Tintorera

I missed this movie on its original release way back in 1977 (?) - I was really pleased when I found out it was (finally) getting the DVD treatment. The DVD finally arrived last week and I settled down with beer in hand to watch.... Well - It certainly is no JAWS movie - very little shark attack action at all - more of a soft porn movie with a few shots of a large Tiger Shark swimming around. It is beautifully photographed and the underwater shark shots are cool but that is about all....We get one attack sequence that is obviously a homage to the JAWS opening sequence -but it is certainly not of the same standard. Not a bad little movie if you like a double dose of "cheese" - pleased I bought it for my collection but it will never be hailed as a Shark "classic" !! Give it a go - you may like.... ??

Let me get this straight: it's an awful movie. But imagine this: you are on vacation in Mexico, exactly in the places where the film was shot, and one evening it happens that on a local TV "Tintorera" is aired. It suddenly becomes a must-see. Even now I can't believe how much I laughed: incredibly plain and stupid plot, bad acting, poor dialogs, male nude scenes while the only good thing about in the film was the beauty of the actresses, shocking pointless ending...this movie got it all! As if it wasn't enough, it also showed me how the Mexican coast was before the wild tourism colonization: a real natural paradise that no longer exists (or at least changed too much). A punch on the chin.

Pure crap but, unintentionally, really comical. 5 out of 10 only for the laughter

I expected a Jaws clone and got a movie about threesomes. After I got over the initial shock I actually found Tintorera to be a sweet, almost classy, little male fantasy. Tintorera is actually a sex/beach-flick, and thus perfectly captures the feel of the seventies take on sexual revolution; an era of hedonistic disco parties, sexual experimentation and short, loveless sexual encounters. Rene Cardona Jr. regular Hugo Stiglitz looks great as a wealthy boy on vacation, Esteban, who "finds himself" in a three part relationship with the cute Gabrielle and his former sexual competitor Miguel, the Shark hunter. Meanwhile the feared Tintorera, a big-ass tiger shark, is having a feast on the sexed-out beach community. The "f***-and-die" concept, usually seen in slasher films, is clearly visible and you could say that Tintorera's attack on the swimmers are really an attack on the sexual revolution. If you want cheese you'll have no trouble finding it (the Darth Vader-like breathing of Tintorera or the underwater conversations between Esteban and Miguel directly springs to mind...), but don't look to hard since the larger parts of the movie is actually pretty well-made and totally undeserving of its bad reputation (which I think is more due to the whole idea of a shark/sex movie, than the movie itself). Chances are you might actually enjoy it, as I did.

Also, if you are a gay man interested in exploitation cinema you are bound to like it: the homosexual overtones between Esteban and Miguel are painfully obvious and there are numerous shots of Hugo Stiglitz cute little ass.

7/10 on a regular scale

The original book "Jaws" actually had quite a bit of sex in it which Steven Spielberg left out of the famous film (other the than one impossible-to-make-out nude swimming scene at the beginning). There is nothing wrong therefore with adding a little sex and nudity back into the shark movie formula. Unfortunately, what this film does is add a few shark scenes into what is basically a swinging 70's sex movie. Two Mexican prettyboys spend their time seducing bikini-clad British and American tourists (played by some admittedly very attractive actresses). They don't seem to notice that a giant tiger shark is making short work of the cast until halfway through the film. In one ridiculous scene, for instance, the girl one of the men has fallen in love with(played by Fiona Lewis)goes for a nude swim after bedding down with the other man and (of course) is eaten by the shark a la the opening of "Jaws". But the one guy doesn't seem to notice that her clothes are still in the house, while the other doesn't stop to wonder what has happened to the girl he earlier fell for.

Several other reviewers have already commented on the homoerotic aspects of the film. The two guys are naked more than the women (and almost as much as the shark). They go from sleeping with the same woman (Lewis), to "switch-hitting" with two women (one of who is played by Priscilla Barnes), to finally having sex with the same woman at the same time (Susan George). The 25th Anniversary DVD edition came out this year (it's actually the 27th anniversary but whose counting?)and they apparently added a bunch of additional footage (even though the movie is slow as molasses already). I suspect some of this additional footage might involve these two swingers just getting it over with and having sex with each other. But I'm not complaining about the sex, the nude scenes, or the even homosexual subtext--this is supposed to be a shark movie! What about the shark?!

Most of the action takes place on land, and nothing of substance happens there. The film is lowbrow to the extreme (every single female character is an airhead that's ready to go to bed with a stranger THE MINUTE she meets him - the ultimate male fantasy, perhaps?), but at least you get to look at some beautiful landscapes, and of course there is also a lot of nudity to keep you going between the all-too-infrequent shark attacks. (*1/2)