Mako: The Jaws Of Death

Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: William Grefe

Starring: Richard Jaeckel, Jennifer Bishop, Buffy Dee, Harold Sakata, John David Chandler

From: Universal Majestic Inc.

Finally I am caught up here; this is what I wrote on Letterboxd yesterday about a movie I saw Friday night: 

An aquatic movie (Friday) only made sense; as mentioned in my last review I was two hours away in Vero Beach, Florida with some members of my family. That experience included time spent at a small resort-as in, it only had eighteen rooms-and a few hours spent on a boat that was to involve deep sea fishing but as the seas were rough, that was instead done closer to shore. A few dolphins and manatees were spotted, but no sharks. Also, it was a surprise that this movie began w/... deep sea fishing. The boat was larger than the one I was on; also, no one on the vehicle looked like Elton John's chubby cousin from the American South as you see here...

The only William Grefe films I'd seen before this were Sting of Death (which perhaps I should have rated higher as a movie about a jellyfish man which features a soundtrack ditty from Neil Sedaka did make me laugh in disbelief) and long before Letterboxd, the “William Shatner is a killer of women” picture Impulse. The director has enough fans where Arrow released a box set featuring seven of his motion pictures. Via Arrow's streaming site I saw this and I could catch up on the others if I want to... seeing at least one more isn't out of question as I was more entertained by this than expected.

It's a wacky yet sobering look at life in a Southern Florida-Vero Beach is a bit north of that-where via a backstory given in the middle of the movie, Richard Jaeckel can actually communicate w/ sharks via a medallion given to him by sharks. The sleepy hamlet he lives in is full of A-holes who want to mass murder any species of shark presumably because they just saw Jaws. Thus, those people have to die, sometimes at the hands-or rather, fins-of that animal. One of the bad guys included Harold Sakata; what a sight to see Oddjob in tiny swim trunks. Of course, the most fascinating aspect of this sympathetic look at sharks is that this idea in 2022 is far more accepted than when this came out a year after Jaws. Most movies featuring shark killings have them as horror movie monsters, which had the tragic consequence of it being a contributing factor (although not the main one) of so many species being threatened w/ extinction. Plus, the movie makes it so incredibly easy to root against the jerks who are killing our fine-finned friends.

I could CARP about some aspects but overall I was amused by this oddity. A nice performance from Jaeckel was certainly an asset. There isn't as much shark as you might expect... that was OK with me as I was fascinated with life in this quaint little town, which would be a fine place to visit or perhaps even live in-if there weren't so many tools. Mix in unexpected meteorological events & an odd score which was still pretty boss, and Mako: Jaws of Death was quite the trip. One final note:

The movie featured some occasional actors who had more prominent roles in the music industry. Buffy Dee was a rather large individual (as in, looking to be around 400 pounds, i.e. 181 kilograms) who was a jazz drummer and here, portrayed a major jerk that owned a dingy bar. He was shirtless for a few minutes; I'll presume that was done as a way to “gross out” the viewer. That's the movie fat-shaming, not me. Another portly individual was Milton “Butterball” Smith, shown for about 90 seconds as a bartender. What a life he had: Smith was a popular DJ from the 50's through the early 80's; as a Black man he actually helped popularize many R&B tunes from them being played on the radio stations he worked at. Helping in his popularity was all the community service he did. Heck, he apparently knew quite a few Black celebrities, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and James Brown. It sounds like he had a fascinating life I'd love to know more about, including how he became pals w/Grefe and appeared in a few of his pictures.