Elliot James Tintorera is a pulp fantasy straight out of those early sixties men's adventure magazines that featured point of impact painted covers. It's not grindhouse junk cashing in on the Jaws phenomenon despite its reputation and reviews. The photography is excellent, far beyond what the viewer would expect. Mexican movie stars Hugo and Andres work well as an acting team in a story that blends wild R-rated tourist-sex with tiger shark hunting at a Mexican resort town. The scenes of British actress Susan George having a threesome with Hugo and Andres are still eye-opening 40 years later. In the beginning, Hugo feels sorry when he sees shark hunters hauling the sharks on board and clubbing them to death. He changes his opinion when the big killer shark turns tourists in gore and teams up with Andres to get the monster. Like a lot of films about wild life killing humans, people do dumb things (in this film because they've been drinking) and get horribly killed. If the sight of gore and sharks being bashed in the head is offensive to you, skip this movie.

lukasbartl It's now a week ago that I watched the movie and I still don't know what to say. It definitely is not your average shark movie, actually it is not even a shark movie, as sharks have hardly any connection to the plot... I'm not sure whether plot is the correct word but maybe I just didn't get what it was all about, it was hard to follow as the language was often switching three or more times within one dialogue (but that also made the movie charming in an unexpected way) I won't even try to judge the plot because it is too long and complicated and I still have some unanswered questions but I can guarantee you that if you engage in the movie it will provide you with a two-hour-journey full of sexual confusion, a lot of beach and a long wait for a godot-like shark and it will leave you impressed. This movie is like a drug, that will take on a mind-boggling trip.

Michael_Elliott Tintorera (1977) * (out of 4) Shark hunters and best friends Steven (Hugo Stiglitz) and Miguel (Andres Garcia) both start sleeping with the same woman, which causes the men to feud but thankfully she's eaten by a shark so the men pick up Gabriella (Susan George) who is okay with threesomes. Soon the three are having plenty of sex but a mean tiger shark has to ruin all the fun. This Mexican picture was promoted as a JAWS rip-off but it has more in common with some cheap soft-core porn film than anything else. The American version that I watched ran 86-minutes, which is nearly forty-minutes shorter than the complete Mexican version. Typically I try and watch the most complete version of any film but the American cut was all that was available and after viewing it I'm glad I did because another forty-minutes would have had me considering suicide. This is an incredibly horrid film but then again I'm not sure what else one should expect from Cardona who has created some pretty bad flicks. I'm really not sure where to start on this one but I guess the screenplay should get a mention. All the characters are so paper thin that you can't help but not feel for any of them and it's hard to care what happens to them as well. The two men come off as some type of God as women are constantly taking their clothes off for them and you have to wonder why. The men have nothing interesting about them so it's clear that the only reason they're "sex symbols" is so plenty of young women can take their clothes off. The nudity is at an extremely high level as women and men are constantly taking their clothes off and we get countless sex scenes. There's a dance sequence early in the film, which is about as laughably bad as anything Ed Wood did. Another problem with the screenplay is that the relationship of the three characters is so poorly written that you can't help but be bored by everything going on. You might wonder why that aspect of the story should matter but it's because this is 90% soap opera and a very bad one at that. This thing might have been sold as a JAWS rip but it's nothing more than a bad romance film. The shark attacks aren't all that impressive but the trick shots of one scene where our three heroes are attack was pretty well handled. There's a lot of stock footage being used but when we see real sharks it's usually watching them die. If you're dead set against seeing animals killed then it's best to skip this flick as countless sharks are killed on screen. The performances really aren't anything good but George fans will be happy to know she does get naked. As you can tell, pretty much everything in this film is deadly bad but I do respect those who could sit through the 126-minute version. Cardona's direction is so all over the place and it lacks any style or pacing that there's really no need to watch any version of this. Plus, what's up with the breathing sound effects when the shark is coming?

MARIO GAUCI I recall watching this as a kid on a now defunct Sicilian TV channel; however, given the ample nudity on display and, for a film of its type, the excessive length of the thing itself, it's very probable that it had been cut to some extent.Anyway, this is a JAWS (1975) rip-off with a difference – in that it's a ragbag of exploitation items as opposed to a real 'shark' film; for long passages, as a matter of fact, the creature is completely forgotten with the plot (if so it can be called) concentrating on the sexual escapades of the two rival/buddy protagonists! It's only in the last half-hour (of this 126-minute picture) that the chase is well and truly on – after the shark attacks and kills one of the two men; still, this doesn't take the other's mind off sex – resulting in perhaps the film's highlight as a group of revelers is attacked at night, with the girl (one of two American sisters vacationing in Mexico) accompanying the hero ending up killed. Apparently, the creature is really after the latter – and eventually he gets to work on executing his personal vendetta… Being a Spanish-British co-production, the film features two English actresses among the bevy of willing beauties – Susan George (whose contribution is the most important, even if it comes exactly half-way through the film and extends to little over 30 minutes of screen-time) and Fiona Lewis (who appears early on and is actually the shark's first victim). The repetitious ménage-a'-trois situation results in some serious padding and a generally tedious film; that said, the shark scenes aren't very creatively handled either (apart from the gore) – so that it can't hope to offer any real competition to the Spielberg classic it's imitating! For the record, I recently watched the even more popular (if still essentially dismal) horror/wrestling hybrid NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES (1969) from this director's father and for which they both contributed to the screenplay.Naturally, the look and sound of TINTORERA! (the title being how the Spanish refer to the Tiger Shark species) screams 1970s – including an agreeable recurring song but especially the disco-driven, drug-fuelled boat parties; frustratingly, though, the full-length print I viewed kept not only alternating between English and Spanish dialogue but had English subtitles popping up for the latter and vice-versa!