I’ve been putting off this one for years because of one specific aspect: that they killed a real dog for it, as i’ve heard this repeated on as a truth, and honestly that alone made me push it down the priority list, which might sound weird since i’ve seen a decent amount of cannibal movies, and i have pet turtles, to boot, which made that scene really hit me hard the first time around.
And i wasn’t really gonna google how a cooked dog looked like, so yeah….
Well, turns out after a bit of research that they didn’t actually kill a dog, and in a way i should have known, since Cyclone (also known as Terror Storm) is from exploitation sleaze extraordinarie Rene Cardona Jr., and while he did actually kill real sharks for Tintorera (and also he did immediatly jump on making a film adaptation of the Jonestown Massacre, remember)… once i saw the movie it’s obviously not the case, and the supposed “skinned dog” it’s a chicken, they edit in a way to make it look “real”… but if you actually stop to look at the way it’s edited it’s obviously not real, and the blood is so obviously fake stage blood, plus he’s holding the blade against the dog on the dull part.
I wanna believe Rene Cardona Jr. couldn’t get away with killing one of man’s best friends.
Yeah, regardless, this one is not for dog lovers…. well, unless you consider them a culinary treat to buy at a certain festival in Yulin.
This dog eating talk sadly isn’t really as random as it might sound, since it’s arguably the more memorable thing to happen in the film, but on this regard, let’s discuss plot, shall we?
A terribile storm (the titular cyclone) hits the waters of Puerto Rico, nearby to the infamous Bermuda Triangle, and despite the authorities sounding the alert, an airplane, a fishing vessel and a tour bout fail to hear it, resulting in the plane crashing, killing many, with the survivors from the plane and the fishermen that abandonded their ship swimming to the tourist boat.
Though, the boat is already crowded with its original passengers, the motor is dead due to cyclone damaging it, and sharks have been seen nearby, attracted by the dead on board of the crashed airplane, so as the days pass by stranded at sea, they have to resort to extreme measures for survival.
Not before the dog belonging to one of the tourist is killed for food first.
Apparently is based on the 1944 Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat, but feels more like Cardona Jr. felt like capitalizing on the 1972 infamous event of a plane crashing in the snowy Andes (which is also referred to by the characters in Cyclone too, weirdly enough) where the survivors had to resort to cannibalism eventually, just setting in the Carribean and also adding a shark on the cover.
Extra sleazy when you consider his father, Rene Cardona Sr., already did adapt the event in 1976’s Survive, but again, shame has never been a thing for the Cardonas, for better or worse.
Tha said, this isn’t really a shark movie, is tangentally so, barely, as in, it has sharks in it, but they’re not the focus, at all, they’re kinda there and act as you’d expect them to do, this is more of a survival film with cannibal-exploitation film sensibilities thrown it for shock value, like i’m surprised that after a woman gave birth on the boat, no one went full Antrophophagus on the bundle of joy itself.
Then again, Cardona Jr.’s Night Of The Thousand Cats didn’t have nearly that much felines in it, so i’m not really surprised, and this is more of a companion piece to the other 1978 Rene Cardona Jr. directed film, The Bermuda Triangle (the one with John Huston and a creepy evil doll), also an Italian-Mexican co-production which – like the aforementioned Tintorera – had footage of real sharks being killed, but was made to cash into the mystique of the Bermuda Triangle itself.
Two things i’ve come to expect from Cardona Junior’ films: a surprisingly good underwater cinematography and Hugo Stigliz in the cast.
Death and taxes kinda deal, and this movie is no exception, but the cast also has some old american actors like Arthur Kennedy, Carroll Baker and Lionel Standers, not that it matters since even the more navigated players have nothing to work off, the characters are all one note stereotyped featherless bypeds (the preggo one, the priest, the stoic one, the optimistic fisherman, etc.), you’ll never give a shit about what happens to any of them, as Cardona Jr. incompetence comes through even when you can kinda tell he’s actually trying to make the drama itself work, but it might be me being generous and more likely is that most of the budget went into that dog killing scene,
I don’t even wanna talk too much about that, but the reason why this movie is even remembered at all is because of that scene, which obviously exists for shock value, looks fake as hell, but it’s something happening, finally, after 60/70 minutes of drek, something to break the tedium of nothing happening, of characters you don’t give a shit about slumming through scenes of passing the rationed water, saying some bullshit for conflict’s sake, making for very little plot paced poorly, with a very Cardona Jr. amount of padding.
This is one of the cases where i’d kinda recommend the cut version that runs 97 minutes, as the integral one is barely below 2 hours and boy you’ll feel those, and yes, there are shark attacks at the very end, but it’s too little, too late, it’s obvious recycled stock footage of sharks eating stuff with rags put on them to look like clothes, and not even the super funky, super out of place score by Riz Ortolani (of Cannibal Holocaust fame) is enough, it doesn’t matter.
Plus the dog killing scene is also edited in a way to maximize its shock value, it’s not off screen at all, kinda comes out of nowhere and happens fast.
and to be honest this is not even one of Cardona Jr. worse offenses, as in, it feels like there’s some effort put in trying to make it work without resorting to costant gore, it’s not even that exploitationy, which is kinda disappointing because they never go full cannibal either (them discussing the subject is what the cut version eskews, so you won’t miss anything)…. and honestly i’d argue it makes this worse, as it’s an insane bore all the way through.
There are movies you watch, and there are movie you sit through, where you force yourself to keep going when you would rather do anything else, like playing more Donkey Kong Bananza.
A sentiment i might have more often than i should admit, but i stand by it, and there’s no random dog killing scene in it, which already makes Bananza the superior piece of media.
Cyclone was more recently released on Bluray by Vinegar Syndrome as part of their Cardona Collection: Volume One boxset, but it’s not hard to find…. it’s just a slog, bad but not in a way that makes it an experience, that makes it funny, this is just a drag of a film that doesn’t really work either as a survival film or as a sleazy exploitation, and even for bad movie buffs this is one you suffer and power through the boredom more than actually watching.
It escapes being completely devoid of value since despite Cardona Jr.’s incompetence, you can sense an effort to make the drama work in itself (doomed as it is since the characters barely register as such), the dog killing scene -for better or worse – is memorable, the misplaced Riz Ortolani tunes are good, and it’s not “blow my own brains out” boring. Plus this time no one killed sharks for it, which is sadly indicative of how non-existent was the bar for Rene Cardona Jr. movies.
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