This is one of those movies that should be really good, but in reality, well, you know. A couple guys get washed up on the shores of some island that is inhabited by nothing but multi-ethnic pearl diving women and their stern German matron (or something). Superstition abounds, taboos must be broken in fits of wild lust, and then probably a volcano has to erupt. At the very least, there should be some underwater she-gods or shark monsters or something. Instead, we get the most unscantily-clothed scantily clothed tropical beach women in the history of film, plus very unappealing hula dancing and a lengthy "variety show, She-Gods style." The taboo that is broken isn't anything perverse or lusty. It's just a lea getting snapped by accident as one of the guys dances the sorriest hula in the history of dancing.

Eventually, they get around to a thrilling plot about one of the guys trying to rescue a girl from maybe a sacrifice, or perhaps just a very boring non-lethal ritual to appease the angry god, who is a shark, but I guess Shark-Gods of She-Reef wasn't as catchy. He's not a super shark or anything, not one of those hyper-enhanced sharks that fight with Lorenzo Lamas. Just a regular shark, which I know can do quite a number on you, but considering that the women seem fairly advanced and in contact with the outside world, one wonders why they'd consider a regular old shark to be a god.

The only thing this abysmally boring film has going for it is Lisa Montell, after whom I lusted upon seeing her in World Without End. I thought, initially at least, that seeing her all scantily clad in sarongs and bikinis could make any movie tolerable, and maybe it can, but we'll never know because, as I said, you've never seen so many clothes on beach-dwelling shark-cult women. She's still beautiful as ever, but in the end, I'm better off just rewatching World Without End, instead of this movie, which only feels like it will never end.

Labels: Set: Sci-Fi Classics