Tintorera Blu-ray Review

THE MOVIE — 1¼/5

Plot Synopsis: When two handsome shark hunters, Steven (HUGO STIGLITZ) and Miguel (ANDRES GARCIA) hook up with Gabriella (SUSAN GEORGE), everything seems to be paradise until Tintorera — a giant tiger shark — strikes, eating the beachgoers and endangering the lives of the trio. One of the hunters decides to avenge his friend and take on the Tintorera one on one, and it becomes a brutal battle between man and beast.

Review: If you just the synopsis above, you would think Tintorera was just another entertaining Jaws rip-off and with only an 87-minute running time, a quick fun little flick that you could either find thrilling or a downright cheesy good-bad movie. Doesn’t reach any of those levels, not by a long shot. Instead we get this 1970-era love triangle, an open relationship between our three main characters, although this aspect doesn’t kick in until halfway through, with the previous 40-minutes filled with setting up the Steven and Miguel characters, to little effect as I didn’t find either all that charismatic nor their eventual budding friendship believable.

Oh, forgot about the sharks. You can forgive me because the filmmakers forgot as well. After the opening where a shark tears into a smaller shark, the film only features three more shark attack scenes, all told I would estimate maybe 10% focuses on the actual Tiger Shark, and the rest is more or less a poorly done sexploitation romp that was more inane than sleazy. At the very least there is plenty of T&A to admire, although by today’s standards, the actual sex was tame if not non-existent. As is the plot for that matter.

Tintorera is certainly a bad movie but there’s very little that’s all that entertaining or enjoyable, in fact some of the footage of the sea creatures being killed made me feel uneasy, and I’m not exactly an animal rights activist. Outside of that, the shark in this killer shark movie feels like an afterthought, something plugged in to help sell the sexploitation angle. Not much to say about the acting considering most of the dialogue has been dubbed, but Susan George has a pretty face.

I hate to be too simplistic, but Tintorera is plainly a dull, boring film. Even if one goes in expecting a 1970s sexploitation melodrama, it fails on that front with two d-bag main characters whom, for some reason, women swoon all over, and beyond that, the plot is loose and jumps all over the place; feels like a few scripts were cobbled together with sharks thrown in to capitalize on the box office success of Jaws only a couple years earlier. Sadly this doesn’t even qualify under the good-bad banner or to be mocked amongst friends, just skip this one.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 2/5

This release comes with a matted slip cover and the inner sleeve is reversible. Included is an Audio Commentary with film historians Troy Howarth and Rod Barnett and the Original Trailer (2:31). As dull and lifeless as this movie was, at least the Howarth/Barnett commentary makes for an interesting listen as they delve deep into the history behind the production, actors and crew.

VIDEO – 3½/5

AUDIO – 3¾/5

OVERALL – 1¾/5

Overall, Tintorera was a disappointing film, looked like it could be a cheesy B-movie Jaws rip-off and while the poor dubbing can be funny, the rest was pretty boring and a chore to sit through even with the short 87-minute running time (can’t imagine sitting through the 2+ hour version). In terms of the Blu-ray, the video and audio transfers were okay and although features are lacking, the new commentary track was worth listening to, especially if you’re familiar with Troy Howarth’s other tracks from various distributors.