Mako: The Jaws of Death (Bayview Entertainment DVD Review)

Is Mako: The Jaws of Death a Hidden Treasure or Dumpster Fire?

DVD Distributed By: Bayview Entertainment

A Vietnam veteran with a psychic connection to sharks (Richard Jaeckel, THE DIRTY DOZEN) discovers their exploitation by the local aquarium and begins an underwater reign of terror to avenge them. With the worldwide success of JAWS in 1975, Florida’s undisputed King of the B’s, William Grefe (STANLEY), set out to create his own shark-themed actioner. Starring Richard Jaeckel, Harold ‘Oddjob’ Sakata and Jennifer Bishop, MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH dared to shoot the action scenes using real sharks. Relying on experience gathered while direction the shark action sequences for the James Bond hit LIVE AND LET DIE, Grefe took his risky production into new, uncharted waters and brought an intense underwater thriller to theater screens. The DVD features a new 16×9 widescreen transfer, an Italian coming attractions trailer, and a bonus transfer of the Super 8mm ”home movie” version.

Trashmen Discussion

Jimbo

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Since Jamie was traveling he didn’t get to experience Mako: The Jaws of Death as part of the group. But he can catch up and join the discussion later.

A new DVD was released on February 20, 2018 from Bayview Entertainment (whoever they are) promising “a new 16×9 widescreen transfer, an Italian coming attractions trailer, and a bonus transfer of the Super 8mm ”home movie” version.”

Travis, since it was your pick this week, how about you kick off the discussion with your thoughts. Any reason you picked Mako: The Jaws of Death?

Travis

Why Mako? It just kind of happened.

I was doing my normal Monday night review of DVD/Blu-Ray releases for the next day, and saw Mako: The Jaws of Death was due to come out. I did a quick trip to YouTube to find the trailer to see if it might be any good, and there were a few parts that looked like exploitative fun. That’s when I raised the question to everyone if they had seen it before and if it’s any good or worth buying. Next thing you know we’re watching it.

Jamie

The DVD looks like ass. Many of the night sequences are black and could barely be made out. There’s major print damage but the worst is that there is a video glitch at one point. It doesn’t last long but completely un-necessary. I also had to turn up the sound just to hear the dialog.

Jimbo

But can beggars be choosers? This DVD probably represents the best the film has looked. Until someone cares enough to dig out a negative and give it the 2K restoration for blu-ray, this is probably a consumer’s best option. You’ve done a good job with the screen shots so folks can decide. Picture quality and audio aside, thoughts on the film itself?

Travis

What I expected was a typical Jaws rip-off along the lines of The Last Shark, Tintorera, Orca, etc. (just to stick to seafaring cash-ins and not mentioning the other various animal attack spawns of Jaws). This actually ended up a bit different, more along the lines of Willard. So while that was a bit unexpected, this was still very entertaining. Richard Jaeckel devours scenery like it’s made of chum, Odd Job has a good scummy guy role, we are introduced to the incomparable Buffy Dee once things slow down a little bit, and there are some extremely effective shots where real sharks look like they are actually chomping away at real humans. The movie gives credit to the underwater divers and I’ll say they are much deserved.

The plot is ridiculous. Jaekcel has some odd connection with and protection from the local shark population, which allegedly comes from some giant medallion he wears. Commercial interests take over and he makes a huge mistake to sell a shark to the monstrously obese bar owner Dee. I’ll give Dee credit though, he owns his leaugedness because he hates wearing or buttoning his shirts, and he lets it all hang out. The mistreatment of sharks drives Jaeckel over the edge, who never really seemed that sane to start with.

I think this had just enough going for it to be solid piece of 70s exploitation.

Jimbo

I looked up Director William Grefé. I have not seen anything else directed by this guy before. Mako appears to be his “crowning achievement”. And none of you will be shocked to learn that Grefé is from Miami, Florida. After all, Mako does a pretty good job of capturing a swampy Florida landscape and atmosphere.

Travis

Why does William Grefe feel Cinema Wasteland-y??

Jimbo

That is a leading question isn’t it? Okay, here you go…

Travis

Hah, there we go. MaKEN: The Jabber Jaws of Death

Jimbo

Craig, have you watched anything else by the director? Interestingly, I did find a 2016 documentary titled They Came From the Swamp: The Films of William Grefé. http://www.theycamefromtheswamp.com/

Craig

I have seen a few Grefé films: Death Curse of Tartu, Sting of Death, Hooked Generation, Stanley and Whiskey Mountain. They are all pretty eccentric in their own ways. Death Curse and Sting are really cheap and nutty. Stanley is very similar to Mako. It’s Willard with snakes basically. Mako is a better film.

