this video I found at a goodwill for $.99 on VHS. CHEESY!! totally dated I guessed 1977 and I was right. I wonder if this is a public domain film. I wonder who owns the copyrights,I bet they may sell them to me for cheap. .shark footage is pretty good .with that horrible line of dialog,in fact it is better than that.Overall, while this is really cheesy and dated. it is very entertaining just for that 70's feel and for the shark footage.Surprised by the violence in this film;its disturbing.the mental anguish and deranged lunatic of the main character is frightening.If you run across this film, get it.its worth watching one time!!!
3 Reviews
Boring as hell pseudo-documentary
Leofwine_draca20 October 2015
JAWS OF DEATH is an obscure pseudo-documentary about a team of researchers and their hunt for killer whales, which they believe they can communicate with via their then top of the range sonar equipment. To make the film even more obscure, there was a (fictional) shark film released at the same time, called MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH, and the two titles appear to be readily confused. This one's definitely a documentary, though, or at least it purports to be.
And what a boring documentary this is. There's some merit in watching a dedicated team chasing after a difficult goal, but most of this equates to immense boredom on the part of the viewer. The guys are all hirsute, with awful facial hair and fashion, and their staged dialogue scenes are so wooden as to be embarrassing. Occasionally a ponderous narrator will pop up to impart some scientific knowledge, but it's all very dull.
Some viewers will question the ethics of the production. The divers seem fond of a huge octopus and deliberately spray an irritant into its lair in order to bring it out into the open where they can then wrestle with it. I felt sorry for the poor thing - it's the oceanic equivalent of being pepper sprayed, I guess. I called this a pseudo-documentary at the beginning of the viewer, because the climax - in which the characters stare in wonder at a handful of performing orcas - appears to have been staged in a Sealife centre or some such place. In other words, the wild killer whales have been substituted for tamed, trained ones. There are a few giveaways, like the way the close-up filming never reveals the background of these scenes, plus I have it on good account from the BLACKFISH documentary that the limp dorsal fin (as seen on the orcas here) is a sign of a captive rather than wild animal.
And what a boring documentary this is. There's some merit in watching a dedicated team chasing after a difficult goal, but most of this equates to immense boredom on the part of the viewer. The guys are all hirsute, with awful facial hair and fashion, and their staged dialogue scenes are so wooden as to be embarrassing. Occasionally a ponderous narrator will pop up to impart some scientific knowledge, but it's all very dull.
Some viewers will question the ethics of the production. The divers seem fond of a huge octopus and deliberately spray an irritant into its lair in order to bring it out into the open where they can then wrestle with it. I felt sorry for the poor thing - it's the oceanic equivalent of being pepper sprayed, I guess. I called this a pseudo-documentary at the beginning of the viewer, because the climax - in which the characters stare in wonder at a handful of performing orcas - appears to have been staged in a Sealife centre or some such place. In other words, the wild killer whales have been substituted for tamed, trained ones. There are a few giveaways, like the way the close-up filming never reveals the background of these scenes, plus I have it on good account from the BLACKFISH documentary that the limp dorsal fin (as seen on the orcas here) is a sign of a captive rather than wild animal.
A masterpiece shark video.
amcculley-11 January 2007
Jaws of Death is a fun, yet interesting piece of mostly forgotten cinema. This video is very difficult to find, and will not be at your local video discount. Jaws of Death is not very popular due to the reason that people often confuse it with the 1976 Mako: The Jaws of Death. This is far more entertaining than Mako: The Jaws of Death.I recently viewed this videos homepage on the Internet Movie Database, and I realized that most of the posted comments are not for Jaws of Death, but for Mako:Rhe Jaws of Death. I know that these two videos are different because, I have watched both videos, and they are similar, yet not the same. If you happen to stumble upon this video, take the wonderful opportunity to enjoy this masterpiece.
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