On the last Saturday of every month for the last 6 years Richard Glenn Schmidt of DoomedMoviethon and myself (among others) get together to live Tweet a movie, sometimes more than 1. Literally, last night (9/26/20) was one of those nights. We did a double feature of Bruno Mattei’s Italian Schlock classics Robowar and Shocking Dark. Once those were over, and the tweeting had ended, I still was pumped for more Mattei. Fortunately, Severin films has my back, just this week in my mailbox Mattei’s most NOTORIOUS film (and that’s saying something) arrived, CRUEL JAWS.

Cruel Jaws like Shocking Dark and Robowar is basically a rip off film. Whereas Shocking Dark was like a Xeroxed amalgam of Terminator and Aliens and Robowar was Robocop and Predator, this film was entirely derivative of JAWS in the best way possible. Cruel Jaws, the story goes was so problematic, as it literally used footage from Universal’s first 2 Jaws films that Spielberg and Universal BANNED it from ever playing in the U.S. Scream Factory announced it for a release about 5 years ago, without knowing what the film contained, and quickly pulled it.

Fortunately, those purveyors of Euro filth and schlock unleashed CRUEL JAWS upon the masses of waiting EuroCult fans, and I will stand up and say THIS WAS WORTH THE WAIT!! Cruel Jaws, you know the plot, you’ve seen Jaws, but I’ll lay it out for you. The film opens with a pair of divers searching the remains of a vessel, but instead get killed by a tiger shark. We then get introduced to Hulk Ho…Dag Sorensen played by Richard Dew. He owns a Sea World-esque joint in South Florida , that is doing terribly and needs a new success to stay open. Enter the shark, which begins to menace the town, and threatens to shut things down. It’s up to Dag, and Bill Morrison an oceanographer to stop the shark, and allow the town to have it’s tourist season.

Cruel Jaws is definitely a Mattei film. The film is oddly put together. Their is nature footage where other films might attempt to shoot an FX shark, and where he wants an FX shark, he uses footage from other films. There is some amateurish, but fun, FX moments with the sharks. The best dialogue in the film is straight up taken from other films, and yet the whole thing is insanely entertaining from front to back. Having watched 2 other Mattei films prior to this I was on this director’s wavelength and just in the “MATTEI ZONE!” I could have kept going. This one is going in the repeat viewing pile for a while.

Severin Films presents Cruel Jaws in 2 different cuts both in 1080p HD the Mattei cut which is the director’s version is uncut, and looks shockingly amazing and is very well restored. Audio is in English Mono 2.0 and sounds excellent. The jokingly named Snyder cut is from the Japan, there is a slight loss in visual quality, but still looks fine. Extras include a Sharksploitation piece by Rebekah McKendry and an interview with actor Jay Colligan. There is also a trailer. Highly Recommended, a must own.