Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.
WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.
Tintorera is a Spanish "horror" film about two men who look and act like they are fucking each other when no one is looking. Watch them bed beach bunnies, walk around naked, hunt sharks, and lay too close to each other. When dead bodies - victims of shark attacks - begin washing up on the shore, these two men opt to hunt the killer shark themselves. But the movie is less about sharks and more about two hairy men who fuck a lot and are completely deplorable characters. Also, it's one of the most boring movies I’ve ever sat through.
Tintorera, which means tiger shark in Spanish, is a bad, bad film. Not only is the movie utterly devoid of anything remotely interesting, but it also goes so far as to feature completely pointless footage of actual sharks being killed for the sole purpose of making this atrocity. Granted, that may not be a big deal to you, but that’s because you’re a cocker.
The DVD menu offers up either an English or Spanish audio track. I choose English and the movie begins.
The movie opens strongly enough, with stock footage of a shark slowly creeping along the bottom of a dark ocean, complemented by an ominous discordant theme by the always amazing Basil Poledouris, but then the established mood is almost immediately ruined with an awkward cut to a brightly sun-lit Mexican resort, with plain '70s women in their plain '70s bikinis. Lazy, generic Spanish-sounding music plays as people walk around and eat chimichangas (probably).
(Even though I chose the English audio track, the waiter and Mr. Banana Hammock blather on in Spanish for several minutes as I wait for my Rosetta Stone to load. Further, I also chose English subtitles...which appear in Spanish. Thanks for nothing, Desert Mountain Media.)
We meet Steven, who lies forlornly in a hospital bed. Turns out this poor man has suffered a nervous breakdown, so obviously being forced to spend time in a hospital is just what he needs.
We meet Miguel, who apparently has affairs with anyone who looks at him. He uses his circus training to do really unnecessarily showy flips up a balcony in order to get to his affair room.
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Sure, vaginas were a hobby, but acrobatics were his life.
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Then we meet two American college girls. They hitch a ride from two Spanish men, toting a large truck full of oranges. Then, the following happens:
1.) The truck pulls over.
2.) The girls spill out of the truck and climb on top of the oranges.
3.) The men begin to rape the girls.
4.) The girls attempt to fight off their rapers, but then relent and say, “It will only be worse if we fight.”
5.) One girl says to her friend, before they are raped, “Well Kelly, you wanted to see the world.”
6.) Kelly says to her rapists: “It’s OK. I am going to take off my pants.”
For a movie that already feels like an eternity, we certainly move along at breakneck speed, because we’re already meeting Francisco, a red-headed native whose boat is filled to the brim with a pile of massacred tiger sharks.
Francisco ends up chartering one of his boats to Steven, who plans to use the boat to relax and nurse his stupid brain back to health. Francisco, who is called Redhead by one of his associates, stacks boxes of food on the counter as he chats with Steven, who he calls Blondie, even though the man’s hair is clearly brown.
Two men calling each other Redhead and Blondie. Let that sink in.
Francisco tows up a line - shark traps that he set - and gasps in joy at the dead tiger shark attached to one of the hooks. "I am going to beat it in the head, just in case it’s not dead,” says Francisco. And boy does he. (We get to watch.)
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Steven studied and observed Carlos for years,
but he could never figure out a way to grow such a
delightful push-broom mustache.
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A nearby shark dive-bombs the dead shark on the line and takes a huge bite, annoying Francisco and pleasing me.
“I’d rather sit in the sun and watch the sharks in the bikinis,” says Steven. The men smile, and then we literally cut to Steven on the deck of his boat with a pair of binoculars looking at the naughty bits of the nearby girls.
Steven picks up a random girl, Patricia, offering her a tray of different drinks, and then uses his unsmiling charm to lure Patricia to his boat for some lobster and some hot hairy cock.
Then they have this meaningful conversation:
Steven: I am very happy because I think I am falling in love with you.
Patricia: Are you sure it is love, or just physical attraction?
Steven: I don’t know.
Thanks for even bringing it up, then, Steven. With crackling dialogue like that, who needs killer sharks?
I do. Please God, gimme gimme.
It seems Patricia didn’t like Steven’s “I don’t know,” because he catches her on the beach with Miguel, the affair man. The two men almost immediately begin fighting, and Steven clocks Miguel a good one across his Spanish face.
“Did you have to use your fists you stupid jerk?” Patricia cries.
I take a moment to ponder how else these two men could have furiously fought on the beach over a woman. Perhaps spirited debate.
Steven gets back on his rubber and farts away as Miguel taunts him from the beach, even though he was the one who got his ass punched to the ground.
Steven goes back to his boat and takes his frustration out on Francisco, who responds with, “Shit. This would even piss off a hermit crab.”
Thirty-four minutes in, and no shark attacks.
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"Well, I just had a fuck with Miguel, but if you want,
you can come with me to mass."
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Patricia decides to shack up with Miguel, and after a bout of sex, she leaves him lying on the bed, his pale, untanned ass sticking up in the air, and she decides to take a naked swim.
Then we cut to a shark.
Then we cut back to naked Patricia.
Then back to the shark.
Fucking finally.
The shark chews on a wigged-ball of bloody meat; though it’s terribly unimaginative and lazy, I’ll take it.
Steven pulls up to a dock/bar and climbs on. Miguel sits at a table, entertaining some fine-looking “gringas,” but when he sees Steve, he decides to be really funny.
“Get back, it is a wild animal!” he bellows, holding a chair up at Steven like a lion tamer would his beast.
