Cruel Jaws aka Fauci Crudeli (1995)

I think we sometimes forget that The Asylum didn't invent the rip-off (or for those late to the party, SyFy). The rip-off has been a part of the movie industry for as long as there's been a movie industry. And in the 80s and 90s, Italian director Bruno Mattei made it into an art form. With this one, he even had the audacity to label it Jaws V, as if it were a sequel as opposed to a rip-off-- not that the other sequels weren't rip-offs of the original in some way too.

Cruel Jaws takes place in a small town near Miami, where a marine biologist comes to visit some old friends, and is pressed into duty when people are found eaten by a shark. A rich landowner in the town doesn't want panic to set in and threaten his windsurfing race or the area's tourism, so he filibusters the sheriff and the marine biologist's attempts to close the beaches. As the sheriff so eloquently points out, "it's like an all you can eat buffet for the shark!"



This is riff-tastic. One of the ultimate bad movie night flicks. In fact, you could pair it with Shark Attack III, and it would be perfect. It's everything you'd want in a Bruno Mattei rip-off film: bad dubbing, bad dialog, bad acting, music ripped from Superman or Star Wars, scenes ripped from anything that already had sharks, bad edits, stuff that comes out of nowhere-- in short, 90 minutes of pure awesome. This is what you wanted baby. I could go into all the amazing moments, but as I usually do, I'll leave that to the comments section, so I don't give too much away. (Even though when I do that, I often get the "oh my God, how could you have not mentioned this!" Well, now you know why.)

This is the fourth Bruno Mattei film we've done, the other three being Robowar, Strike Commando, and Strike Commando 2. For those three, he went under the name Vincent Dawn. For Cruel Jaws he went with William Snyder. I wonder where he gets these names from? Vincent Dawn is almost porn star or action lead, while William Snyder, in it's full form is like a baseball player, but using "Bill" instead sounds like an accountant or local contractor. "Hey, did you talk to Bill Snyder and get that estimate?" In some ways, it's a window into how Italians view us Americans by the fake names they choose to make themselves sound more like us. "Ah, you'ah know, ah-Willeeum Snyderr. Dat sounds-ah verrry Americano, no?"



The thing I love about the shark movie is, as good or as bad as it's done, it's always a fun time. I think that's because sharks make such great baddies. As the movie states, they're like genetically engineered killing machines. All they do is swim, eat, and make babies. You can't bargain with an enemy like that, it doesn't care if you're young or old, if you're in the water, you're fair game. Plus, they're real, and people really have been attacked by them. One of the interesting things about this is, as much as it has that "throw everything in and see what happens" quality, Mattei does a great job of building suspense, especially in the early going. It's the shark attack itself, of course, that leaves something to be desired and is so funny.

Our hero's girlfriend is not a nice person. She's upset that he has to help deal with a killer shark menacing the local coast, which is understandable, it is their vacation after all. What she does in response is a bit much though. She cheats on him with the main heel. Really? I wonder if Mattei is telling us anything about what he thinks of that, or if maybe he had a woman in his life cheat on him, and what he wanted done to her. You'll have to watch the movie to see for yourself.



Finally, loved this guy who looked like a guy dressing up as Hulk Hogan for a kid's party. The Fu Manchu is the best part. I had a buddy tell me once that he thought I should grow out the Fu Manchu, James Hetfield style. My thinking was, I couldn't really pull it off, and the only scenario it would work would be if I were called to be on Maury. You could see me in the greenroom with all these punk kids with their whisper thin fuzz on their upper lip, then I show up with the Hetfield Fu Manchu, all like Larry Bird in the Three-Point Contest: "Okay, which of you boys is coming in second?" Otherwise, the Fu Manchu wouldn't work for me, not like it did for that guy up there.

I guess used VHS is the way to go, or maybe DVD, especially if you're a Region 2, because I know there you can get it both in English and Italian with English subs. You could also do the Japanese VHS, which works here in America, and like their cars, the Japanese VHS is much sturdier that ours. However you get it, just get it and make this happen. You won't be disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112747/