Cruel Jaws (Severin Films Blu-Ray Review)

Is Cruel Jaws Treasure or Trash?

Blu-ray Distributed By Severin / September 29, 2020

He defied all laws of good taste and international copyright with SHOCKING DARK and ROBOWAR. He reset the bar for batsh*t crazy ItaloHorror with RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR and HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD. And in 1995, legendary director Bruno Mattei – here as ‘William Snyder’ – stunned the civilized world with this ultimate sharksploitation saga that liberally borrows characters, plot and footage from Joe D’Amato’s DEEP BLOOD and Enzo G. Castellari’s THE LAST SHARK (and that’s just the tip of a very litigious fin). Filmed in South Florida with a cast of now-ashamed unknowns that includes a Hulk Hogan lookalike, experience “the epitome of outrageous thievery cinema” (All Movie) – actually released in some countries as JAWS 5 – now remastered uncut in HD for the first time ever.

Jamie’s Take (3.5 / 5)

You may be thinking “Didn’t Trashmen already review this?” and if you were, you would be correct. A few years ago we did a Roundtable Review of Cruel Jaws via stream which you can read here. My own thoughts and opinions have not changed. In fact, I came close to giving this flick a 4 can review because it is so much fun and provided so many laughs which seems to be missing in most films as of late. Given the state the world is in now, I needed a film like Cruel Jaws to boost my spirits and thankfully Cruel Jaws is now available for all to see in glorious HD. Personally, I’d rather watch Cruel Jaws over any mundane, serious, big budget Hollywood film any day of the week.

The fact that the film was even called Jaws 5 in some countries should give you all an idea on what to expect. Oh and the film is directed by none other than Italian rip-off artist Bruno Mattei (credited here as William Snyder) who has given us Shocking Dark and Robowar.

Cruel Jaws literally rips off scenes and dialog from Jaws, Jaws 2 and even Jaws 3 as a SeaWorld type amusement park is under siege by a giant killer white. When the mayor and the owner of the amusement park refuse to close down the beach and park after a few people die, the entire park becomes fish food until a cop, a young college student who studies sharks and the dolphin trainer who looks exactly like Hulk Hogan decide to take on this beast themselves. There is some other goofy subplot about the mafia and military experiments mixed in which never go anywhere or explained. Don’t hold your breath for any sort of explanation or reasoning for those moments.

Cruel Jaws, if I am not mistaken, doesn’t even use any new footage of the shark. It’s shark footage is cobbled together from various other films and thrown together as most of the characters scream, swear, and run about acting insane. I am actually shocked Cruel Jaws made it to blu ray given there are bits of footage taken from the first three Jaws films as well as other lesser known films like Great White. And if there ever was an awards festival where movies were nominated for characters yelling and screaming, Cruel Jaws would be nominated and most likely the favorite. I was howling at some of these characters flipping out and getting so angry and fevered.

Oddly, the movie plays like a PG movie as the humor is light and childish and the film contains no nudity or gore (aside from the washed up corpse) but yet does contain an ample amount of F bombs shouted as well as other bits of juicy dialog like, “I’m the person in charge of pussy.” or “I want you to find the tallest skyscraper that you can find and then throw yourself off and then go FUCK YOURSELF!” If only the film tried to throw in some gore or titties or just made it a tad more sleazier, this would have been close to a 5 can rating.

Strangely enough, one would think that Mattei and company would rip off the John Williams classic Jaws theme but no…he goes after Williams Star Wars theme! Yes dear readers, the actually beginning of the theme from Star Wars plays not once, not twice, but three times during Cruel Jaws. Each time it plays, it doesn’t even fit appropriately on what is taking place on screen.

Many of you would laugh and turn your nose up on Cruel Jaws and I must admit, the film can be hard to defend but damn is it fun. I am also a sucker for Jaws rip-offs as I love a good shark movie. Hell, I’d rather watch Cruel Jaws that contains footage from other films than some cheap, CGI shark in any of these Sharknado films that everyone seems to love. Those films try way, way too hard to be campy and cultish when they just come off as dumb and annoying. Cruel Jaws isn’t like that at all. Best way to describe it would be if Troma decided to make a Jaws rip-off but aimed it for a PG crowd.

Severin’s blu ray looks pretty great given the only time I ever saw Cruel Jaws was on youtube. No more Japanese subtitles and this disc has much better sound and picture. Shot mostly in the daylight, the transfer looks really nice. Severin even offers two versions of the film: the director’s shorter cut (The Mattei version) and the Japanese longer version (The Snyder version). The only notable difference I caught was a party sequence that wasn’t in the Mattei version. While I liked the interview with actor Jay Colligan who admits the film isn’t very good but had a blast making it, it would have been nice to have gotten more interviews with some of the others actors like that Hulk Hogan guy or the little crippled girl (“Sharks are bad”). Maybe even someone on the crew who worked on the picture.

This is now the second time we have review a movie that wasn’t available that miraculously given a blu ray release by Severin (the other is The Uncanny) so we may be on to something. What else could Severin release that we need? Ken Russell’s The Devils? Girls Nite Out? Reform School Girls? Crossing my fingers here. In the meantime, I am content with Cruel Jaws and will even argue it is better than Jaws the Revenge.