insane. It’s bonkers. I may use all manner of words. Let me tell you, when it comes to Christmas movies, nothing will prepare you for this.

Let me short hand it for you — imagine if Home Alone had more terror and blood. Think of the grindhouse version of that film. And then realize that this was made a year before and director René Manzor once threatened the makers of that film with a lawsuit alleging that they had remade his movie.

The difference is that when the Wet Bandits get beat up in Home Alone, the carnage is like a cartoon. Not here. Not at all.

Thomas de Frémont is a smart young kid who is obsessed with inventing things and American action movies like Rambo. He lives in a secluded mansion with his widowed mother Julie, his nearly blind grandfather Papy and his dog J.R. On Christmas Eve, Thomas uses a Minitel ( a French 80’s internet that had access to commercial and private addresses, along with chat rooms) to try and talk to Santa, only to be targeted by a deranged homeless man who breaks into the mansion.

Seriously, this evil Santa is super evil. He gets a job where Julie works, slaps around kids and gets his entry into their home by hiding in a delivery van and killing the driver. He then kills Thomas’ dog in front of his eyes. The young boy thinks that this really is Santa and he is angry that he’s stayed up so late to try and catch him dropping off toys.

The evil Saint Nick cuts off all the phone lines and challenges Thomas to a game of life and death, even catching him once and letting him go. I’m not going to give away more of the movie, but it’s seriously one of the darkest holiday movies I’ve ever witnessed, one that will make kids not want anything in heir stockings.

It’s also shot in an incredibly frenetic style that I’d compare favorably to Michele Soavi. Manzor would go on to be a famous writer, as well as get hired by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to direct some of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Also known as Deadly Games and Dial Code Santa Claus, this movie was impossible to find. That said — the awesome folks at American Genre Film Archive have a restored version playing across the country this holiday with a blu ray finally releasing soon. It won’t be out in time for Christmas, but if you’re already reading about it here, you know how to search the grey markets of the internet by now. It’s worth the time.

UPDATE: This is now on Shudder. Go watch it right now!

EVEN BETTER UPDATE: Vinegar Syndrome has released this movie after years of people like me waiting for it. Get it now!

Alexandre Aja may have announced his horror career with High Tension, but he’s really been known for his remakes of classic films, like directing The Hills Have Eyes and writing and producing Maniac. Here, he presents a much more satiric take on undersea terror, along with a cast game for pure silliness at times.

It all starts with Richard Dreyfuss playing a fisherman named Matt Boyd, but we all know that it’s Matt Hooper, particularly because he’s listening to the song “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” which he sang with Quint and Brody in Jaws. Dreyfuss did this cameo for a large salary, which he promptly donated to charity. Regardless, he’s only here to get ripped apart by piranha.

Jake Forester is kinda sorta the hero of this whole endeavor, crushing on his old friend Kelly and dealing with her boyfriend and his jerk pals. To make money that summer, Jake is working for porn director Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell), who is looking for spots to shoot his latest film with his star actresses, Danni Arslow and Crystal Shephard (legit porn star Riley Steele), and cameraman Andrew Cunningham (Paul Scheer of the podcast How Did This Get Made?). He leaves his little brother and sister behind and takes his crush Kelly onto the porn boat The Barracuda.

Meanwhile, Jake’s mom Julie (Elisabeth Shue, somehow roped into this gory mess) is searching for the missing Boyd along with Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames). When they discover his body, they consider closing the lake, but much like every single movie that I’ve ever seen about killer fish, the prospect of tourism dollars keeps everything open despite the danger.

Meanwhile, Julie and a team of seismologists led by Novak (Adam Scott) to discover buried prehistoric lake filled with piranha eggs. They capture one alive — despite big losses — and take it to pet store owner Carl Goodman (Christopher Lloyd!) who was once a marine biologist. He tells them that this species is incredibly aggressive and has already grown cannibalistic.

Our heroes try to warn everyone, but of course, people just want to jet ski and have sex in the water, which means that every single person must be devoured by mini-fish with big teeth. Nearly everyone on The Barracuda is killed before Jake reaches his mother for help. Only Jake, Kelly and the kids survive, using the porn director’s corpse as bait and as is customary, blowing up something real good to kill off the killer fish.

Just when it seems like the coast is clear — literally — Goodman calls to tell them that these are only the babies. Novak wonders where the parents are just in time for one to eat him.

Chuck Russell (The Blob, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors) was originally slated to direct this and I would have loved to have seen his vision. That said, this is a fun and fast-moving affair. And when it comes to awesome directors, Aja was planning on having the directors of the last two Piranha films, Joe Dante and James Cameron play boat captains, but Cameron was too busy.

From 1972 to 1978, William Girder directed nine feature films and would have probably never stopped, were it not for the helicopter crash that took his life while scouting Philippines filming locations. From Asylum of Satan and Three on a Meathook to The Manitou, Sheba Baby and Project: Kill, his films may have been derivative but they made money.

Here’s the best example. Around these parts, Girder is celebrated for Abby, a movie that was removed from theaters because of its similarity (let’s say total ripoff) of The Exorcist. That brings us to Grizzly, which is essentially Jaws on dry land. With a bear. A grizzly bear.

