Review of Cave of the Sharks

This is one strange shark movie. It's basically a movie about some kind of superior underwater race who for unknown reasons uses mind controlled sharks and the Bermuda triangle to kidnap fishermen... or something like that, I've seen it twice and still ain't sure. Although long parts of the movie is pretty dull (the Italians never seem to get the dramatic part working, but who cares?), parts of it has a surreal feel and is actually pretty damn scary. The ultra low budget really shows in the action scenes. Cardboard boats sinking in an aquarium gets to symbolize the Bermuda triangles devastating force, and there's even a cardboard sunken city. Hey, it works for me. There's one fantastic scene in the movie - it will haunt me forever: A bunch of people hang out at a yacht and a bearded guy sets the mood by playing a creepy song on his acoustic guitar. It goes something like "The sun is shining - on the beautiful ocean". A girl is walking around with a deformed doll in her hand. For no reason at all she suddenly throws the doll in the sea and then jumps after it. People start throwing themselves in the sea, one by one, and for no given reason. Blood starts coming out of the deformed doll and sharks appear, but they never attack...

Shark's Cave tries to be a Jaws clone with a twist (it even copies the "dead-guy-popping-out-of-the-sunken-ship" - scene from Spielberg's masterpiece), but ends up being something completely different: a solid work of Italian madness. To this day, it remains director Tonino Ricci's only decent effort; he's bad even by Italian standards. Well, Shark's Cave must have done something right - against better judgment I've just started my search for his 1987 follow-up: Night of The Sharks...