Jonathon Dabell 'Beautiful Maidens Ruled By A Hideous Stone God!' screamed the poster for this Roger Corman quickie from 1958. Such claims make the film sound half-enjoyable, even if only on a kitsch level. Sadly, it's all rather misleading and the true fact of the matter is that She-Gods Of Shark Reef is a woeful piece of idiocy, directed in a fortnight or so by Corman while he was already on location on Kaua'i, Hawaii, for the making of the similarly-plotted and similarly terrible Naked Paradise.Young gun-runner Jim (Don Durant) is on the lam after killing a couple of guards at a dockside arms depot. His brother Chris (Bill Cord) offers to take him to safety aboard his boat. However, their boat gets washed onto a reef during a storm and the brothers survive only because they are rescued from drowning by the women of a strange, secretive, all-female colony of pearl divers. While waiting for a ship to come along, Chris falls in love with one of the island girls, Mahia (Lisa Montell), much to the annoyance of the island elder Queen Pua (Jeanne Gearson). Meanwhile, Jim starts to get nervous that word about his crime will spread and he will be arrested once the ship arrives, so he starts planning an early escape from the island by repairing an abandoned canoe. Unfortunately, the 'criminal' in him can't resist pocketing a few of the girls' pearls before he leaves, a foolish little crime which brings about complications to his getaway… Shot against beautiful backdrops with a good-looking cast, She-Gods Of Shark Reef offers absolutely nothing beyond these attractive trimmings. Yes, the Hawaiian islands look lovely. Yes, the male leads are muscular, handsome types. Yes, the pearl diving girls are pretty little things. But when it comes to the important things – plot, pace, dialogue, narrative interest, tension, characterisation, conflict – the film has NOTHING to offer. It's a hopeless bore which somehow conspires to make its 63 minute running time seem three times longer than it really is. 63 minutes is roughly how long it would take a snail to slide across a decent-sized back yard – and, believe me, you'd have infinitely more fun watching the snail for the duration of its progress than spending the same 63 minutes sitting through this film!

bkoganbing She Gods Of Shark Reef is a Roger Corman film where two fleeing Americans are washed up on the shore of an uncharted desert island with nothing but females inhabiting it. Bill Cord and Don Durant are the lucky guys and the main industry of the island is pearl diving. Despite the fact that one of them is a fugitive from the law these two think they've got it made.But as the old adage goes if something looks too good to be true, chances are it is. These women worship the shark as a deity and that's a deity that forever needs feeding. And somehow in their religion as in many others they've divined that the shark likes virginal women.Other than they don't like outsiders in general Queen Jeanne Gerson of this Amazon culture also feels that with these two healthy American men the virgin supply might start shrinking. Though you have to wonder how without men did these Amazon cultures start and keep going.All I can say is that Roger Corman did Happy Days one better by having a whole film devoted to shark worship. And the Happy Days folks thought just the Fonz jumping a shark tank was the be all end all.

drystyx What will stick out most in this low budget affair is that it truly is low budget. You can tell not much is spent in this story of a prison escape of two men, aided by the brother of one, to meet with a hurricane, and get stranded on an island of beautiful women who fish for pearls in shark infested waters.But Corman does a good job of keeping things fresh. This is a "cheese" film, make no mistake, and was meant to showcase a pair of hunks and a few gorgeous gals.You can tell no money is wasted. But we don't mind that we don't see a ship torn apart by a hurricane. Only the most hopeless of dorks would complain about the lack of special effects, so long as the story is told.There could have been more organization, however. The credits I saw on utube don't even begin to match the names of the characters. If you look at the credits while watching the movie, you'll go "Huh?".And the bad brother is a bit cliché in his consistent evil doings. May as well let him muse over taking over the world with James Bond as a nemesis.Still, the ending is totally unpredictable, particularly for Corman, and particularly for modern audiences. One has to be fairly impressed that Corman can at least keep from giving us a cliché to end this one.

Kitten-eating-ATM One way of looking at this movie is that it's one of the worst to come from its time and place. In this context, we see two young, good-looking hunks, both outlaws, who end up stranded on a tropical island inhabited by primitive hot white women who all speak broken English and cling to weird taboos and traditions, such as believing the sharks are gods, or some such nonsense.Another way of looking at this movie is that clever editing could have turned it into a touching story about two men who, while vacationing in Hawaii near the Hospital for Brain Damaged Women, discover just how attracted they are to each other soon after one of them tries to stop being gay by dating one of the native women. In this sense, one could consider this movie a well done piece of cinema history, especially since it was ahead of its time on the topic of civil rights.It is by imagining the latter scenario that this movie can be made entertaining enough to sit though. If you watch this by taking everything at face value, this flick is way too boring to finish. I'd say the only major motivation anyone would have to watch this movie is if they'd purchased some sort of boxed set that includes this, which is, incidentally, the only reason I watched it.The full synopsis goes like this: Two young, well-built dudes end up stranded on a Hawaiian beach and decide to never wear shirts again. They encounter a civilization of aforementioned broken English-speaking women led by a psychotic mother matron character who is obsessed with local tradition, which involves human sacrifice to appease the shark god. This means feeding a few of the young hotties to a mid-sized shark that may or may not be alive.One of the guys, Chris (Bill Cord) eventually falls in love with one of the native babes, Mahia (Lisa Montell), much to the irritation of Chris's ambiguously gay partner, Jim (Don Durant). Since the mother matron (Jeanne Gerson) is a nasty old woman who hates men, she decides to have Mahia sacrificed to the shark god to make herself feel better about neither Chris nor Jim finding her attractive.SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF: it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's far from the best. The good news is that this sucker is, I do believe, public domain. Those who might search for it could possibly locate it online for free.