The Florida-based director William Grefe has brought many swamp-tinged bits of exploitation goodness — or badness — to the screen, including Alligator Alley, The Wild Rebels, The Hooked Generation and many more. As one of the first films to capitalize on the shark craze in the wake of Spielberg’s success, this film’s sympathetic view of sharks as victims is a pretty unique take on the genre.

Marine salvager Sonny Stein (Richard Jaeckel, who pretty much had a one-man war against nature with him battling bats in Chosen Survivors, bears in Grizzly and, well, any and all beasts with a chip on their shoulder in Day of the Animals) is given a medallion that allows him to communicate with sharks. He becomes increasingly disconnected from humanity — easy to do, since everyone in this movie is scum — and uses his sharks to take out those who oppose his beliefs.

One of those people is an incredibly chubby club owner who is using high-frequency sound to train his sharks and kind of pimping out his wife, Karen (Jennifer Bishop, Bigfoot), to get Sonny on their side. Have you ever seen a movie where strippers have been trained to swim with sharks? Who would want to see that? This movie provides the what, if not the why.

Another is a shady shark researcher, Whitney, who murders a shark and her pups for “science.” You will stare, unbelievingly, at the screen as Jaeckel overemotes, clutching a dead baby shark in his mitts. Oh yeah — Harold “Oddjob” Sakata is also in this, playing a character named Pete who ends up on the wrong side of a shark’s teeth while trying to poach Sonny’s friends.

The stunt footage is pretty amazing and even gets a mention before the movie even begins, boasting that no mechanical sharks were used. Other than the weird premise and a few good scenes, you can nap through most of this and not feel bad, though you might wake up when Sonny tells his shark buddy Sammy that he can’t help it if he was born a man.

You can watch this on YouTube.