Watch The Last Shark For Free

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The era of the late '70s/early '80s was chock-full of JAWS rip-offs: they came from Mexico, the Philippines, and most of all, Italy. This is one of the most blatant copies out there, directed by cult action favourite Enzo G. Castellari, and it has the dubious history of having been pulled from North American theatres by Universal because the similarities with JAWS were just too many. For what it's worth, I love rip-off films and I love "when animals attack" horrors, so I was well placed to enjoy THE LAST SHARK. It's no masterpiece, but it is a fun, brainless film.Castellari was famous for his 'polizia' flicks in the '70s, usually starring Franco Nero. His trademark was slow-motion; he used it in stunts, in shoot-outs, you name it. It's present here in some superbly hilarious death scenes and at random other times (usually when somebody is falling slow-motion into the water). Otherwise, his direction is good, although he's let down by a pedestrian script that never strays far from Spielberg territory. Roy Scheider is replaced by James Franciscus (who already tried his hand with underwater monsters in KILLER FISH), and Robert Shaw by a slumming Vic Morrow. There's a lack of decent eye-candy, and Castellari's daughter, Stefania Girolami, doesn't really cut it. As another negative, none of the characters are very well developed and they all seem rather unpleasant.Still, for a thriller this isn't bad, and by Italian standards it's decent. It helps that THE LAST SHARK has an absolutely brilliant score which, I thinks, rivals that of JAWS itself. The action sequences are also pretty good, and they don't skimp on the gore either. My favourite scenes include the half-a-victim gag (when said person is pulled out of water/trapdoor/ladder/hole etc. and it's revealed their legs are missing), an absolutely hilarious set-piece in which the shark attacks a helicopter (ripping off JAWS 2) and bites a guy's legs off, and some other fun bits where victims literally 'explode' out of the water (the obvious dummies add to the fun). The ending is abrupt, and crucially it doesn't reveal the shark's death (apparently it was blown up or electrocuted or something) but the special effects are surprisingly great and there's one moment of a real-life shark devouring raw meat which is absolutely terrifying. THE LAST SHARK is a treat for those who like movie cheese.

Notice: Laughter is a requirement when watching this movie.Let's rip -The Last Shark- shall we.My, my, just WHAT have we uncovered here?! Why it's none other than "The Last Shark"......this riotously funny and exceedingly poorly made JAWS rip-off has to be the ultimate "big fake-looking shark movie". This movie is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME in it's complete and utter terribleness, truly pathetic in every way, it seems to showboat (and even celebrate) it's own ineptitude, which spans from start to finish; and THE EFFECTS, oh my the effects are hilariously terrible. This awful Italian-made "aqua-shlock" most certainly lands squarely in the category of: "It's so bad, it's good". But at the very least it is exceptionally entertaining -but for all the wrong reasons.With my recent discovery of this Italian-made JAWS rip-off from the early-80's, (thanks to the guys at Rifftrax) all of the sudden the last two JAWS sequels, don't seem all that bad in comparison and that's really saying a lot, as those two movies suck badly. This is further proof that in the 80's, the Italian's were simply unbeatable at producing horribly lame rip-off films of well-known Hollywood blockbusters and The Last Shark is a prime-time example of that. Where to start, there isn't one single aspect of this preposterously illogical film, that was handled with any obvious skill or talent - especially in the effect's department! And let us not forget the music of The Last Shark, which is nothing more then some ones LAME and ineffective attempt at "shark music" - produced by Casio keyboard's by the sound of it. From a musical prospective one can just sense the envy and jealousy John Williams must harbor for this movie and of the incomparable musical statement that it makes. In fact, this movie is such a blatant rip-off of JAWS, that Universal Studio (that's the JAWS studio for the few of you who don't know) blocked it's release in the States and it's not hard to see why. I've seen a good deal many Italian-made movies, particularly from the 80's and they are always embarrassing spectacles, with little to no money or talent and laughably poor production values. Stick to making spaghetti and sports car's guys, movie's just aren't your thing.I usually like to avoid detailed plot summaries, so I'll just give you chunks of The Last Shark as I go. Well it's based around JAWS and it's familiar plot scheme's, so there's an Italian Amity Island equivalent, that's being terrorized by a big fake-looking robotic shark (and they show that thing a lot too), there's a political figure in there to complicate and obstruct the flow of things, various people on boats, wind surfers and in helicopters, that all fall prey to the shark, usually because of their own massive stupidity and poor/ illogical planning. This Italian-made faux-JAWS even has it's own "Quint", played by the late (and soon to literally lose his head) Vic Morrow. In all fairness his ability to imitate Robert Shaw's character was pretty spot on, however, much of his dialog is very difficult to make out, dare I say it's unintelligible. Getting back to the massive stupidity of the victims, all the Islanders are totally gung-ho about killing the shark, THEY ALL want to TAKE ON the shark and it's in these highly entertaining attack sequences, that you'll see some of thee worst-looking shark effects ever committed to film. They are INTENSELY funny and the faker the effects look, the funnier the movie seems to get. The Last Shark is a riotously entertaining, cinematic whirl-wind of terrible effects, stodgy acting, illogical situations, 80's mustaches, very poorly matched live shark footage, appallingly lame attempts at suspense music, etc. And in the end this epic slice of aqua-shlock comes to a head in an explosive finale - poorly done, of course, just like the rest of the movie.Once you've seen this bogus, Italian-made, stinking pile of sh** JAWS rip-off - I think you'll arrive at the only conclusion possible, which is "Yep, movie's don't get much worse than The Last Shark".Flash-forward: For those of you who got a kick out The Last Shark, I strongly recommended that you track down a copy of "Orca", (that's right, killer whales this time around) this movie, just like The Last Shark, has incredibly bad effects and reaches unhinged levels of highly illogical lunacy. Expect to see Richard Harris square off against a vengeful killer whale, that seems to have, of all things, human-like intelligence.