Grizzly found its inspiration when its producer and writer, Harvey Flaxman, came face to face with a bear during a camping trip. Co-producer and co-writer David Sheldon thought about how they could make a bear version of Jaws and they wrote a script that Girdler discovered and offered to finance, as long as he could direct.

Grizzly begins with military vet and helicopter pilot Don Stober (Andrew Prine, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, The Eliminators, Amityville II: The Possession) flying over a national park and explaining how the woods remain untouched, much like they were in when Native Americans made their homes here.

The first two attacks happen quickly — in bear POV no less — when two female hikers are dismembered by the ursus arctos horribilis villain of this story. That brings in park ranger Michael Kelly (Christopher George, Gates of Hell/City of the Living Dead, Day of the Animals, Mortuary, Pieces) and photographer Allison Corwin (Joan McCall, who besides being in Devil Times Five is also married to the film’s writer, Sheldon) in on the case.

At the hospital, a doctor tells the park ranger that a bear killed the girls, but the park’s supervisor blames the ranger and naturalist Arthur Scott (Richard Jaeckel, The Dark, Mako: The Jaws of Death and TV’s Salvage 1) for the girls’ deaths. And guess what? Just like Jaws, there’s no way the park is getting closed before tourist season.

The rangers all decide to search the mountain for the grizzly, which isn’t accounted for in their census of animals in the park. One of the rangers — of course — decides to get nude in a waterfall because that’s what you do when you’re hunting a killer bear and gets murked for her stupidity.

Kelly and Stober think they have found the bear from the air, yet its just naturalist Scott wearing an animal pelt and tracking the bear himself. Scott tells them that this bear is actually a prehistoric version of the grizzly that stands 15 feet tall and weighs at least 2,000 pounds.

No matter how many people the grizzly kills, no one will close the park. So when the story becomes national news, the owners of the park — a national park can have owners? — allow amateur hunters to shoot the shark (this has nothing to do with the very same thing happening in Jaws, right?). Those hunters are pretty much the worst people ever, as they use a bear cub as bait, thinking the grizzly will protect its young. Nope — it eats that baby bear and keeps on coming.

The grizzly literally shreds his way through the park and nobody closes it down until it murders a young mother and mutilates her child. And get this — the grizzly is so smart, it knows how to bury the naturalist in the ground and then waits for him to wake up so it can kill him. Can a bear be a slasher killer? Well, we already know that Bigfoot can be, thanks to Night of the Demon.

The grizzly kills every hero in this movie other than Kelly the photographer, who magically finds a bazooka in the wrecked helicopter and remembers the end of every shark movie: you must blow this beast up real good. She does and that’s the end of Grizzly.

An interesting personal note: I was telling my dad about this movie and he remembered that it has played on a bus that took he and my mother on a casino trip. That’s right — at 1 AM, pitch blackness, the TV on their bus blared this gorefest as loudly as possible. “I couldn’t wait for that movie to end,” was my mother’s review. My father’s was a bit kinder.

Warner Brothers originally wanted to finance Grizzly, but were furious that Edward L. Montoro and Film Ventures International (FVI) had taken the project. That’s because a year before, the studio sued both of these companies for copyright infringement when they released Beyond the Door in the US.

Sadly, while Grizzly was one of 1976’s best-performing films, earning $39 million worldwide (adjusted for inflation, that’s around $177 million in 2018 dollars), its distributor Edward L. Montoro and Film Ventures International kept all the profits. Girdler and Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon (the film’s screenwriters/producers) had to sue to get their share.

Even after all that, Girdler still directed Day of the Animals, a spiritual sequel to Grizzly, for Montoro. While this film added Leslie Nielsen and Lynda Day George to the returning cast of Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel, it wasn’t as successful.

Grizzly just seems like a movie that’s buried in legal shenanigans. A sequel, Grizzly II: The Predator (also known as Grizzly II: The Concert, a title that would assuredly guarantee that I would buy this film) was made in 1983.

Filmed in Hungary by André Szöts and written by Sheldon, the co-producer and writer of the original, it was never released. The film had Louise Fletcher, John Rhys-Davies and unknowns but about to be big stars like Charlie Sheen (who took this movie over the lead in Karate Kid), George Clooney and Laura Dern in the cast, as well as live performances (hence Grizzly II: The Concert) by musicians like Toto Coelo (who had one song I can name, “I Eat Cannibals Part 1”) and Landscape III.

The movie was such a mess that the film’s caterer ended up rewriting it. And while the main filming was completed, special effects and all of the actual bear footage wasn’t. That’s because the film’s executive producer Joseph Proctor had disappeared with the money (and may have even been already jailed when filming began). While a mechanical bear was to be used, there was still footage shot of a live bear attacking concert-goers filmed (!). There’s a bootleg workprint, but the full film has ever emerged. This New York Post article has even more amazing info about Grizzly 2.

UPDATE: This movie is supposedly coming out in 2020.

Finally, a trivia note for comic book fans. The amazing poster for this movie? Neal Adams did the art.