Cyclone (1979)

René Cardona Jr made the overlong, boring and trashy shark flick Tintorerra a year before he went to make this overlong, boring and trashy disaster/survival flick with sharks thrown in. I can only imagine that the director was a real big fan of Steven Spielberg's Jaws as this is his second shark flick where sharks are not the main focus, and by rights don't actual have a real part to play in the story. I am thankful to say that he has ditched the soap opera elements of Tintorerra in favour of some more exploitative survival style elements, and it's slightly more interesting; although really the film is a mess and far to boring to entertain. The plot focuses on an airplane full of people that crashes during a storm. The survivors get themselves onto a small boat and are swept out to sea, but it's not long before hunger starts setting in, and this in turn sets off arguments between the survivors as they realise that they have to eat...something. However, their hunger isn't the only thing they are under threat from, as there's sharks in the vicinity too.The plot actually sounded like it might lead to something decent, and I dare say it would have done in the hands of a decent director. However, René Cardona Jr is obviously not one of those and he manages to turn the whole thing on its head and ensures that nothing about the film is likable. The idea of people being forced into cannibalism is interesting; but the characters are boring and the overall atmosphere is far too impressive for the film to be enjoyable at the same time. There are some real unpleasant scenes in the film, and while this might have pleased some people; they are not done very well at all and a scene that sees a man kill a dog, for example, looks incredibly fake and stupid. The location used is just about the only successful element; as we see the people baking in the hot sun and this helps to get their desperate situation across. Anyone going into this film is liable to be extremely disappointed as there are no sharks at all for most of the film (excluding some stock footage) and they don't appear until the last ten minutes. By then, it would have taken something really special to create some excitement, but predictably; we are only served more disappointment.

Rene Cardon's grim, but not entirely terrible rip-off of JAWS, HURRICANE, AIRPORT, etc. A plane crashes and the survivors are rescued by a pleasure boat. There's too many people on board, so...it's gross and very silly. Nevermind the fact that the production values stink, it's actually kind of bizarre wondering why the great Arthur Kennedy is in this thing. Is this the same multi-Oscar nominated actor from SOME CAME RUNNING, TRIAL and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?!? Carroll Baker appears as well(and is way too old at this point to be seen in a bathing suit). Clearly these faded stars needed a paycheck. The best that can be said is that it's better than Cardon's SURVIVE! Lionel Stander is in it too.

I saw the DVD of this one last week -- the sight of Carrol Baker tearing at her clothes during the rain storm, that awful guy from "Hart to Hart" and a bunch of other Euro-trash actors made this a joyride of a cannibal movie. I really liked the cheesed-out score from Riz Ortolani and the fate of the little black dog. I also have to give props to this movie for featuring real sharks that are fed bundles of clothes with meat in them for the attack scenes!! I couldn't believe it! The production is very third world feeling -- just a gloss of danger to it all.Get the new DVD (from Synapse) -- it looks great and has a bunch of stuff not on the other versions.

Certainly an intense and at times campy little cult gem from Rene Cardon Jr. I'm a fan of the disaster film. Coming into this ,I wasn't quite prepared for some of what I saw. It has an interesting cast of European cult films, including Olga Karlatos from ZOMBIE. Just think of your standard disaster film with some shocking exploitation scenes. A friend told me after viewing that the filmmakers used real corpses to feed the sharks! Don't know if those folks donated there bodies to science, but even so its an entertaining obscurity. Warning to anyone with a weak stomach as this is quite out there in some scenes,in the gross-out department. As well as anybody who might own a poodle, you might like to turn away in 1 scene. All that said, CYCLONE, is much better than Cardonas other more known disaster film, SURVIVE.