Cruel Jaws | |
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Directed by | Bruno Mattei |
Screenplay by |
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Produced by | John Kent |
Starring |
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Cinematography |
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Edited by | Bruno Mattei |
Music by | Michael Morahan |
Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes (USA) 96 minutes (Japan) |
Language | English |
Cruel Jaws (also known as The Beast) is a 1995 Italian direct-to-video horror film directed by Bruno Mattei under the pseudonym William Snyder. [1] The film stars Richard Dew and David Luther, and was shot in Florida, including at the Theater of the Sea marine theme park in Islamorada. [2]
Cruel Jaws was released on VHS and DVD in relative obscurity, mostly outside of the United States. While marketed in many areas as Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws, it does not have any official or narrative connections to the Jaws franchise. [3]
When a military ship named the Cleveland crashes, two divers named Paco and Jose search it and are killed by a large tiger shark. The shark also kills their captain, Ramone.
Meanwhile in Hampton Bay, Florida, aquarist Dag Soerenson, who runs an aquarium alongside his sons Bob and Larry, is trying to stop bigwig Samuel Lewis from shutting things down due to months of unpaid rent. On the beach, the body of one of the Cleveland divers is discovered. Police chief Francis Berger and fish expert Bill Morrison bring it in to perform an autopsy where they determine that a large shark indeed attacked the diver, but Lewis and the Mayor Godfrey disagree and don’t bother to postpone the upcoming Regatta. One night, at Old Beach, a woman, Katie Adams, and her boyfriend Dan go swimming and Katie is killed by the shark. Berger tries to reason with the mayor but he still refuses.
A few shark proof gates are placed and the shark is apparently killed but Bill doesn’t agree. Even when Ramone’s broken boat shows up they still go on with the Regatta. The shark breaks through and kills many surfers. When the shark breaks the pier, it kills nearly everyone that falls in the water. It also causes Dag’s wheelchair-bound daughter Susy to fall in the ocean. Bill’s girlfriend Vanessa jumps in to save her and is devoured. Lewis offers up a reward and is revealed to be working with the Mafia. His son Ronnie goes out and tries to kill the shark but is terrified when it appears, this causes him to fall in the water and the shark devours him. His friends die by blowing up the boat by accident. Berger goes out to kill the shark but the shark is revealed to be too large to kill using the helicopter. The shark takes the helicopter out of the sky and devours Berger and the pilot. Bill explains that the Cleveland, that crashed in an area called Cape Farrows, was carrying the shark which was trained as top-secret Navy material to attack the enemy. The Mafia boss sends two thugs out to kill the shark, but they go to Cape Farrows to explore the Cleveland when they steal Bill’s map to the wreck’s location. During this, they are both devoured.
Dag, Bill, Bob and Larry sail to the Cleveland where they load the wreck with dynamite and blow it up which kills the shark. Dag wins the reward which allows him to pay rent for the aquarium.
Due to the low budget, the movie heavily utilizes footage from all 4 movies of the Jaws film series, as well as the Italian films Deep Blood (basically the entire climax of the movie) and Great White . [4] In some airings (for example, in Germany), one scene even utilized the theme from Star Wars .
The film was released on DVD in Europe in 2009. [5] A Blu-ray release from Scream Factory was planned (packaged as a double feature with Exterminators of the Year 3000 ), but ultimately cancelled due to the film's unauthorized use of footage from the Jaws franchise and other shark movies. [6] The film was officially released on Blu-ray and DVD in the US on September 29, 2020 by Severin Films.
In 2024, a documentary about the film was announced, titled Twilight Jaws. It features interviews with the original cast and focuses on the film's cult status and its numerous legal issues. [7]
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter, hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Jaws 2 is a 1978 American horror thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975), and the second installment in the Jaws franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, with Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton reprising their respective roles as Martin's wife Ellen Brody and mayor Larry Vaughn. It also stars Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey Kramer, Collin Wilcox, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Susan French, Barry Coe, Donna Wilkes, Gary Springer, and Keith Gordon in his first feature film role. The plot concerns Chief Brody suspecting another great white shark is terrorizing the fictional seaside resort of Amity Island, following a series of incidents and disappearances, and his suspicions are eventually proven true.
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Jaws 3-D is a 1983 American horror film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. As the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws it was the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films to SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. As the park prepares for opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing the park's employees. Once the shark is captured, it becomes apparent that a second, much larger shark also entered the park and was the real culprit.
Orca is a 1977 American thriller film directed by Michael Anderson, from a screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati, and starring Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Bo Derek, Keenan Wynn and Robert Carradine. The film follows a male orca tracking down and getting revenge on a fishing boat and its captain for intentionally killing the whale's pregnant mate and their unborn calf.
Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly in the US and as Woman from Deep River in Australia, is a 1981 Italian cannibal exploitation horror film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film's US distributor claimed it was "the most violent film ever made". Cannibal Ferox was also claimed to be "banned in 31 countries", although this claim is dubious. The title derives from the Latin ferox, meaning cruel, wild or ferocious.
Bruno Mattei was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and editor who directed exploitation films in many genres, including women in prison, nunsploitation, zombie, mondo, cannibal, and Nazisploitation films. Mattei's films often followed popular genre trends of the era. Mattei continued work as a director primarily in the Philippines until his death in 2007, just before he was to enter production on his fifth Zombie film.
Grizzly is a 1976 American horror thriller film directed by William Girdler, about a park ranger's attempts to halt the wild rampage of an 18 ft (5.5 m) tall, 2,000 lb (910 kg) man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes a National Forest, having developed a taste for human flesh. However, a drunken hunting party complicates matters. It stars Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel. Widely considered a Jaws rip-off, Grizzly used many of the same plot devices as its shark predecessor, which had been a huge box office success during the previous year. The giant grizzly bear in the film was portrayed by a Kodiak bear named Teddy, who was 11 ft (3.4 m) tall.
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money is an American direct-to-video Western horror film released on March 16, 1999. It is the second film in the From Dusk till Dawn series and is a sequel to From Dusk till Dawn. The film was an early test release by Dimension Films for the direct-to-video market. It was co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel. Michael S. Murphey, Gianni Nunnari, and Meir Teper produced. Quentin Tarantino and Lawrence Bender executive produced, and Elizabeth Avellan co-produced. The film was filmed on location in South Africa and features cameos by Bruce Campbell and Tiffani Thiessen. It won a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for the "Best Home Video Release" of 1999.
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