Deep Blood (1990)

APRIL 26, 2021

GENRE: PREDATOR
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It's gotta be kind of demoralizing to make a shark movie, because you know you're going to get compared to Jaws (a masterpiece) even if you're only aiming for Jaws 2 (an enjoyable film) territory. Certainly there are several that manage to escape Bruce's shadow and work exactly as their filmmakers hoped (Deep Blue Sea and The Shallows come to mind), but then there are ones like Deep Blood (Italian: Sangue negli abissi) which might as well have presented its foreign pre-sale information on screen. There are probably worse shark movies, but those are probably at least more fun than this, which commits the cardinal sin of Italian horror: it's boring.

To be fair it was a late '80s production, so the Italian film production market was already in collapse. But I've seen other movies from this era and while few if any of them are all that great, they're at least serviceable timekillers that more or less get their job done. Deep Blood can't even manage to clear that low bar, and there's a palpable sense of indifference right from the start that never gets any better, to the point where a major character is never even given a name beyond "Ben's Father". Hell there isn't even a "close the beaches" kind of plot; just some very flimsy pushback from the higherups about causing a panic. More often than not you'll feel like you're watching the deleted scenes compilation; you can practically hear the director noting that the scene didn't advance the story and it had to be cut for time.

In fact if someone were to say "Actually that's exactly what happened, oops!" I'd feel better, because that would explain why there's no actual shark in the movie. Ill-fitting stock footage is used to show one swimming around before a character goes underwater while someone explodes a fake blood bomb, and that's all you get for each "attack" - there's barely even any shots of a fin breaching the surface! And no, it's not a "we hide the shark", "less is more" kind of thing - there simply isn't any real presence at all for the thing, which is kind of a problem, wouldn't you agree? The actors don't bother to make up for it by acting scared, either; one guy just casually watches his girlfriend get eaten before he drives away without as much of a "Nooooooo!" Even its demise (kind of a hilarious shot where it breaks in half like a dropped ceramic statue) is cribbed from another movie, per the IMDb. Maybe I should just watch that one.

And it's a shame, because the story is actually grounded on something that might be compelling to watch even if the shark element was lacking. In the opening we meet four kids, who are told of an old legend of a sea creature and even do a blood pact to bond them together, and then we cut ten (?) years later to when the shark has started vaguely menacing the community. The four guys are all in town for one reason or another (never left, back from school, etc) and enjoy catching up, but then one of them is killed, prompting the other three to fulfill their pact. So... yeah, basically IT, but with a shark. As ripoffs go, it's not the worst idea, but with so little evidence of a shark at all, let alone one that's the embodiment of an ancient curse, it never gels. Plus the guys are all dull as dirt, and their conversations with one another are largely along the lines of "We gotta stop the shark!", so there's no sense of their brotherhood OR the backstory in any of their following actions. They even bring another random guy along with them for the climax (in which no one is even attacked, let alone dies), so it's just a waste all around.

The movie's only real saving grace is the dialogue, which is often so bizarrely straightforward that it becomes comical. In one of my favorite examples (there are many contenders), a crowd on the beach is inexplicably all fascinated by the guys (and the aforementioned "Ben's Father") getting on their boat to go after the shark (which is nowhere around, mind you). A cop arrives on the scene and asks what everyone is looking at, and someone helpfully replies "We're looking at three guys and an old man go after a shark." I mean, she's not lying! There's also a hilarious scene where another dad (not Ben's) yells at his son for being sad that his mom was dead, basically saying he shouldn't miss her because she was a drunk. Another dad (lot of dad stuff in the movie!) tells his son he's proud of him and asks for a handshake, but the son comes over and gives him a hug! Aww! It'd be so sweet if it was the resolution for several scenes where the two were at odds or something, but nah.

The music is also quite special. Sometimes it's the synthy Goblin/Carpenter ripoff stuff you'd expect, and that's fine, but the rest was seemingly stolen from a particularly syrupy melodrama. More than once it reminded me of the music that would accompany the overwrought romantic/dramatic flashbacks in (the original) Final Fantasy VII, which isn't exactly fitting for a killer shark movie. Even the part where the dad yells at his kid has curious a soundtrack choice: the dad has to keep yelling at him to turn down his music, which you'd think would be some kind of heavy metal or rap, but nope: it sounds like John Tesh or something.

I know that sounds funny, and it is to a degree, but there's only so much of that you can take in 90 minutes, and also keep in mind I'm cherry picking "highlights". Most of the movie is go nowhere, aimless scenes of people looking at the water, fishing, arguing about things that have no bearing on anything (one guy wants to drop out of college to become a golfer! Does he need his golf skills to kill the shark? Like swing a club to knock a grenade toward it or something? Nope. Means nothing.) The best thing one could do with the disc is to throw it on in the background when friends are over, if only to ensure no one will ever get too distracted by the film and stop socializing. Clearly Severin agreed that this is for completists only; the lone extra is a trailer.

What say you?

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