Night of the Sharks (Blu-ray Review)

Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
Review Date: Aug 11, 2025
Format: Blu-ray Disc

Director

Tonino Ricci

Release Date(s)

1988 (July 29, 2025)

Studio(s)

Distribuzione Lanciamento Film (Severin Films)

Film/Program Grade: C+
Video Grade: B
Audio Grade: B
Extras Grade: D-
Overall Grade: B

https://severinfilms.com/

Review

Night of the Sharks (aka La notte degli squali): the Italian crime thriller/killer shark movie starring Daniel Ciello and Huggy Bear that you never knew you wanted, but always needed. Only, this isn’t really an Italian exploitation version of Prince of the City mixed with Starsky & Hutch, as much as it’s a distant cousin of Alastair MacLean and Peter Benchley—sort of Fear Is the Key meets The Deep. All the elements are here: a criminal conspiracy; a hero that the bad guys keep underestimating; a McGuffin that that the bad guys are after; various double-crosses and betrayals; and stakes that get increasingly personal for said hero once loved his ones start getting hurt. All that, plus scuba diving, shipwrecks, underwater plane wrecks, hidden treasure, and a preternaturally intelligent shark named Cyclops that just won’t take “no” for an answer. What more could a growing boy want?

The script for Night of the Sharks is credited to Tito Carpi and director Tonino Ricci, and it goes out of its way to jam as much into a 90-minute running time as possible. David Zielger (Treat Williams) is a professional beach bum eking out a living in Cancún. Between his friend and partner Paco (Antonio Fargas) on land and a shark with a chip on its shoulder in the waters where they live, he’s got enough to keep him busy. Yet his life gets upended when his brother James (Carlo Mucari) shows up unexpectedly. James has an incriminating recording of wealthy industrialist Rosentski (John Steiner), which he used to blackmail the businessman out of $2 million in diamonds. He’s on the run now, with Rosentski’s thuggish but unnamed henchman (Stelio Candelli) hot on his heels. That ends up putting David in the crosshairs, not just between his brother and Rosentski, but also between his current girlfriend Juanita (Nina Soldano) and his ex-wife Liz (Janet Agren). Yet an unexpected ally proves to be the key to the solution out of these troubles, for good and for ill. (Night of the Sharks also stars Christopher Connelly in his final role, as the local priest Father Mattia.)

While the title Night of the Sharks makes a promise that the film doesn’t necessarily keep, Cyclops isn’t just window dressing here, and the nuisance shark does play an important role in the story. Unsurprisingly, Ramón Bravo worked on the underwater sequences, though as was often the case, some rather dubious methodologies were used for the sharks (something that Bravo participated in repeatedly despite being something of a conservationist). Be forewarned that the animal action here wasn’t supervised by the Humane Association, and sharks were clearly mistreated and killed—it looks like they used a real but dead shark, puppeteered offscreen, for the closeups with the actors. The scene where Cyclops meets its fate looks a little suspect, too. (And inexplicably, Night of the Sharks takes the dinosaur-roaring shark from Jaws to the next level, with Cyclops sounding like a trumpeting elephant every time that it closes in on its prey.)

Questionable treatment of sharks aside, director Tonino Ricci keeps all the other convoluted elements in Night of the Sharks moving breezily, and at a scant 90 minutes, the film never wears out its welcome. Yet even if Ricci had dropped the ball, the late Treat Williams was able to skate by on charm alone, and he’s in his own element here playing what’s essentially an early version of Finnegan from Deep Rising. And that, O my brothers (and sisters) and only true friends, is exactly what a growing boy (or girl) needs.

Cinematographer Giovanni Bergamini shot Night of the Sharks on 35mm film using spherical lenses, framed at 1.66:1 for its international theatrical release (it went straight to video in the United States, so it would have originally been seen open-matte 1.33:1 here). According to Severin, this version is based on a 4K scan of the “only known uncut 35mm print,” although there’s no indication of how much cleanup work was applied to it. Regardless, it needs to be judged with a grain of salt given the source. The image looks surprisingly clean, but the grain is heavier than it would have been via a scan of the camera negative. The contrast range is limited by the nature of being a fourth-generation print element, with dimly lit interiors and night shots suffering the worst. Detail is crushed out of the blacks, but that detail wouldn’t have existed on the print in the first place. With all of that out of the way, this is still a decent visual representation of Night of the Sharks, looking exactly like what it is: film. Nothing wrong with that.

Audio is offered in English 2.0 stereo and Italian 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio, with
English SDH subtitles for the former and standard English for the latter. There aren’t any Dolby Stereo or Ultra Stereo logos in the credits, but the English stereo track does appear to be encoded for surround sound, although there are phase issues that prevent any surround effects from being decoded cleanly. It’s mostly ambience anyway, with the bulk of the stereo spread coming from the lively score by Stelvio Cipriani (who seems to be channeling Jan Hammer as best as he can, adding another layer of influences to the film).

Severin’s Limited Edition Blu-ray release of Night of the Sharks is a two-disc set that includes a CD with Stelvio Cipriani’s soundtrack, as well as a slipcover. (Note that we were sent a check disc version, so I can’t comment further on the actual packaging of the final release.) It’s also available as a part of their three film, six-disc set Feeding Frenzy: The Italian Sharksploitation Collection. The following extras are included:

DISC ONE: BD

Trailer (HD – 1:18)

DISC TWO: CD

Prelude/Titles (4:53)
Dangerous Waters (1:53)
Shark Hunt (3:35)
David in Action (2:08)
Bandidos (3:36)
Piano Misterioso (4:16)
David and Liz (1:42)
Paco (2:48)
Night of Love (1:49)
David’s Escape (1:38)
Unforgettable Moment (1:53)
Juanita (1:44)
False Identity (1:35)
Illegal Activities (1:57)
Two Lovers (1:26)
Chase (1:44)
Escape to the Jungle (1:43)
Ambush (3:54)
The Hunt Continues (3:39)
David’s Revenge (3:43)
Confrontation (3:52)
End Titles (3:13)

What this set lacks in extras it makes up for with the soundtrack, so it’s still a nice package overall. Night of the Sharks probably wasn’t on anyone’s 2025 Blu-ray bingo card, so we’ll take it any way that we can get it. Severin did a fine job of working with what they had available to them, so the film looks and sounds as good as it possibly can here. It’s a deep dive into the world of Italian exploitation films that’s worth making for the presence of Treat Williams alone—and I’ll freely admit personal bias there, so take that with a grain of salt if you must. Recommended for those who can see the appeal!

- Stephen Bjork

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