Mexican exploitation movies? Mexican disaster
movies? Mexican Exploitation/disaster movies?
Mexicans make movies?
Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. I’m sure
that the Spanish film industry is thriving. Hell, look at
the mainstream success of Guillermo Del Toro. Also take note
how quickly that guy fled to Hollywood as soon as he got a
little attention. Not to say anything bad about Mexico or
its people, but you can easily turn to Telemundo any day of
the week and quickly connect the dots.
So getting Cyclone in the mail felt like
an opportunity to explore a section of cinema that I hadn’t
really considered in the world of exploitation. Popping in
the disc, I felt regret for my decision. A deep, ugly regret.
Nothing happens in Cyclone.
 Okay,
that might be an exaggeration, too. Of course there’s a plot
to Cyclone, but it’s the most basic
story possible. A cyclone hits somewhere off the coast of
an unidentified Caribbean-esque coastline, which leaves a
few boats and a plane stranded in the ocean. Eventually everyone
meets up on the biggest boat and they all sit around starving
to death. Once people start dying, the crew considers cannibalism.
An obvious tough decision that burns in the minds of everyone
on board, from the crazed priest who demands everyone forget
the idea to the pregnant woman who is ready to give birth
at any moment to the children who stand around doing nothing.
While there have been movies with the most simple of plotlines
that still manage to be riveting from the first frame to the
last, Cyclone is definitely not that movie.
In fact, the loving yet sarcastic liner notes suggest that
a cinematic signature of director Rene Cardona Jr’s
is “long spans of time where nothing happens.”
Surprisingly that’s not the half of it: after about
113 minutes where people complain about lack of food, there’s
about five minutes of pure action at the end of the film wherein
sharks devour clothing and blood packets.
 So
what goes on for those preceding 113 minutes? A lot of staring,
a lot of whining and a dead body or two. That’s it.
The film is populated with characters so under-developed they
don’t even come across as broad stereotypes. This is
a film that borders on the two-hour mark, and I can’t
recall a single character’s name. Sure, there’s
a rich girl (you can tell she’s rich because she has
a dog) and a priest who yells, but there are probably 20 people on the boat. These characters are so useless that when
the pregnant woman finally gives birth to her child, you’re
rooting for the group to pick that baby up and eat it. Anything
to make this film more active and watchable. I mean, come
on! This is supposed to be an exploitation movie! The fontanel
on a baby’s head is soft enough to bite through like
a sweet, delicious pear.
But the characters don’t eat the baby. Instead they
spend over a week to finally muster up the courage to eat
the rich girl’s dog – something I would have done
on the first day, but I’m part Chinese so those ideas
come naturally. When someone finally dies from natural causes,
the crew has to decide whether they should eat the body.  What’s
the moral thing to do? The dead guy’s best friend announces
to the crew that the dead man’s wish was to be eaten
if such a situation arose, which is a pretty fishy claim.
The only enjoyable part of the movie is the carnage-filled
ending where a bunch of sharks dine on human ass. Seriously,
every shot of an approaching shark always goes directly to
the ass of its victim. But I can’t recommend the film
on the ass-filled ending alone. I guess if you had to watch
it, I would suggest putting it on fast-forward while reciting
the phrases “I’m hungry,” “I’m
very, very hungry” and “You don’t understand,
I’m really hungry” to yourself.
 Presentation
Synapse once again puts out an impressive transfer
for a movie that no one is going to pay attention to. A bit
of grain is present throughout the film, the colors are as
good as you’re going to get from a movie set on a single
boat in the ocean, and the sharpness level is especially good.
The audio is a bit on the quiet side, but if you crank the
volume up high enough, the dubbed mono soundtrack is fairly
easy to listen to.
Extras
Not a whole lot has been put into
this release. First up is a pair of trailers for
Rene Cardona Jr.’s other films (neither for Cyclone),
along with a separate section of trailers for other Synapse
Films releases. Also included, though not advertised on the
back of the box, is an alternate opening credits sequence for the US edit, named Terror Storm. There
is a set of liner notes included which give a little
background on Cardona Jr. and manages to poke a little fun
at his films.
Overall
You’ve got cannibalism, shark
attacks, plane crashes, famine, crazed priests and dog killing,
yet Cyclone manages to pack that all only
in its beginning and end. What’s in between? A whole
lot of nothing.
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