This isn't bad because it's a "Jaws" ripoff. It really isn't. It's bad because it's hideously boring. Five years after receiving an Oscar nomination, Richard Jaeckal was doomed to appear in this science fiction yarn about a nutcase with a medallion that protects him from sharks, able to swim with them, talk with them and manipulate them to leave him alone while he's in the dangerous waters with them and go after others. Fine and dandy on paper. There have been worse ideas on film, but this one takes forever to get going, and the viewer by that time may be feeling the pain from the poor sound quality.
Nice location footage aside, this film is often eye rollingly silly, especially the structure from which a shark worshiping native presents Jaeckal with the medallion and the way he goes about chosing his victims. "Shy sharks?", a female visitor asks him when he shows her his den of man eating fish, and you wonder if she'll end up a toothpick for the big fish. This is excruciatingly tedious in so many ways that you wonder how someone from Universal actually made it through to collect enough data comparing this to the great fish stick of 1975. A series of truly repulsive supporting characters played by really bad actors add to the hideousness of this toxic water stinker.
Nice location footage aside, this film is often eye rollingly silly, especially the structure from which a shark worshiping native presents Jaeckal with the medallion and the way he goes about chosing his victims. "Shy sharks?", a female visitor asks him when he shows her his den of man eating fish, and you wonder if she'll end up a toothpick for the big fish. This is excruciatingly tedious in so many ways that you wonder how someone from Universal actually made it through to collect enough data comparing this to the great fish stick of 1975. A series of truly repulsive supporting characters played by really bad actors add to the hideousness of this toxic water stinker.