Deep Blood

Just when you finally, absolutely, positively thought it was safe to go back into the water, up pops yet another Italian Jaws rip off—and slap me with a dorsal fin and chew my legs off if this isn't one of the most tedious of them all.

Directed by Raffaele Donato (with more than a bit of uncredited help from the king of Italian sleaze Joe D'amato), Deep Blood is a virtually joyless experience from start to finish, with a dreary plot, umpteen characters that are indistinguishable from one another, terrible acting (nearly all the performers fumble their lines at least once), and unconvincing shark attack scenes comprising of various odds and ends of stock footage badly inter-cut with the frenzied thrashing of the supposed victims.

The dreadful script offers a few unintentionally hilarious scenes, such as the sight of the film's heroes nipping to the local dynamite depot to stock up with enough high explosives to sink a battleship, or the hasty construction of a special shark attracting device that consists of a metal box with a flashing light on top, and further giggles might be had from the witnesses to the shark attacks, who run the gamut of emotions from 'mildy concerned' to 'slightly perturbed'; to be honest though, these brief moments of levity do little to compensate viewers for suffering through the rest of this bloody awful film.

There was a time, not even all that long ago if I remember correctly, that the notorious "Jaws: The Revenge" – the fourth installment in the world's most famous shark franchise, was listed here in the IMDb bottom 100. Admittedly this film isn't the elite of shark-movies but, trust me, it's a bona fide masterpiece in comparison to this shameless Italian piece of junk from the dirty hands of Joe d'Amato. "Deep Blood" – even the title is ridiculous – is a "Jaws" imitation that is at least 8-10 years overdue. The Italian shark movies from the early 80's are (for example "Great White" and "Devilfish") are also of questionable quality, but at least they're amusing and over-the-top cheesy! "Deep Blood" on that other hand is utterly boring and even too cheap to feature cheesy special effects. The only sharks that we get to see previously featured in National Graphic documentaries of which Joe d'Amato bought the stock footage! The wraparound story is also completely retarded. A bunch of young idiots living in a small and insignificant beach community take an oath to remain best friends for life and look after each other. Aw, how cute. Their buddy pact is immediately put to a severe test when one of them gets eaten by a shark. At least that's what you have to assume happened, because the actor simply vanishes in the water and the next shot just shows a puddle of red liquid instead. Either way, the rest of the losers decide to go shark hunting themselves, obviously against the will of local authorities. "Deep Blood" is a dreadfully tedious and overlong snoozer without any sort of memorable highlight… Except maybe if you count the boys' inability to estimate what quantity of dynamite is required to blow up a shark. There isn't even any gratuitous nudity or sleaze in this garbage. I'm really disappointed, Mr. d'Amato!

I recently watched the Italian film 🇮🇹 Deep Blood (1989) on Tubi. The story takes place in a small ocean town where people mysteriously go missing. A group of friends suspects the disappearances are due to shark attacks connected to an ancient Native American curse. Determined to stop the shark, they venture out to sea-unless the shark finds them first.

The film is co-directed by Raffaele Donato (in his only directorial credit) and Joe D'Amato (Death Smiles on a Murderer) and stars Cort McCown (Teen Wolf), Frank Baroni (Double Exposure), Laura Gemser (Black Emmanuel), Charlie Brill (Silk Stalkings), and Mitzi McCall (Crimson Peak).

Deep Blood is a blatant Jaws knockoff with almost no redeeming qualities. The shark footage is lifted from a National Geographic special, and the attack scenes are embarrassingly bad-basically people flailing in the water with red dye bubbling up around them. There is a mechanical shark that appears at the end, but it's underwhelming at best. The Native American curse subplot is unnecessary and absurd, adding nothing to the film.

In conclusion, Deep Blood is a low-budget Jaws rip-off that's not worth your time. I'd rate it 3/10 and recommend skipping it.

I like to think of myself as a bad movie connoisseur. I like to think that the films most people label as the worst of all time I can easily withstand.

But...there are exceptions. I can only recall three movies I have had the misfortune to see that I have repeatedly used the fast-forward button for large chunks of the story. Those movies are The Mighty Gorga, Night of the Seagulls, and this little crap, Deep Blood.

In the world of Jaws ripoffs, this falls off the scale. Deep Blood doesn't have the realistic storyline of the original Crocodile, nor the incredible effects of The Sea Serpent, nor the commentary of Tintorera. No, instead we are treated to a handful of teens from any random failed '80s public access sitcom battling bullies and the local sheriff.

Shark attacks are realized by quick cuts of documentary footage with actors thrashing about in the water, occasionally with a bit of what appears to be orange-ish paint thrown into the water. Not a minute of original shark footage exists in this celluloid waste dump.

Normally, I, or somebody like me, would read a dismal review like this one and say "cool, I gotta find a copy of this!" That's the same thought I had when I read another viewer's review on this very site. How wrong I was.

So...from one bad movie fan to another...let this collect dust on the shelf...grab Up From the Depths or The Great Alligator instead to satisfy your need for something evil lurking in the water.

Deep Blood (1989)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Joe D'Amato's next to last horror film is yet another Italian rip off of Jaws. After a group of friends take a blood pack, their friendship is put to the test when one of them is eaten by a shark. This is without question the worst of the Italian rips I've seen but I do have two more coming to me. The film has one suspenseful moment, the first attack, but after that everything is pretty dull. There's not a fake shark used throughout the film. Instead we get stock footage of a real shark that naturally never matches up to watch we're seeing in the other footage. Since no fake shark is being used, all of the attacks are rather silly.