Tintorera (1977) Review :: Tintorera horrifies but for the wrong reasons

Hemdale

The summer of 1975 gave us what the film that is widely considered to be the first true summer blockbuster: Jaws, and in the years following that milestone in cinematic history, studio both large and small, domestic and international, attempted to cash in on that film’s success with one ‘animal on the rampage’ film after another. You’d probably be hard-pressed to come up with one really memorable film from that era. Grizzly released just a year later has its fans, but it seems that movies about sharks have managed to endure to this day.

In the wake of Jaws, director René Cardona Jr., who went on to direct The Bermuda Triangle and Cyclone in 1978, tried his hand at the killer shark genre with Tintorera, aka Tiger Shark. The film is set at a Mexican resort where an ‘American’ named ‘Steven’ (the clearly not American Hugo Stiglitz) is taking a much needed vacation on a boat anchored just off the shore (it’s never clear if it’s his boat or someone else’s because it seems to be explained both ways). Steven apparently just wants to get laid but he manages to piss off his first love interest by not being able to tell her if he loves her or not (these people move very fast with their emotions), so she runs off and hooks up with another guy, Migeul or Michael (Andrés Garcia), depending on the time of day, leading to an altercation on the beach between the men. The woman, Patricia (Fiona Lewis), eventually runs off and is promptly devoured by the titular shark … and no one even notices she’s gone missing. But Steve and Mike form a friendship and bet on who can sleep with the next woman first, who happens to be Gabriella (Susan George) … and they end up as a throuple with one rule set by Gabriella — no one falls in love and no one gets jealous. Gabriella is then horrified to learn her two lovers are shark hunters … actually she’s just horrified that they put themselves in danger and, of course, tragedy occurs, setting Steven on a course for revenge against the killer shark … after he screws a few more women. But who wins in the end, Steven or Tintorera?

REVIEW

I’m going to be blunt — Tintorera is not really the movie it advertises itself to be with the artwork of a giant shark with a bikini-clad woman in its jaws. Tintorera delves more into the sexual mores of the era with the random one night stands and the threesome relationship (with the nudity handled equitably between the males and females in the film), and there are a couple of very gory shark attacks thrown in for good measure (and honestly, if you’re a gore hound, the shark attacks are gruesome with blood and entrails all over the place). But director Cardona is really more interested in the sex than the sharks, and audiences expecting a low-budget exploitation of Jaws will be disappointed (though it should be noted the version currently released on Blu-ray is actually one of the shorter edits of the film at 87 minutes, which is said to have several different cuts, the original as long as 134 minutes so it’s hard to really gauge the film’s merits but if it’s pretty boring at 87 minutes I can’t imagine what an additional 50 minutes would bring to it).

Aside from the focus being more on the throuple than suspense and shark attacks, my biggest problem with the film — and this is something I wish I’d know about beforehand — is the incessant amount of footage of actual murders of marine life. It’s horrific. Numerous sharks are killed on screen. A manta ray is shot in the back of the head at point blank range. A tortoise’s throat is slit to bleed out to attack more sharks. It’s disgusting, it’s reprehensible, and sadly, it was the norm for the time. I personally don’t think it should be glorified today. If films are being hidden away for racist content, then something this egregious really doesn’t deserve to see the light of day. Perhaps had the disk started with a warning, and introduction, explaining what was about to come, I would have been prepared. I really could not watch any of the underwater scenes and nearly turned it off midway through. It’s just senseless violence against defenseless animals. And there are times when you can clearly see a cable towing what are either drugged or already dead sharks through the water to the next ‘attack’. The whole movie left a very bad taste in my mouth. But, hey, if you are interested in seeing a topless, pre-Three’s Company Priscilla Barnes, there is that at least for the very short amount of screen time she has.

VIDEO

As reprehensible as the film itself is, Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray transfer looks probably better than the film ever did during its theatrical release. Night scenes are inky black, brighter sunlit scenes bring out colors and textures, and underwater scenes are very clear and well-lit … allowing you to see the gory attacks and, unfortunately, the real carnage on display. For a low budget sexpoitation film from Mexico, it looks much better than it should.

AUDIO

The 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is crisp and clear. There’s no surround, but the dialogue is never obscured by music or sound effects. Even the hilarious dubbing of the ‘American’ blends well with the rest of the dialogue (in reality, most of this particular version is dubbed including the voices of Lewis and George because the original soundtrack was apparently lost). The audio is nothing to write home about but it does its job well.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Commentary with Troy Howarth and Rod Barnett – The newly recorded track from the film historians covers a lot of detail about the film, including the creation of distributor Hemdale, the origins of the book upon which the film is based, Cardona’s career, cinematographer Ramon Bravo’s work with Jacques Cousteau (and who probably supervised the scenes of animal cruelty, which makes it even more shocking), the different cuts of the film, how the shark attacks were filmed, and more aspect of the production, its cast and its look at the sexual politics of the film.
Tintorera Trailers – Trailer 1 (2:31); Trailer 2 (1:02)
Kino Lorber Trailers – Sharkks’ Treasure (1:58), Barbarians (1:39), The Norseman (1:29), Eye of the Tiger (2:09)

OVERVIEW

Tintorera was definitely not what I expected. I was really expecting a cheap Jaws rip-off with a laughably fake rubber shark making the movie so bad it’s good. I know the movie has a lot of fans, and a lot of the reviews are calling it a ‘must see’ and that it’s better than most of the knock offs out there. Granted, the shark attack scenes were visceral and much gorier than expected, so I could have probably forgiven the film for spending more time on the sexual aspects of the story. But … I can not get past the plethora of on-screen animal killing, and even if it was the norm 45 years ago, I just found it all too disturbing and it ruined whatever enjoyment I may have gotten from the film. The Blu-ray presentation treats the movie much better than it deserves, and if you can get past the animal cruelty it may be a film worth adding to your collection. It’s definitely not for me, but now you are armed with enough information to make an informed decision as to if it’s a movie for you.