His films get more and more slick & Hollywood as his career progresses. But I’ve enjoyed them all for one reason or another.

Travis

It’s interesting to hear Grefé actually showed some technical improvement as he progressed, versus a lot of lower budget directors today.

Craig

One that I haven’t seen, and I really don’t have an excuse, and I should be embarrassed to admit it: Impulse staring Willy Shatner.

Impulse from IMDB: A paranoid, leisure-suit-wearing conman/gigolo named Matt Stone seduces lonely women, bilks them of their savings via an investment scam, then kills them. When he begins seeing an attractive widow, her daughter Tina becomes suspicious of his motives.

Shatner, of course, plays the leisure-suit wearing conman/gigolo.

Travis

So does this mean Impulse is less proficient than Mako? Because leisure-suit wearing gigolo Shatner has me signed up.

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Jimbo

You’re telling me that Grefé actually made a movie with Shats? I’ve lived a sheltered life.

Craig

You’ve lived a sheltered life when you should have been living a Shatnered life.

Jimbo

Your joke is both bad and factually accurate. I share the same birthday as Shatner. So you could say I have lived a Shatnered life.

Craig

I enjoyed Mako though. For me, I didn’t feel that the film drags. There’s always something strange going on to keep my attention. Jaeckel gives a real eccentric performance. Sakata is always welcome. Fucking Buffy Dee is amazing. Those scenes of him laughing maniacally while torturing the shark… I’m really surprised he didn’t kind of move on to bigger character roles from here. He steals every scene. I am going to have to try to track down more of his films though it looks like everything else is bit parts.

Travis

Oh, I think he definitely got bigger!

Jamie

Maybe I should have watched it with you guys as I was pretty bored watching it. Low body count and not enough unintentional humor (except for Buffy Dee, he stole the movie). I do like Richard Jaeckel and the rest of the cast is fine but found the plot muddled and slow moving. I’d almost prefer a Jaws rip off than a Willard rip off.

Craig

The location work I think is really good. It does a good job of capturing that sleazy, sweaty cheapness of Florida. That’s one of the reasons that I like 60s/70s regional horror films. It’s like a historical snapshot of parts of the country that people would rather forget about.

Travis

I agree with Craig, this is a great time capsule of non-Hollywood cinema.

Jimbo

I want to circle back to a point Matt made about the divers and shark scenes. Interestingly, it sounds like William Grefe picked up his shark handling techniques from the James Bond actioner, Live and Let Die. (Makes you also start to see the connection with the casting of Goldfinger’s Odd Job)

I don’t think that the shark handling work can be understated. It’s easy to kind of shrug Mako off as some low grade, Jaws/Williard hybrid rip-off. However, there are a lot of shots where it looks like sharks are just chomping on the actors.

One of my favorite characters is Sammy the shark. He’s a pretty awesome character and I wanted more of Sammy in the film. But Sammy wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if someone just talked about him in the third person. The handlers had to get him to perform so they had actual footage to edit against Jaeckel.

And then there are the lounge act scenes in Buffy Dee’s restaurant/bar. The filmmakers have Jennifer Bishop performing an underwater dance with a live shark, sharing the same tank. Today they would just do that with CGI, but in this film only a sheet of plastic separates actress from predator. There’s no way in hell I’m getting in that tank!

Jamie

The DVD does have a Super 8mm digest version which was great and actually made the movie better (but omits big Buffy Dee entirely). Strange thing is that the 8 mm version is much cleaner and you can see what was happening during the ending hurricane sequence. I used to love renting these 8 mm films at the library and making my dad show them on a projector (he hated setting it all up) so this brought back memories.

Travis

I’m disappointed to hear Buffy didn’t make the 8mm, but I did laugh at the thought of your dad getting annoyed at young Jamie asking to set up the projector.

Jamie

There is an Italian trailer which seems like a video trailer and not the original theatrical trailer. Again the picture on the trailer looks better. There is a super short interview with William Grefe from 1991 about the making of the film which was a nice added bonus.

Jimbo

With that, I think it’s time we score Mako: The Jaws of Death…

Hidden Treasure/Dumpster Fire?

Travis:	(3.0 / 5)
Jimbo:	(2.5 / 5)
Craig:	(3.5 / 5)
Jamie:	(2.0 / 5)
Average:	(2.8 / 5)

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