Orca

In the years following Jaws, theaters were overrun by killer creature features. Among the non-shark offenders: alligators, ants, barracuda, bats, bears, bees, bigfeet, crocodiles, dogs, elephants, giant squid, Loch Ness monsters, octopuses, piranha, prehistorical fish, sea turtles, sharktopuses, spiders, worms. Almost all of these ripoffs suck bilge, some achieving epochal bad movie status. Who can forget Grizzly, where Christopher George dispatches the titular bruin with a bazooka?

The most infamous is Orca (1977). Producer Dino De Laurentiis seriously thought he could outdo Steven Spielberg, resulting in this overblown monstrosity. It has moments of camp hysteria, but is mostly boring and ponderous.

Drunken sea captain Nolan (Richard Harris) kills a pregnant female killer whale, earning him the wrath of its mate. The surviving orca goes on a vendetta, laying waste to the Newfoundland town Nolan takes refuge in. After several of his buddies are killed, Nolan sets out to settle scores, with marine biologist Rachel (Charlotte Rampling) and a wise Indian (Will Sampson) in tow. Through a tragedy in his past, Nolan feels a personal connection to the whale, but his finny antagonist won't let bygones be bygones.

Orca hilariously kicks off with a whale killing a great white shark (take that Spielberg!) and goes more insane from there. Apparently thinking Jaws lacked sufficient pathos, the filmmakers jam early scenes with nauseating sentimentality. We see carefree orcas frolicking through the ocean. Director Michael Anderson provides close-ups of a whale eye weeping as its mate gets harpooned. Then the damned thing roars like a bear as Mrs. Orca miscarries a fetus onto the ship's deck (!).

I did not make up any of the proceding paragraph.

Orca sadly abandons this silliness for stultifying pretension. Characters spew an incomprehensible mixture of biology, nautical nonsense and tribal lore that undermines any credibility. Nolan and Rachel fall for each other, seemingly to mark time as they have nothing in common. Writers Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati (far removed from their Sergio Leone films) provide Nolan a tragic backstory which, all things considered, is laughable. Killer whale rampages don't lend themselves to deep character drama.

But the last straw is the ludicrous attack scenes. This is a resourceful cetacean, blowing up half the town by gnawing through a gas line, then pulling an entire house off its stilts. Of course it gloats over the destruction, leaping in the harbor as the town burns. Most amazingly, this marine Macguyver wants a mano-a-aleta showdown with Nolan. Perhaps Donati and Vincenzoni conceived this as a Spaghetti Western, complete with stylized flashbacks, ocular close-ups, and Ennio Morricone score. Even so, the protracted polar finale slavishly recycles Jaws.

Richard Harris's scenery-chewing provides some laughs, especially when the film tries for pathos. By contrast, Charlotte Rampling and Bo Derek find emotion a foreign concept. Will Sampson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is an annoying stereotype, while Robert Carradine (The Long Riders) and Keenan Wynn (Dr. Strangelove) play whale munchies.

Orca is a whale of a flop. The movie neither makes sense nor scares, and even the unintentional humor wears thin pretty fast. If you're inclined to check out Jaws ripoffs, stick with Alligator, which is at least intentionally funny.