Deep Blood

Summary

“We know what you’re up to. Get back to the harbor. Shelby, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Severin Films is one of my favorite film labels because of their persistence against adversity in releasing some of the most notoriously inept films from the straight-to-video era alongside more prestigious fare like Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man and lesser-known gems like the Russian film Viy or the Canadian thriller Siege. They are not afraid to celebrate a film for how hilariously bad it might be, just as effortlessly as they can appreciate a film for how great an accomplishment it is. In the case of Joe D’Amato’s Deep Blood, Severin have released one of the most requested sharksploitation films. They released Deep Blood the same month that they released Cruel Jaws, which is another heavily requested title that is just as enjoyable for other bizarre reasons. Deep Blood is one of the most inept and poorly made thrillers I have ever seen in my life. The dialogue is ridiculous, the acting is terrible, and there is not a convincing sequence in the film. I loved every minute of it.

The film begins on a beach as four youngsters grill some weenies over a small fire. An Indian (played inexplicably by what looks to be an older white guy?) approaches them and tells them the story of an ancient being known as the Wakan which takes many forms and poses danger from the sea. The boys seal a blood pact by cutting across their wrists that they will help each other in times of danger. Ten years later, the boys reunite for the summer after having gone separate ways. Allen has gone off to officer training. Ben has become a golfer that a banker wants to sponsor. Ben’s father (Charlie Brill) does not fully approve of Ben chasing his dream. Ben’s father had also sworn off the water years earlier due to some sort of incident. John and Miki have stayed behind in the seaside town. At a nearby beach, a killer shark kills a woman in front of her child. When John goes fishing with Miki, John goes into the water to do a preliminary look for some fish. John is killed by a shark with a black fin in front of Miki. Miki tells the constantly perspiring Police Chief William Cody, but the chief does not take him seriously. Miki gathers his friends after speaking with Mayor Barrett. The mayor has the chief deliver the bad news to John’s dad and call the Coast Guard. The remaining boys will need to band together to defeat the dark finned shark which may be the Wakan the Indian warned against.

Man…. I love this idiotic movie. I did not think a movie could conceivably be so poorly made yet feel so earnest until I watched Deep Blood. Deep Blood is bafflingly and amazingly inept. Joe D’Amato obviously was trying to make a good film, but absolutely none of the actors were up to the task. The lack of talent leads to some truly amazing unintentionally hilarious moments. My personal favorite involves a sequence where the police chief tells John’s father that his son has been killed. There is almost no reaction from the actor receiving the bad news whatsoever. Just that sequence alone would be worth watching the movie for me, but the movie features sequences like that constantly. They are worth their weight in comedic gold. Like in Cruel Jaws, the dialogue in the film comes off unnatural due to the language barriers between the Italian director and the American cast of unknowns. The resulting exchanges are extremely fun to watch. On top of the poor acting, there is melodramatic music by Carlo Maria Cordio that adds a lot of laughter when viewing the film. The finale of the film (spoiler alert) involves setting explosives and in one of the most obvious cases of padding the length of a film, the sequence seems to take roughly twenty minutes of repetitive action. These sequences are the very ones that were repurposed in Cruel Jaws. If laughing at bad movies makes you happy, go ahead and buy Deep Blood now. In fact, buy it and Cruel Jaws.

Video

Severin Films has provided a pretty good looking transfer in 1080p of Deep Blood in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with an MPEG-4 AVC encode. This means that the film has been put into the Academy ratio which puts bars on the side of the screen. Severin discussed this in depth on their podcast and I believe it was the right call, despite possibly alienating some fans who had viewed it in 1.85:1 on DVD in the past. I was happy with the work that Severin put into the release. Considering Deep Blood was a straight-to-video release, it looks pretty good. Fine detail for the most part is solid and the film stays well saturated. Whenever the film jumps to footage of real life sharks, the quality of the footage varies. Fans should be very pleased with Severin’s release.

Audio

Severin Films has provided a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track that capably reproduces the original sound design of Deep Blood. While this track is not extremely immersive, the dialogue is easy too understand and clarity is pretty good overall. The hilariously melodramatic soundtrack by Carlo Maria Cordio has never sounded better.

Supplements:

• Trailer

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 1/5

Overall – 4/5

Deep Blood is an unbelievably inept sharksploitation film from Italian filmmaker Joe D’Amato. The entire film feels off balance because of the language barrier and the cast of unknown actors’ dedication to reading the dialogue as it was written for them. They say some truly funny things and fail to act in any way shape or form like normal human beings. I loved watching this movie. It made me laugh so hard that I convinced a friend to watch it the next day. They enjoyed it as much as I did. If you like bad films, you will love Deep Blood. The technical specs are solid considering the straight-to-video constraints of the film. The lack of supplements is disappointing, but I’m just glad to have this film in my collection. Fans of the film or bad sharksploitation will enjoy this release from Severin!