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.

Two shark hunters flirt with an attractive British lady (Susan George) while hunting down a large tiger shark terrorizing the Mexican East coast.I know what you are thinking. A shark movie in 1977... it has to be a ripoff of "Jaws", right? I would have to say no. While we could surely accuse them of cashing in on the success of "Jaws" and riding on the coattails of shark fever, there is really nothing plot-wise that can compare the two. Heck, they do not even use the same species of shark as their "villain".But most odd, the focus here is not so much a shark, its victims, or a scared populace. No closing down a beach. No oceanography students. What we have are two guys who make a deal with a woman to have an ongoing three-way sexual relationship. We do not see them in the act, so it is not exactly smutty or even really exploitation, but it sure is scandalous...

My review is not based on the plot or the acting. Rather, it's based on the non-acting. All of the animals in this movie - sharks, fish, sea turtles, rays - were really killed to make this pathetic movie. Shark attack movies are one of my favorite genres. But I became nauseous when I realized that they were really killing these amazing creatures. What an incredible waste and disregard of life just to make a movie. How can this be rationalized? I am so thankful that such pompous cruelty is illegal now.So if you are like me, and enjoy shark movies but have a heart, then do not watch this film. It's really very sad.

Trying to make use of the success of a flick isn't easy. The slasher era was a perfect example were everybody tried to copy Friday The 13th (1980) amongst others. But just before the slasher era Steven Spielberg had a lot of success with the gruesome Kaws (1975). A lot of flicks tried to copy Jaws and Tintorera was trying to do that.It failed completely even as it had a few names from the genre. Susan George just came from Straw Dogs (1971) and Fiona Lewis was just casted in The Fury (1978). Being both English actors they had to play together with big names from the Mexican flicks. Hugo Stiglitz is known for Nightmare City (1980). But the main lead should have been the shark itself as it did in Jaws. Sadly, here the love stories involved were more important. Especially the gratuitous nudity by all girls involved. The shark itself was taken from stock footage and no gore is even seen in this flick. The shark do attacks but it's also easy to see that it wasn't done with the actors. Still, this flick is hunted down for so many reasons and is today available on DVD, but the search for so many is the VHS with an excellent sleeve which really looks great. Only the flick itself wasn't.Gore 1/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5