She Gods of Shark Reef

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.

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.

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?

I personally found this movie to be quite watchable compared to many others, especially useful as a late night movie, and I really do not see it as a bad movie at all with regard to either the acting or the way it was filmed, even regardless of some of the ludicrous concepts.

You probably are familiar with the plot; two men, one "good", one "bad", end up on an island with exotic women and try to both kill each other and save one another at least once each.

I don't understand the title, though, as there are NO "she gods" (whatever happened to "goddess", anyway?), only unseen "shark gods" (represented by an ugly idol) and an island full of women who collect (and protect) pearls for "The Company" (which we never learn much about or actually see, even though it is implied we will see them).

One important thing that I learned from this movie is that it is okay to throw young girls into the ocean for the sharks to eat, as long as you report any suspicious strangers to the local police on the next island over! Weird! We are also supposed to believe that this "queen" (who oversees the sacrifices made to the shark gods) somehow is able to tell if anyone is correctly reading her maritime signal flag messages just by glancing into the horizon when you can't even see any other island!

I'm also wondering how both Lee and Pua easily swam all the way back to the island with no trouble at all in those shark-infested waters!

Anyway, the parts just prior to the ending were somewhat confusing and there ARE a couple of other incredibly dumb scenes. For example, the part where Queen Pua brags about having saved and taken care of Mahia, when she was the one who had thrown her to the sharks! She even cries about her sailing off away from her! Weird!

The color on my DVD copy was fairly bad; the ocean kept changing between purples, greens, pinks, and blues, but the overall style and filming is somewhat attractive.

5/10. Not bad, not great. Again, it's fine for a late night watch before finally falling asleep.