Simply Perfect

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The monstrous star of 2010 CGI creature-feature Sharktopus is (rather obviously) half-shark-half-octopus, which probably sounds like a fairly unique concept unless you've been unfortunate enough to experience Monster Shark, Lamberto Bava's god-awful movie from 1984, which also features this particular genetic mash-up. Italian horror film-makers are renowned for following US trends, but for once it seems like they actually got there first (and by a whole 26 years).Don't expect much else in the way of originality from Bava, though: strip away a poorly developed subplot about a shady geneticist out to protect the vicious sea-creature and what you have is just another in a long line of uninspired low-budget Jaws rip-offs, terribly acted, poorly directed, and much more likely to bore than to horrify.Admittedly, the incredibly bad monster does provide some unintentional giggles, and supplies the film with a few moments of shoddy gore as it chomps down on its prey, and Bava throws in a couple of enjoyably exploitative scenes in which a murderous hired thug (played with gleeful menace by Paul Branco) bumps off a few defenceless victims, but these 'high' points are few and far between; for the majority of the time, Monster Shark is a dull, derivative mess.

In Lamberto Bava's "Monster Shark" there is a killer shark with tentacles.The beast is terrorizing the waters off the Southern Florida coast and devouring alive some stupid people.It's up to Michael Sopkiw to stop the predator..."Devilfish" aka "Monster Shark" is an incredibly moronic monster flick co-scripted by Luigi Cozzi and Sergio Martino.There is a bit of gore and nudity,but overall the film is pretty tame.The story is hackneyed,the subplots are dumb and the acting is mediocre.The monster is a a genetically-created hybrid of an octopus and a prehistoric proto-shark.There is a bit of misogynistic violence for exploitation fans-the women are beaten whilst being semi-naked.If you are into cheesy Italian trash "Monster Shark" will leave you stunned.6 sharks out of 10.

A perennial fixture in the IMDb Bottom 100, upon viewing this it's not hard to see exactly why for it proves to fail utterly miserably in just about every bloody department going!Take the editing for a start; to call this choppy would be overly complimentary! Indeed, had the makers of this got drunk one night and sliced and diced the film reels with some scissors and children's glue, then the resulting mess could hardly have been any worse than what we actually have here. Added to this, the inane story drags on mercilessly for what seems like a torturous infinity before we finally reach the decidedly lacklustre climax. Aside from the ever game Michael Sopkiw, poor performances from most of the rest of the cast don't exactly help matters any either and the actual beastie that is causing all the troubles is somewhat less than convincing to put it mildly. Yay verily, all in all this is a complete pile of crap if ever I've seen one.Deary, deary me....and to think that Lamberto Bava directed this to....tut, tut indeed. Note: This was released in the UK under the alternative title of Devouring Waves, although bereft of most of its gore scenes, which ironically are just about the only reason that this may have been worth watching.

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS The ripples in the wake of the first "Jaws" movie were still prominent in the 1980s as well as beyond. Movie monsters went from being radioactive monstrosities to unknown and voracious beasts lurking in the unexplored corners of human experience (ie: the ocean, deep space, genetics). Although "Jaws" was a milestone in this particular realm of film horror, few films have been able to match the visceral impact of the original. "Shark rosso nell'oceano" (aka Devil Fish or Red Ocean), is a dutiful follower of the original "Jaws" formula. After several hapless boats and seagoers are brutally murdered by some ocean creature, there is an initial drive to discover the beast, then a failure to study it without horrible results, and a final push to destroy it. Although the filmmakers attempted to inject some fresh life into the equation by adding elements of technology and corporate conspiracy, the result is nothing short of disastrous. This movie sinks under its own weight of ghastly editing, brittle acting, and cheap scares. The most sickly compelling feature of "Devil Fish" is its cookie-cutter editing. From the onset of the film when 3 different scenes are mashed together, the viewer gets a sense that the film lacks any technical credibility. It appears as if the editors cut the scenes around a set musical score instead of cutting the film and then making necessary changes to the music. Furthermore, every cut is an intercut and it would appear as if the editors had never heard of the terms "fade", "wipe", or "dissolve". The impact of scenes can never settle in because they are immediately cut short after a final line and a new scene begins. Silly camera tricks abound such as when two of the principle characters share a private moment on the beach and a sort of time-lapse image of their act is composited over their bodies. The music is equally bland. The creature theme is a hopeless duplicate of the "Jaws" theme with slight variation. Although I like to keep my reviews devoid of MST3K influence, Mike most aptly described the somber score as "soft core porn music". Failing to produce tension in a film that relies so heavily on it is a death blow to "Devil Fish". The acting is stale, the relationships baffling, and the whole conspiracy is laughable. The question remains that if genetics had advanced to such a level to create a huge chimera of a sea monster to protect oceanic interests, why couldn't a more practical use be administered to better mankind? One of the few positive aspects of this film is the idea of the monster, even though its film presence is less than stellar. Overall, this movie is bad enough to dip below mediocre. If "Jaws" had never been made, then the film could be described as average because its subject matter would be new and exciting even if it was executed ineffectively. Sadly, as a carbon copy of Spielberg's original thriller it sits most comfortably on a garbage heap of cheese.