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Without a doubt the most BORING JAWS rip-off you're ever likely to see, I had the misfortune to catch the extended two-hour-plus cut of this film – and did I regret it! A silly sexploitation film masquerading as a monster flick, TINTORERA is utterly inoffensive throughout, aside from one key area which I'll come to later. Now, I'm a great fan of trash movies, and I also love Mexican flicks: horror films, masked wrestlers, you name it. Knowing that Rene Cardona Jr. delivered such cheese as TREASURE OF THE AMAZON and NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS, I was pretty excited about watching this flick. Heck, his DAD made the cult B-movie NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES, so how could his son go wrong? Well he did, with this misfiring, yawn-inducing effort at a sex film.The main problem with TINTORERA as a sex film is that it's boring. The sexy is silly rather than sleazy, and even when a couple of women avoid rape by openly giving themselves to the rapists you can't find offence. No, the focus of this film is on the nudity, and there's a ton of it, although some male viewers might find it a bit dubious when I say that MOST of the nudity in the film is from the two guys...do I REALLY want to see near-constant butt shots from these chaps? Of course, there's a fair share of topless and full nudity from the women too, but it really does get boring after a while. Amusingly, two British actresses, Susan George and Fiona Lewis, turn up for the sole purpose of getting naked. Lewis appears for the first twenty minutes and wanders around topless before getting eaten by a shark (nobody notices – not even the viewer) while the awful George shows up for forty minutes in the middle of the flick and appears (very briefly) naked. We're stuck with her absolutely diabolical acting for a good long time, though.What about the sharks? Well, truth be told, this film DOES have some of the bloodiest death-by-shark scenes in any movie. When somebody bites it (or rather gets bitten) here, the sea around them turns blood red for about a mile and body parts are everywhere. The problem is that there are only two such scenes in a two-hour-plus flick. So what does the rest of the film entail? Two guys sitting around chatting, sailing, drinking, and screwing. That sums it up nicely. Sometimes they speak in English, sometimes in Spanish, but it doesn't matter because they never say anything of merit. Now, I liked Hugo Stiglitz when I saw him in NIGHTMARE CITY, but this must be his worst role. He's just creepy and dull, if those two traits are possible in one character. Andres Garcia is mildly amusing I guess, but he doesn't have anything to work with other than his face-value attractive womaniser role.I tried to like this film, and I looked out for 'fun' stuff. There is a little. The underwater photography is top-notch, and there are some hilarious Darth Vader-style breathing effects dubbed over the shark. But it's all so routine – so routine that I can't remember how the shark actually dies at the end, although I only finished watching this film two days ago. So all that's left to write about is the offensive bit, and that's the real-life animal killing. If you thought those Italian cannibal flicks had too much of it, wait until you see what's in store here: guys harpooning fish over and over again, for minutes on end. At least a few dozen real creatures died so this movie could get shot. Watching a fish – sometimes sharks – writhing in their death throes and bleeding all over the place is NOT my idea of a good time. It's cheap and it's utterly reprehensible. The worst bit is probably when they shoot a fish and we get a close up of the poor creature bleeding through its gills. Not nice! This sort of stuff normally doesn't bother me but it's so graphic and in-your-face here that it's impossible to ignore. This is why TINTORERA ranks as one of the worst films I've seen, an utter waste of time with no redeeming values whatsoever. I guess this is one of those movies where the shorter US cut is actually BETTER; at least there's less of this mess to sit through.

Not with me. What a bad movie! This has virtually nothing to do with sharks but more with the director's voyeuristic desires to be involved with a woman and a man at the same time in a sexual relationship. More on that in a moment. The first killing by the shark happens at the film's 20-23 minute mark. No one even knows the woman dies by the shark. The next death comes at the hour mark. There are two more deaths maybe three by the film's end. We maybe see the shark with all its unimpressive glory about five or 6 times. So what do we get in Tintorera - lots of sexual situations, lots of guys in bikini shorts sipping drinks or sitting on a couch or lounging in a hammock. We get lots of girls bare-chested. We get a bizarre(and sleazy) love triangle with Hugo Stiglitz, Andres Garcia, and Susan George. Garcia is the only one with ANY acting ability. George is pretty if nothing else(and that is all we have here with her). Stiglitz. I have seen this guy in other things and BAD is the first word that comes to my mind. He looks off into to space like he is suppose to have some life-changing angst to deal with. Instead it looks like he is having a bowel movement. He is creepy in every fiber of that word. The film ends abruptly and ridiculously. This is a clumsy attempt to make money on the Jaws craze. It is not poorly done in terms of directorial ability, etc...but in terms of what is done with the resources at hand. I didn't see the point at all. The script is the major problem here with all its inane dialog, and sleaze. Is this the worst movie I have ever seen? by no means. It is just quirky enough to hold your attention, but after awhile you will be scratching your head saying why?, why?. Fiona Lewis is the first girl that dies. She is gorgeous. In fact all the girls are gorgeous which is definitely a nod in favor of this sleazy yet primordially entertaining piece of whatever. It is not a horror film by any definition of mine. By the way, what is with the two female leads both being British? Hmmm.

