Tuesday, October 03, 2006

She Gods of Shark Reef

(1958) *1/2

Two dreamy brothers find themselves shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by “beauties” that spend their days amassing large amounts of pearls, which appear to be in abundance. Although initially treated with hospitality, they eventually fuck up their good fortune by accidentally breaking a lai, which is apparently bad luck. They don’t improve their situation much when one of the brothers steals a sack of the pearls. I kept thinking, “Why steal them when they’re everywhere? Just go get your own” Anyway these actions and their male arrogance gets them into hot water with the ladies, kind of like poking a stick into a beehive.

Even for Roger Corman this film is an awful exercise in tedium. She Gods of Shark Reef only clocks in at 63 minutes, but its 63 God-awful-long-minutes chock full of stock-footage that doesn’t even attempt to match its surroundings. At one point a shark is attacking our “heroes”. Every time the heroes are shown it’s a bright, sunny tropical day. Whenever the shark is shown it looks like footage shot off the coast of New England in November (i.e., gray and bleak). Not to mention that the stock footage is grainy and scratched. Corman also pads his 63 minutes with long, boring scenes. At one point our heroes attend a luau and we’re forced to watch not one, not two, but three different women dancing, one after another.

Okay, I can hear you saying, “Hey, it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck on an all-female island!” Sure you’re thinking that because you’re picturing an island full of girls that look like this,

But the 1958 reality is this,

They might as well be wearing this,

2 comments:

Octopunk said...

I believe Roger Corman's philosophy was to never bring in a movie over budget, and his budgets were usually around the price of a decent bicycle.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Well I have to ask. Where the hell did you get that final picture?

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