I've seen plenty of movies that have ripped off Jaws (and its subsequent sequels) but none have been quite as blatant in doing so as The Last Shark, directed by Italian schlockmeister Enzo G. Castellari: the film follows Spielberg's hit so closely that it's little wonder that the film was pulled from theatres after a lawsuit was filed by Universal Studios.Just like Jaws, The Last Shark sees a coastal community come under attack from a man-eating Great White. Just like Jaws, a local official chooses to ignore the problem to avoid scaring away visitors (on this occasion, to the town's centennial celebrations). And just like Jaws, a trio of brave marine experts—Peter Benton (James Franciscus), his wife Gloria (Micaela Pignatelli) and ageing sea-dog Ron Hamer (Vic Morrow)—put out to sea on a fishing boat to try and kill the shark. Even the film's poster copies that of Jaws 2.Rather unsurprisingly, Castellari's film comes nowhere near Spielberg's classic blockbuster in terms of style, performances or special effects: Castellari fails to generate any tension whatsoever and uses copious use of unconvincing stock shark footage, the acting is atrocious (Morrow's shameless impersonation of Quint by way of Groundskeeper Willie is hilarious), and if you thought Bruce in Jaws was lifeless, wait till you get a load of the immobile fish models used here, especially the pathetic toy sharks employed in the underwater shots.It might not be great movie-making, but it's certainly good for a laugh or two, with ridiculous highlights including the shark displaying above normal intelligence for a fish by deliberately trapping Peter and Ron in an underwater cave, a shark victim being pulled out of the water minus his lower half, and another getting his legs bitten off while suspended from the skis of a helicopter (closely followed by the whole helicopter—another unconvincing model—being pulled completely under the water!).

When it was released, The Last Shark (aka Great White) got quickly pulled from theaters due to threats of a lawsuit from Universal Studios, producers of the Jaws movies. Having seen the film on DVD, I can see why. The writers of The Last Shark basically watched the first two Jaws movies and stole every good scene from them, even going so far as to clone characters.All the main elements from Jaws are here. The gnarled seaman...check. The heroic everyman...check. The corrupt government official who tries to cover up the attacks...check. Even some of the attack scenes mimic specific scenes in Jaws I and II.These things are made worse by the fact that the Italian studio behind this film had nowhere near Spielberg's budget. Consequently, we have an obviously fake shark model that appears every time the shark sticks it's head out of the water, which is quite often. The underwater shots are accomplished by a mixture of stock shark footage and very fake looking stop motion animation.Making things even more ludicrous is that the shark appears to be intelligent, engaging in uncharacteristic shark behavior such as trying to trap people in caves with rocks and using ropes as tow lines. At times, it comes across as a comedy.