Mediterranean playboys woo the affections of sexy tourists, and treat them to fun and frivolity aboard their yacht, while a ferocious tiger shark interrupts their sordid interludes. Stephen (Stiglitz) is convalescing aboard a luxury yacht when he meets Miguel (Garcia) a free-loading local who wines and dines the tourists like some sort of male escort. Their initial meeting is curt, but over time they become firm friends. The homosexual undertones between the two characters is interesting depth, and while the issue is never expounded to any degree, the subject of relationships in general is exhaustively displayed here in its most fantastic extremes (the threesome pact with Susan George is examined in jealous detail).Aside from Susan George as the main love interest (there are so many, it's hard to keep track), Fiona Lewis and Priscilla Barnes pop in for a good time, not a long time, just to add some comforting familiarity for non-Spanish speaking audiences. The soundtrack is memorable (a couple of Chanter Sisters disco beats and a nice Carol Connors penned melody sung by Kelly Stevens, "Together Until Goodbye") and the scenery is warm and inviting, but the savagery with which Cardona dispenses dozens of sharks is vulgar and distasteful.Overall, while the all-too-few shark attack scenes look convincing, and the multitude of semi-nude babes are distracting, the film will more than likely be fatally overlong for most audiences. The soft porn-like titillation aspects are also likely to distance the average shark film fan, but it's not quite as explicit as the concept implies. In spite of its flaws, "Tintorera" remains an addictive motion picture, one that seems to improve with each subsequent viewing.

TINTORERA is not a horror film but more of a drama about divers who are shark hunters. This is not a "nature vs man" movie, like THE BIRDS or JAWS but more of a sexy light, sun-soaked drama that could only have been made in the 1970s. Even if TINTORERA is not a really good film per se, I enjoyed almost everything about it, except for the shark part. Remove all the shark scenes and you have a sexy little film from Mexico. Nothing deep or revolutionary but oddly enough somewhat original: it's basically a story of a threesome (two guys and one girl) who decide to hang out and have fun with one another, sans attachment. They do eventually fall in love with each other (as demonstrated with the ring scene) and the whole concept of a threesome, probably alien to 99% of people out there, is handled in a surprisingly cool, non-sleazy way.Some call this film soft-core yet it's not. For example, we never see people having simulated sex. They're naked, wearing next to nothing or kissing but never having sex. So, as forward thinking as TINTORERA is, with the threesome aspect, the treatment is oddly quaint, certainly compared to what's on cable TV these days. It's much more entertaining than SUMMER LOVERS, which is almost the same thing but without the sharks.The acting is mediocre. The actors are better when they act in their native tongue than in English. Andreas Garcia is handsome (he sorta looks like John Kennedy Jr) and he fares better than anyone when it comes to acting but it's probably not because he's a good actor but just because he's brazen and spontaneous enough to look like he's acting. His acting style is almost identical to that of a young Richard Gere (see BREATHLESS). Susan George is also not a very good actress but her role here is not easy (a girl having an open relationship with two men) and she happens to pull it off because of the cute naivety she lends to a role that could have been tawdry. This understanding of the characters for the threesome makes me think that the director had more than just sleazy reasons for doing this movie.Am I saying TINTORERA is not sleazy? No. It is sleazy in a "grindhouse" kinda way. But like I said, the threesome is the film's least sleazy aspect. Certainly compared to the moment when the two hitchhiking girls are being raped and they agree to it. Totally ridiculous. But fortunately, the film as a whole is not always on that extremely sleazy level. Another questionable aspect about the screenplay is the girl who gets killed by the shark after spending the night with Miguel. The way her character is treated is unintentionally funny. It's a playboy's dream come true: have sex with a girl and then let the sharks eat your date. No worries about unwanted pregnancies or clingy girlfriends. Arf. And the multiple scenes of real sharks getting killed won't endear animal lovers to this movie, even though I find this less hard to take than the killing of the defenseless turtle in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.Once the story settles in the threesome plot-line, the film is fun and it finally finds its groove. I really enjoyed it. It might seem implausible to many, personally I thought it was actually well thought out. It's no JULES ET JIM but the the three characters complemented each other perfectly. It's difficult enough for two actors to have chemistry when playing a couple but here the three actors have chemistry together. Unfortunately that story-line doesn't last the entire length of the film and when one of the characters is killed and the love triangle falls apart and film concentrates only on the sharks, the film never recovers. It becomes boring, certainly because the main character is such a serious drip and because the sharks were never an important part of the story to begin with. Had the film kept the threesome story-line up to the end or at least had a better resolution to their relationship, then I would have given TINTORERA a higher rating. Another thing going for TINTORERA is the Mexican scenery. It's really beautiful and makes me want to move there permanently. I like the 1970s attitude toward sex and/or nudity. It's so carefree and natural looking, compared to the plastic actors of today. Forget the sharks and watch TINTORERA for the 70s sexiness and the beautiful Mexican vistas. It's a definitive guilty-pleasure.