¡Tintorera! (1977)

Can you say "sleaze"?, 21 August 2005

It will be difficult, but I'll try to keep the plot description as brief as possible. The movie opens with shots of a tiger shark. Next we see our main character, Steve, who meets and has sex with Patricia. Patricia leaves Steve for Miguel. Steve gets into a fight with Miguel that only serves to push Patricia and Miguel closer. After a night of sex with Miguel, a tiger shark kills Patricia. More scenes of a tiger shark. Miguel and Steve become friends and meet two girls, Kelly and Cynthia. They have sex with the girls. One night the girls decide to have a party on Steve's boat. Steve becomes furious and kicks them off the boat. Oh, I think I saw a tiger shark! Next, Steve and Miguel meet Gabriella. Soon, Steve, Miguel, and Gabriella are living together, playing together, and having sex together. Gabriella buys three wedding rings and the group becomes unofficially married. A tiger shark kills Miguel and Gabriella leaves because their threesome has come to an end. Cue the scenes of the tiger shark. Steve now meets Girl from the Bar #1 and #2. They go to a party where Steve trades them for his old lovers, Kelly and Cynthia. Everyone decides to get naked and swim to Steve's boat. Cynthia and Girl from the Bar #2 don't make it. Can you say "tiger shark"? Finally, Steve battles the tiger shark for 3 or 4 minutes. The End. (Okay, so that wasn't very brief.)

Tintorera is a nice example of trash cinema at its finest. It's one of the sleaziest movies I've seen. It's hard to watch Tintorera and not feel dirty. I don't care how it's listed on IMDb, Tintorera is really soft-core porn with a few scenes of a tiger shark thrown in so it could be marketed as horror movie and a Jaws rip-off. Throughout most of the movie we're treated to scene after scene of people in little or no clothing, both male and female, drinking, smoking, and having sex. When they aren't busy doing this, Miguel and Steve enjoy lounging around in their Speedos drinking, smoking, and discussing having sex. In fact, and I'm not exaggerating, Miguel's naked butt has more screen time than the tiger shark. These people are so busy porking one another that it takes them forever to realize that their friends are being killed. And, as the scenes of the tiger shark are so infrequent, I almost forgot about it too.

When we do see the tiger shark ripping people apart, it's surprisingly well done. I would go so far as to say that it surpasses even Jaws in the gory depiction of a shark attack. The sight of a tiger shark swimming with Miguel's head in it's mouth is as horrific as anything in most any other shark movie I've seen. And it's not just the sharks doing the killing. The animal killing in Tintorera is more plentiful than in a lot of the other, better known, exploitation movies of the 70s. In their spare time, Miguel and Steve enjoy shooting sharks in the head and spearing barracudas. The movie shows literally dozens of sharks, turtles, and assorted fish being killed. It's really nasty stuff.

Finally, a word about the rating I've given Tintorera. I'll admit that it's really not a very good movie. But, I couldn't bring myself to rate it any lower because it kept me interested and amused throughout. It's a lot like a car wreck – it's difficult to look away.

Okay, I'm going to go take a bath.

5/10