“I hate it when people use me for their jokes,” Steven unemotionally retorts, as I laugh.
The two men inexplicably become friends. Steven sits down with the two college girls who turn out to be the ones who got raped. Seems they’re still enjoying their vacation despite the rape, and they welcome Miguel to bluntly discuss how their asses and boobs are incredible.
The four of them end up on Steven’s boat later, naked as the day they were last fucked, and they just kind of hang out. There’s no sex to be found. Steven swings in the hammock as the girls dance with Miguel.
And it’s not awkward or uncomfortable. Not at all.
Then, a shark swims.
Then it’s back to the naked boat.
Jesus Christ, I hate this movie.
The next morning, the college girls switch sex partners and everyone grinds mere feet from each other. And I don’t care what college you attended, from the School of Hard Knockers to Lost Highway University, that shit is creepy.
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Debbie always ended her saying grace with: "And thanks again
for the two cocks to wake me up in the morning."
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Later, at a party, everyone jams to some disco, as Francisco grinds with a gringa and ignores his master. Steven gets pissed off at the unauthorized use of his boat and throws everyone off.
It has been 24 minutes since the first and only shark attack, and at 54 minutes into the film, we still have more than an hour left to go.
Let’s pause for an amusing out-of-context excerpt of dialogue.
“What’s this rod for?”
“That’s the surprise I said I had for you.”
Continuing on, the men agree to “rock ‘n roll” and dive in an area known as “the caves,” where the plan seems to be to hunt some fish with a harpoon gun. Right around the time the fifth fish is harpooned, I fast forward until a shark shows up...a shark that is almost instantly shot. The real shark convulses, spewing blood from its wounds and gills, until it eventually succumbs to Miguel, the Speedo-wearing free diver.
Thanks, filmmakers. It sure was worth it, for this is irreplaceable art through which I am currently suffering.
Later, Steven and Miguel sit at a table, staring at a lonesome girl having a drink by herself.
“I bet you I take that girl to bed before you do,” Miguel challenges.
“That’s a bet I wouldn’t want to lose,” says Steven.
Boy, between shooting sharks in the face and making bets to fuck strangers, I can’t help but hope everything works out in the end for these two men.
After seeing the girl off to her hotel room, the men discuss the night’s events.
“The girl could not decide with whom to go to bed. This girl is a professional,” Miguel deduces, being careful not to end a sentence with a preposition.
“Do you think she is a whore?” Steven seriously inquires.
“This girl doesn’t open her legs for money,” Miguel answers. “She might even think we’re gay."
The two men then laugh, after a split second of subconsciously considering the possibility.
The next morning, Steve, Miguel, and their bet go fishing, where she gets to watch a shark be killed close up. They are almost attacked by a tiger shark, but unfortunately, they get away.
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Last known photograph.
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Then you know what I do? I skip to each chapter of this fucking atrocious movie until I get to the end, because I want to be finished sitting in front of this spewing mess.
The first few seconds of each chapter are as follows:
Chapter 16: Girl holds up a bottle of booze and then casts a hesitant glance behind her.
Chapter 17: Francisco lifts a large squid from a boiling pot and says, “This squid will be delicious.”
Chapter 18: Girl walks across the boat and says to Steven and Miguel, “I would like to have a child. It would be the first child to be conceived by two fathers.”
Chapter 19: Girl kissing her own hand as she looks upset.
Chapter 20: Uncomfortable '70s dancing.
Chapter 21: Steven and a large group of anonymous people walk across the beach. A girl shouts, “I have an idea: Why doesn’t everyone take off their clothes and we’ll go swimming?” All 30 people who are there agree this is a good idea. I am about to skip to the next chapter when a shark makes a rare appearance. He steals the girl from Steven like Winona Ryder steals from anywhere at all and disappears into the darkness.
I am pleased.
Chapter 22: Steven relives his shark encounter to Francisco. “It was horrible, Redhead.”
Chapter 23: A sea plane lands and Steven shows a Marlon Brando-in-The Godfather-looking fellow, Mr. Madison, where the accident took place.
Having reached the last chapter, I figure I can endure a few more minutes of trash.
Francisco and Steven prepare an arsenal of weapons in which to hunt the shark.
Say, where’s Miguel? Was he eaten? Written out of the script? Did he have a falling out with Steven?
I’ll never know, because I’m never sitting through this movie again.
Steven attracts the shark by shooting a skate, and he waits in apprehension for the shark to make its arrival.
Now, as we wait, let me just say this: If the director of this sleaze really wanted to make a point with this movie, he would have Steven, a man who has coldly bedded women and shot sharks in the face for no reason, be eaten by the shark that he was hunting. One shark devouring another, one might even argue.
Well, the music is mounting. Something is about to happen.
And…
Steven shoots the shark, which sinks to the bottom of the ocean, splooging blood from the wound. The assholes win, and we know this for sure, because the movie ends with a shot of Steven, Miguel, and the bet girl smiling and looking into the ocean.
So, to sum up, Tintorera is primarily about two men who fuck women all the time and hang out and discuss fucking women. Sometimes they dance, or have swim races. Sometimes they eat food. Every once in a while, a shark does something.
Tintorera does not attempt, at any time, to be thrilling, poignant, or entertaining. Its struggle for coherence is the only aspect of the film worth mentioning.
That’s pretty bad when that’s the only good thing I can say about your film: It didn’t not make sense.
This movie can eat my balls.
