She Gods of Shark Reef

Aside from having Roger Corman's name on the cover of this film there is a picture of a wet blond just wearing only a strategically placed lei.

No blonds.

No She Gods.

And the lei is broken.

Looks like Roger was distracted by the other movie he was making at the same time "Thunder Over Hawaii."

The basic story is a bad guy (who gets into killing and gunrunning) flees authorities with his brother's help. A storm arises and they get shipwrecked on a mysterious island with native girls, sharks, pearls, and a nasty old woman.

So, who gets the native girls, sharks, pearls, or worse yet the nasty old woman?

When Durant kills a guard during a failed arms theft, he convinces his friend (Cord) to sail to a remote island where friends will shelter him to avoid capture by authorities. Alas, the boat on which they sail capsizes in a storm and the two survivors are saved by the inhabitants of an island of women, governed by maternal den mother Gerson. The women work for an unidentified corporation, harvesting pearls, hula dancing and fishing. Sounds idyllic, except that Gerson has summoned the police to recover the fugitives, spurring them to engineer an escape - along with local girl Montell with whom Cord has become romantically involved.

It's cheap, uninspired Roger Corman nonsense; picturesque with amiable performances by Montell, Cord and Durant in particular, but little excitement or suspense. The shark reef itself doesn't appear especially threatening, the largest specimen six feet at best and looking more like a lemon shark than a fearsome tiger. Durant and Cord have obviously spent time preparing for their roles in the gymnasium, while Montell has ensured no evident tan lines blur the imagination. Gerson is a matron-like mother superior, disapproving of the boys and their ambitions for her young, impressionable charges.

The climax surpassed the meagre expectations, and generally the narrative is pretty coherent albeit very compact. If you worship the Corman factory, then "She Gods" will take pride of place on your shelf. If however you're only a casual viewer, even at barely a tick over the hour mark, this might be a bit too fast and loose to keep you entertained.

A simple, one-lined description of this movie would sound a little like: two guys wash ashore a tropical island exclusively inhabited by women that dive for pearls all day and worship ocean Gods… Terrific! Sounds like a movie many (male) exploitation fans would want to see. Or better yet, where can we go to book our very own holiday to this island? In reality, however, "She Gods of Shark Reef" is nothing but a good-looking package with absolutely no content. Roger Corman is one of the greatest and most important directors in (B-) movie history, but many of his obscure mini-budget productions of the late 50's really aren't worth bothering for. Movies like "Creature from the Haunted Sea", "Attack of the Crab Monsters" or this "She Gods of Shark Reef" were shot in a period of only a few days and without a real script, merely because Corman had a handful of extra dollars to spend and/or wanted to make more out of a certain filming location. The events take place in Hawaii and the beautiful images of this wonderful place are the ONLY reason to give this movie a glimpse. It's one of Corman's first movies shot in color and the place does look enchanting even though nothing really is happening there. The two male leads are supposed to be running from the law and the female leader of the island doesn't want them there, especially not since one of them is after her slave girls. The other guy is more interested in the shiny pearls, so needless to say he's not going to make it out alive. Or is he? You better not be expecting any vicious shark-attacks or virgin sacrifices, because you WILL feel cheated. The closest we come to an action sequence is when a native girl encourages the handsome blond guy to dance with her. Despite the gorgeous setting and promising (but misleading) title, this is one of the most boring films I ever watched. 63 minutes never lasted this long. Sorry, Roger

She Gods Of Shark Reef is a Roger Corman film where two fleeing Americans are washed up on the shore of an uncharted desert island with nothing but females inhabiting it. Bill Cord and Don Durant are the lucky guys and the main industry of the island is pearl diving. Despite the fact that one of them is a fugitive from the law these two think they've got it made.

But as the old adage goes if something looks too good to be true, chances are it is. These women worship the shark as a deity and that's a deity that forever needs feeding. And somehow in their religion as in many others they've divined that the shark likes virginal women.

Other than they don't like outsiders in general Queen Jeanne Gerson of this Amazon culture also feels that with these two healthy American men the virgin supply might start shrinking. Though you have to wonder how without men did these Amazon cultures start and keep going.

All I can say is that Roger Corman did Happy Days one better by having a whole film devoted to shark worship. And the Happy Days folks thought just the Fonz jumping a shark tank was the be all end all.

Since the early 1950s, Roger Corman has been directing and releasing films at a break-neck pace. Typically, he tosses four or five into the arena per year. This explosive productivity, of course, limits the range of quality (and budgets) for his productions. However, Corman has only occasionally released really truly bad films. This is an example.

Corman used the lovely islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago as a setting for this early color flatliner. If you have seen a few of his films, you know how important setting is to Corman. First - he never seems to have an adequate budget for his most ambitious projects, so he makes sure he films in visually interesting settings. Second - Corman often uses over-long and somewhat tedious pans ("Corman pans"). With nice scenery in the background, or a well designed set, the tedium factor for these shots is reduced. Corman's films are loaded with people moving from place to place, and "She Gods" is no exception.

The film is about a pair of vaguely likable brothers. Chris (Bill Cord) is a fairly normal, if not particularly bright, young man. Lee (Don Durant) is his evil, and only slightly less intelligent, brother. Lee is a fugitive from the law. They find themselves shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a tribe of Polynesian Amazons lead by the not-very-creepy but still rather annoying Queen Pua (Jeanne Gerson). Lisa Montell plays Mahia (Lisa Montell), who fairly quickly becomes romantically entangled with Chris, but the gods of the shark reef have apparently made it clear that both men are taboo. Chris and Lee plot to escape, and decide to take Mahia along with them, but the shark gods have other plans.

The acting is OK (with mediocre camera-work occasionally making the actors appear to be over-acting), the pace is as good as some of Corman's better works, the script is thankfully spartan, and the plot is as thin as a fish scale. The Hawaiian dancing and singing, underwater swimming scenes, shark-fight action and lovely costumes don't really succeed in making up for the virtually nonexistent story-line, middling cinematography and weakly developed main characters. Plus, some of the shark scenes (I believe one is repeated twice in the film) are laughable.

Can't really recommend this.