| “ | For a woman who has the sensitivity of a slut... to the point of giving her lover the identical watch she gave to her husband as an anniversary present, I will not accept lessons. | ” |
| - Professor West |
- For the episode, see MST3K 911 - Devil Fish.
Devil Fish is a 1984 thriller directed by Lamberto Bava.
Plot[]
Creative censor bar in Devil Fish
On a stretch of the Florida coast, a local tourist spot has become plagued by a mysterious marine creature. The monster is the product of a secret military experiment to create a genetic hybrid mutated from a common octopus and the prehistoric Dunkleosteus. The creature has escaped, and is now feeding on swimmers and tourists along the coast. The monster is only an infant and will continue to grow if it is not stopped.
A team of biologists and oceanographers led by Peter and his colleague Dr. Stella Dickens try to find the creature and stop it. A group of military scientists are trying to stop the team because the experiment was classified. Both groups suffer casualties as the creature attacks them. They eventually find that it is hiding in the Everglades and manage to corner it in shallow waters and kill it with repeated blasts from flamethrowers.
Cast[]
- Michael Sopkiw as Peter
- Valentine Monnier as Dr. Stella Dickson
- Gianni Garko as Sheriff Gordon
- William Berger as Prof. Donald West
- Iris Peynado as Sandra Hayes
- Lawrence Morgant as Dr. Davis Barker
Notes[]
- The film's director Lamberto Bava (working under the pseudonym John Old Jr.) is the son of famed Italian director Mario Bava, whose 1968 film Diabolik! was later featured in Season 10.
- Luigi Cozzi (aka Lewis Coates) contributed to the story.
- The original, uncut version of the movie (titled Monster Shark) features considerably more violence, but is more coherently edited.
- The marine paleontologist misidentifies a present-day basking shark as an extinct marine reptile named Tylosaurus, along with other errors.
- Star Michael Sopkiw has attributed the film's flaws and negative reviews to the production's limited budget, saying that Lamberto Bava was a great director. He has stated that despite the film being set in Florida, the cast often had to swim in extremely cold water.
- The film was shot entirely in Florida in and around the Everglades in real interior and exterior locations. This is unusual for Italian films, which often have exteriors filmed on location and interiors on sound stages in Italy.
- The film's cast and crew were made up of Americans, Italians, and Latin Americans, so communication was often a challenge. The cast shot their scenes speaking their native languages, knowing that the dialog would be dubbed in English later.
- This is one of many films inspired by the success of the Jaws franchise. Jaws would become a RiffTrax production years later (as would The Last Shark, another Jaws-inspired film).
- One scene of this film contains a brief glimpse of a male character's genitals, which the Sci-Fi Channel censored by superimposing the MST3K logo. Like many of the R-rated movies used on the show, key death scenes were removed entirely due to being impossible to edit.
MST3K Connections[]
- Director Lamberto Bava was also assistant director for Diabolik.
- Story writer Luigi Cozzi was also director and writer for Starcrash.
- Writer Vincenzo Mannino was also writer for Argoman the Fantastic Superman.
- Actor and assistant director Goffredo Unger (fisherman who loses his arm) also portrayed Remar in Hercules Against the Moon Men (also stuntman) and a diplomat in Diabolik (also John Philip Law's stunt double), as well as being assistant director and stunt coordinator for Starcrash.
- Cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando was also cinematographer for Warrior of the Lost World.
- Editor Roberto Sterbini was also editor for Killer Fish.
- Production designer and costume designer Massimo Antonello Geleng was also production designer for Warrior of the Lost World.