Diving out of the Locker tonight is a 1958 Roger Corman drop-in-the-chum-bucket, “She Gods of Shark Reef.” I’ll give you three guesses as to why this movie was made and it has “something” to do with the first two words of the title and your other two guesses don’t count. Well, the plot is about as exciting as dryer lint. Two brothers, one who is a criminal and on the lam, stray too close to a Hawaiian island reef and their boat capsizes and breaks up. This happens at night in a huge storm. Meanwhile, at the exact same time and location, but somehow during the day in complete sunlight, the previously mentioned “she gods” are diving for pearls and rescue the guys from drowning. Yes, it was a dark and stormy night and a perfectly calm, sunny day all at the same time. Roger Corman can do that, you know! Once dragged to the Island, this bevy of scantly-clad sunbathing beauties tease and tantalize the brothers. However, doom lurks in the surf. There is a sunken idol, the Shark-God, who is angry and is being an bit of a douche and wrecking ships. The criminal brother decides to steal pearls from the she-gods and, of as one would expect, becomes an appetizer for a shark. The “good brother” and his personally hand-picked maiden set sail into the credits.

The only reason this flick was made was so that Roger Corman could spend a week filming in Hawaii with scantly-clad women. Seriously! The plot was inconsequential. I am not familiar with any of the actors who were gallivanting around Shark Reef and have not seen them since. Aside from the previously mentioned editing faux pas with the boat wreck and subsequent lifesaving scene, this cinematic flop offered little in the way of entertainment. I love seeing the occasional gaffe when it comes to editing, character timing, or a good continuity error, but since there was so little to the film, there waslittle to screw up.  The film was little more than an hour long. Yes, not a lot of cinematic (mis)adventure, but at the same time, not a lot of time for it to hurt!

Of note is the opening scene. The “bad” brother and a friend (who looked like a typical swami and should have been sitting cross-legged in front of a snake filled wicker basket) are clearly “pulling a job.” The job not only goes south but they kill some dude on a dock. The swami takes off and then so does the brother. There was absolutely no explanation as to what they were doing on the dock, what they were after, and who the swami was… or where he went! He disappeared from the film. It was an odd scene which didn’t do anything to push along the plot and was completely erroneous and non sequitur. As Corman flicks go, it could have used some snazzy. Hell, I would have settled for a little plot! So, dive into “She Gods of Shark Reef” and wet your whistle for some great Corman schlock.