The Last Shark (1981)

Shark films are ubiquitous in the current streaming landscape, yet few manage to escape the shadow of Jaws or Deep Blue Sea. Most are quickly relegated to the category of B-movie trash. This makes the celebrated Blu-ray release of 1981’s Italian knock-off, The Last Shark (original title L’ultimo squalo), complete with a plethora of extras, all the more curious.

Infamously blocked from release in the United States by Universal—the studio behind Jaws—The Last Shark sees a greedy great white terrorize a small seaside town. Far from simply copying the original, the film largely devours Jaws 2, following the formula of a community divided as an oversized predator begins chewing up residents. James Franciscus and Vic Morrow star as the duo determined to hunt the shark down.

Helmed by Enzo G. Castellari, the film occasionally manages to ramp up genuine tension. While a larger budget might have salvaged some of the hoakier moments—and this is by no means an undiscovered classic—Castellari’s commitment shines through, ensuring a couple of key scenes land effectively.

The central pairing of Morrow and Franciscus is one of the film’s high points. Their burgeoning partnership provides a nice dynamic; it’s almost the friendship we never saw between Quint and Brody. Vic Morrow channels a bit of Robert Shaw’s Quint, complete with a surprisingly fun (if inconsistent) Scottish accent. He plays his character as a pleasant sort, smiling at kids goofing around on the beach before inevitably stepping into the shark hunt. James Franciscus makes for an appropriately bland but capable lead. Meanwhile, the mayor, played by Joshua Sinclair (credited as Thomas Moore in some cuts), struggles with the town’s future, occupying the Murray Hamilton role.

The film offers some genuinely fun set pieces, such as the infamous windsurfing buffet sequence, which culminates in a comically placed dummy becoming a meme-worthy moment.

Interestingly, we see the shark model—or “Not-Jaws”—much more frequently than the one in the original Jaws. While not terrible, the model looks realistic enough that footage was reportedly reused in a couple of other low-budget films. The shark is large enough for a Vic Morrow-shaped doll to be draped out of its mouth, which speaks volumes about its delightfully over-the-top nature.

The film’s current 12 rating in the UK is surprising, given a sequence where an attractive young woman runs in slow motion toward the water, periodically intercut with footage of the shark frolicking. What starts as a potentially lurid sequence quickly becomes strangely impactful and almost artistic, demonstrating Castellari’s visual flair.

The Last Shark is a true struggle for enjoyment because it manages to be both pretty good and pretty bad. It doesn’t descend into the crazy nonsense of something like Cruel Jaws or relish in the exploitation found in Deep Blood; it’s a solid low-budget movie with silly constraints.

However, if you’re looking to scratch that pure shark movie itch, watching this instead of Jaws or Jaws 2 would be a bad call. On the original Jaws scale, most fans would agree it’s much better than Jaws: The Revenge, marginally more enjoyable than Jaws 3-D, worse than Jaws 2, and, of course, incomparable to the 1975 original.

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I love the film’s great artwork, but the promotional titles are even better. It was cheekily marketed as Son of Jaws, Jaws Return, and Tiburon 3. The latter title is particularly interesting because Tiburon is Spanish for Shark, and the original two Jaws films were known in Spain as Tiburon and Tiburon 2.