I remember hiring this about ten years ago. There was a little slip left inside the video box. Written on it was an unsavory comment. Now I really had to see it. I only watched it for Michael Sopkiw, as he was an actor who fascinated me, but sadly he only did 7 films. This one is of grinning embarrassment. Oh how right the last renter was. But still, Italian cheapies are fun, and what is so amusing about this, is that the whole pathetic laughable affair is really taken seriously. It's like us, the audience have been tested to swallow his bologne. Now I happen to like this bologne, but not this bologne. We have a ginormous, and octopus, who can eat victims like Piranha, due to an experiment gone wrong. As you can guess, the victims die some pretty horrific deaths, may'be it would of been safer i Dinosaur Valley. The whole affair is unbelievably corny, though from the effort of the writers, we almost wish we could believe it. Here, watch it, but look at it more as a comedy, as it will come off better with you. This devil fish has nothing on Jaws.

A "40 foot long" giant mutant squid with five tentacles, razor fangs and the ability to reproduce it's own cells terrorizes a small Florida town. Various marine biologists, doctors and cops plot to kill it. Meanwhile, a human monster named Miller offs people who discover the "Devilfish" is a manmade creation used for the greedy benefit of some evil doctors! Miller attacks a female researcher, strangles her, drowns her in the bathtub, tosses in a hairdryer, then rips the panties off her dead body!

Lots of false alarms are set when our heroes Peter, Stella, Janet and Bob set out on a high tech (high tech for 1984, anyway) "Seaquarium" boat to catch the creature, who is frequently seen in close up or hilariously obvious speeded-up film to seem more menacing. And only fire can destroy it, which leads to a flamethrower-armed posse vs. aquatic beast finale.

This JAWS cash-in is pretty tame (other than a legless corpse and a decapitation) but watchable and benefits from an excellent Antony Barrymore score and a decent (again, for 1984) monster design. Luigi Cozzi and Sergio Martino wrote the original story.

Score: 4 out of 10

Italians movie-makers love to rip off American movies. All of our movies, and as often as possible.

I'm not stating that as a slur against Italy as a whole, but I would like to further observe that the Italian film industry does itself great harm by allowing travesties like this to go overseas to be seen by the world at large. That's all I'm saying.

And no more grave injury do the Italian people subject themselves to than by not sticking a harsh penalty upon those who made the world watch "Shark rosso nell'oceano" - which is, admittedly, a ripoff of the far-superior "Jaws" (as if you didn't know).

Let's dive into the plot (Get it? Haw-haw...): this huge monstrous swimming thing that looks like a cross between an octopus, a shark and Steven Tyler attacks many innocent Americans (ie: Italians) off the coast of Florida (ie: Italy) and the intrepid, beer-swilling Peter (Sopkiw) sails out with his anorexic, beer-swilling girlfriend and other beer-swilling people whose main purposes are to be eaten by the creature, killed by mysterious forces who want the creature left alone or just stand around and be otherwise useless (and swill beer)...or be the doctor in this film who defibrilates dying patients repeatedly (20, maybe 30 times in a row) without waiting for his paddles to recharge (must be one heck of a good battery there, doc).

Then there's the monster...brother, if you thought the "Jaws" shark was fake, look herein and have your mind changed IMMEDIATELY.

This is a movie that was directed as an afterthought (by a Bava!), edited with an onion chopper, acted by ambulatory (beer-swilling) pieces of driftwood and written by (PRESUMABLY beer-swilling) people who should never ever ever ever be let near a typewriter, movie studio or major city in the world ever again. If this is how the people who made this film think real people act in such a situation, they've obviously made one too many of them zombie movies. Or swilled too much beer.

Need I say this movie is bad? It is: bad like green cottage cheese; bad like a Hawaiian shirt at a formal wedding; bad like the "Bad Theatre" skits Dan Aykroyd used to host on "Saturday Night Live"; bad like Calista Flockhart Weight Gain Tablets - get it? Good.

Mike and the SOL gang slap this beer-drunk beauty upside the head repeatedly and reveal this "horror" film as what it is: horrible. Though, with a certain European charm: it's charming, when watched by a European - preferably a beer-swilling one.

No stars for the waterlogged, dead fish known as "Shark rosso nell'oceano"; six stars for the MST3K version. ...and now, anyone for a beer?