Devil Fish (1984) 1/2 (out of 4) A group of people with varying occupations try to destroy a half-shark, half-octopus in this incredibly awful Italian rip-off of JAWS.DEVIL FISH is also known under the title MONSTER SHARK but no matter what you call it you need to know it's one of the worst films the sub-genre ever delivered. What's most shocking about this awful movie is how many familiar names in Italian cinema are connected to it. You've got Lamberto Bava directing. You've got Luigi Cozzi and Sergio Martino doing the story. Then you've got Bruno Mattei doing some second unit stuff. It really does feel like these many folks were involved because there's so much stuff crammed into this 97 minute movie that it rarely makes any sense.The biggest problem with the movie is how poorly made it is. I mean, with so much talent you'd think that they could have at least delivered a so-bad-it's-good type of film. The monster shark is kept hidden until the final moments, which is too bad since it's got a campy 1950s drive-in feel to it. The performances are all rather bad and that includes William Berger in his role. The editing is beyond horrible. The cinematography looks like a couple kids running with a camera. The music score is annoying. The death scenes are all rather weak. Worst of all is the fact that there are so many subplots going on that it seems like the editor accidentally put scenes in from other movies!

This cheapo exploitation flick is some genuinely insipid stuff, courtesy of spaghetti land director Lamberto Bava, who wisely left his name off this junk.The basic crux of this outing concerns the discovery of some brutally mutilated individuals being washed-up on shore in the Caribbean. Authorities initially believe them to be victims of shark attacks, but as the investigation unravels, turns out to be something much more sinister.All of this ultimately amounts to very little however, we have here - poor dubbing complimented by similarly weak script, which often consists of nonsensical jabbering, and is really of little consequence for the most part. Acting can only be described as sub-par, which is par for the course in this instance. Truly lax direction doesn't help things either.Special effect mainly is for numerous close-ups of various gory bodies missing limbs, and so forth. Of course, there is the obligatory creature which periodically emerges at feeding time, which looks something like a big monster octopus thing, where its animation only consists of its pointed teeth ascending and descending in rhythmic articulation. Overall, the end result is none too convincing, sure, but admittedly is almost entertaining in a cheesy kind of fashion.It seems what the film makers were going for was a sort of low-rent hybrid of Jaws and Piranha, but the final product is just a bloody shambles, much like the corpses incessantly shown throughout this picture. I find it difficult to think of any redeeming attributes to warrant viewing this, so moreover, strictly for incurable monster movie addicts.

Sometimes it's hard to judge how bad a film made in Italy or Spain really is, because they all seem to use the same stable of 9-10 ESL trained voice actors to supply the English voices for release in the US. And things are always lost in translation anyway -dialog, character shtick and plot elements written for the expectations of European audiences may not go too well with our American ideas of what is funny, hip, or dramatic. I imagine that the team responsible for making the translation for the sound track of this movie to English had about 3 days to do it from start to finish, and they probably each earned the equivalent of an installment payment on their used Fiat to do it. In other words, pure hackwork, tossed off in one or two takes and never reviewed or redone by someone with a real ear for the American language.Watching "Devil Fish", I can imagine that if you were an Italian watching this presented in your native language, you might find it a mildly amusing little piece of fluff. You'd laugh at the 'in jokes' and the amusing drunk, you'd gasp at the monster and the villainy of the bad guys, and you'd ogle at the attractive pair of Peter and not-quite-Daryll Hannah as they couple on the beach for no apparent reason in the middle of a search for clues about a man-eating monster who has already killed one of their friends.But since the jarring voice acting and tin-eared dialog keep yanking we Americans out of the film experience, we can't help but notice that the editors had serious Attention Deficit Disorder, that no one on screen can really act so much as project an Attitude, that the stated reason for the creation of the monster makes absolutely no sense, that the action sequences have all the impact of a cereal bowl full of cooked oatmeal and that the director, screenwriters and producers really hate women.Don't even THINK about buying or renting this movie - watch only on cable TV on Saturday afternoon with one of several beers in your fist, or with the help and protection of Mike and the Bots on MST3K.

This movie is horrible. There is no other way to describe it. The effect it has on a person is unbearable. So many bad things. Were to begin?Let's start with the acting, or lake there off. Not one of the characters is brought across convincingly. The story is really bad. We get something about a giant fish being created by scientists. Or something like that. You really just want the movie to end, instead of figuring out what is going on. the character interaction is just -- well -- a joke. Every time there are two, or more actors in one scene, they don't seem to be talking to one another at all. They just look to be delivering their dialogue without knowing there is another actor in the scene. the characters are lame and amateur at best. There is a drunk boat captain who stops every minute to have a beer, a poor man's Lorenzo Lamas, a very skinny girl who looks like Darryl Hanna, a steroid drivin sheriff who makes you laugh when he enters the scene. But some of the characters enter the movie, then leave quickly. Never to return. the soundtrack is strange, digressing into a soft core porn soundtrack at times. At other times playing the "devilfish song" as I call it. You will know it when you hear it, as it is playing every time the devilfish is swimming. The directing is very bad. Almost makes you wonder if the director was off doing other things while the movie was being filmed. The footage of the devilfish swimming is rarely visible, and at times there seems to be nothing swimming at all. I think the budget ran out so they glossed over the camera so nothing would be visible. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. Unless you want to see the MST3K version which provides Mike, Crow, and Servo with some good moments to riff.