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STUDIO: Synapse
MSRP: $19.99
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 118 min.
SPECIAL FEATURES: Non ci sono caratteristiche speciali.
Note: Due to tragic technical issues, there are no screencaps with this review.
The Pitch
“It’s Airport 77 meets Jaws meets Alive – with Italians!”
The Humans
A bunch of Italians who are claiming to be actors. Olga Karlatos (Zombie) offers the gorehound recognition factor.
The Nutshell
A cyclone (or so everyone says. I think the translator mixed up cyclones and hurricanes) knocks a plane out of the sky in the Caribbean, and strands some boats as well. People are trapped out at sea, slowly (so… fucking… slowly) dying of exposure and consumption by shark.
The Package
There isn’t much on this DVD besides the film, although fans of cheesy Italian cinema will be psyched. The DVD case does feature a cover image that is nothing short of astonishing – the artist was so skillful that when you first see the cover you think that the shark is actually tearing a jet plane in half. Sadly, none of the sharks in the film are that big, and the chomper is actually chomping an unlucky person. But even when you know what it is, it’s a cool cover.
The presentation is pretty damn impressive, though. Synapse has really taken care to restore this film to a pristine condition.
The Lowdown
Cyclone promises to be a nasty Italian film, but it’s generally fairly tame. It also has aspirations of being an honest to goodness real film, filled with tension and conflict and based mostly on people talking. Sadly the utterly inept dubbing (and acting) makes sure that you can’t take much of anything seriously. Also sadly, the lack of serious exploitation elements means that you sort of feel the weight of every minute of this almost two hour long movie.
To be fair there are some goodies – a dog gets its throat cut, and numerous people are chowed down on by sharks. The film represents people being eaten by sharks by feeding real sharks small hunks of meat with some denim on them. It’s fairly obviously not anything but a raw ham hock, and it’s amusing the first few times, but the effect gets a little tiresome. Especially since there isn’t even an effort made to change the shredded clothing hanging off the meat.
In the end the real survival test is sitting through Cyclone at all.
4 out of 10