Beyond The Reef (1979)

aka’s: Sea Killer/Shark Catcher From Bora Bora/The Hero King/SEAKILLER

Tikoyo (as a child played by Joseph Ka’ne) lives by the Bora Bora lagoon in the South Pacific, where he found a man-eating tiger shark when it was an orphaned baby, just a foot long. He named it Manidu, and it grew to be sixteen feet long. Tikoyo believes that his companion houses the soul of a wise old man, and helps him guard the sacred black pearls in the lagoon. In fact, Manidu does protect the adult Tikoyo (Dayton Ka’ne) and his girlfriend Diana (Maren Jensen), only eating those who are their enemies, who seek to destroy their environment or steal the pearls. Also stars Kathleen Swan.

This extremely rare film was one of many that were influenced by the summer blockbuster film Jaws (1975), which was produced to cash in on the then current wave of shark films that flooded the market in the 1970’s and 1980’s.