Night of the Sharks has Treat as a guy living on the beach in Mexico with his buddy Antonio Fargas. They live a nice life, taking people out on fishing tours, but there's this shark, Cyclops, who has been killing people and causing issues. He wants to take Cyclops out, but he's derailed by his brother, who has blackmailed some bad people by taping their phone conversations. He sends Treat the tapes, and plans to meet him in Mexico with some diamonds he stole, but the baddies blow up the plane when it lands. So now he has baddies to contend with, a killer shark named Cyclops, plus some diamonds underwater among the plane wreckage that could set him up for life. Of course Treat can handle it.
This was fun for sure, but it was also an interesting film, because it felt like something you'd have seen Robert Ginty in: Italian production, shot in a tropical local, a mish-mash of things from international intrigue action to killer sharks, with a dash of Christopher Connelly, this was made for Ginty. But then we throw in Treat instead, and it gives the whole thing a unique flavor, the kind of twist on a classic that a restaurant would be known for, while other restaurants would try to replicate it on their menus, but not get it quite right. Add in Antonio Fargas as the guy who, on some levels seems like he's always getting into stuff, but is more partner to Treat than just reprising his Huggy Bear character from Starsky and Hutch, which it turned out was something we needed when this film turns into a straight-up actioner in the last half-hour. It's an alchemy between the plot, production, and cast that just works well, and I don't know if it could be recreated with different parts.
We last saw Treat in 2021, when we covered the Mark Dacascos film Operation Rogue, which was more recent than I thought, because this is only his fifth film on the site overall, and the last time before 2021 was 2007 when we covered Gale Force. That's the thing with Treat, he did do some DTV stuff, but he also did TV movies, TV shows, and supporting parts or lead parts in big screen films, so with someone who does that kind of variety, we tend to not see them as much on the site as someone who is more a hardcore DTV'er. He does have some stuff like this though that we could do, we just need to get to it. This film reminds me of why we need more of him, because he brings that unique element to the proceedings. He looks the part of the leading man, but is a little more clean-cut--even when he's playing a beach bum like he is here--a little more well-spoken, has that upper-crust Connecticut breeding, so when he's inserted into something like this, or the Substitute films, it gives it a flavor that takes us out of the ordinary that we expect from the usual DTV 80s Italian production. Here's to you Treat, you were one of the greats, and we'll miss you.
Still with us is Antonio Fargas, and he's great here as Treat's partner in crime. When I went to tag him for this, it seemed off that I hadn't done any of his films before on the site, and it turned out this is his third film here, after Shakedown and Extreme Honor--how did I miss that he was in that! I think for him, he was trying to escape the shadow of Huggy Bear, but then later embraced it, and I get it: at first it made it hard for him to get work, and then later it became the thing that got him work. I remember some time ago ESPN did a feature on his son, who played for USC, because he and his friends were bringing the 70s look back evoking images of his father from Starsky and Hutch. I think his son ended up playing for the Raiders, but I'm not sure--and I guess I could look it up, but that's not what's important, I think it was just how cool it was to see his son celebrate his father's career like that. Fargas is still working, so I think, like Treat, we just need to get more of his stuff on here.
Someone else who's no longer with us is Christopher Connelly, and this film has the distinction of being his final movie. Unlike Treat, who's bringing something unique to the proceedings, or Fargas, who's giving us something more than the Huggy Bear we might be expecting from his role, Connelly is giving us exactly what we expect from seeing him in this Italian low-budget production. He's the anchor that reminds us what we're watching and where we are, the taste in the restaurant's twist on a classic dish that we look for, recognize, and appreciate. Because his life ended in the late 80s, we don't have many more films of his we can do, as he did most of his work in the pre-video age, but he is one of the greats, and one we love to celebrate here. While this is meant to be Treat's post, I think we can do a small here's to you Christopher Connelly, you were one of the greats as well.
Finally, this is our first shark movie since I tried doing a shark month back in 2020, and it didn't do so hot. Even the Dolph film we reviewed, Shark Lake, didn't get the views a Dolph film usually gets, and Sharknado 3 did the worst of any posts we've done since we came back from hiatus in late 2019. Like many things, I think people are sharked out (couldn't believe "sharked" wasn't flagged as not in the dictionary!), which is interesting, because this came out in the late 80s where there was an attempt to cash in on the Jaws thing that had probably run its course with how bad Jaws: The Revenge was; but we were in a new video store age, and if you could get movies with sharks on the video store shelves, people looking for more Jaws might rent them. Now we're in the streaming age, and sharks are used the same way to get us to choose something on our virtual video store shelves, but the thing is they can be pumped out much more quickly. Just type in the word "shark" on Tubi, and myriad results appear. I could literally do a "Shark Month" where I review a new shark movie every day in August. I won't do that, considering three Shark movies in the month of August were too much for everyone, I imagine 31 would have people saying "that's okay Matt, I was going to take a month off from your site anyway." The other thing though is the energy in '88 was different than it is in 2023. Sure, the cynicism is probably there--let's add sharks to this movie and it'll sell in America!--but there isn't the whole ironic, we're in on the joke thing we get today, which is what I think has everyone so tired of it all. There's something about a film like this that works in ways modern ones don't, but what's great is, in among all those modern shark flicks on Tubi, this is there too, which is fantastic.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As I mentioned, here in the States you can get this on Tubi. The version isn't the best--you can see from the images that it's close to a YouTube upload in quality--but it does what you need it to. And if you haven't yet, you can find the episode on Treat I did with the guys from Comeuppance over on their podcast--which you should be subscribed to if you're not already! Treat will be missed for sure, but he left behind some great stuff, this film among that.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100273
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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