Jaws [M]

The summer resort community of Amity Island depends on their clear skies and their safe waters to draw in the tourists and the “summer business”. But the island’s promised “safe swimming” is blown clean out of the water when the authorities and experts discover that a great white killer shark is lurking beneath its depths and feeding on the swimmers. 

I’m shuddering all over and my stomach is currently twisting itself into a million knots. Jaws was the movie that had cues of people lining the streets to see it, and was a wonderful, almost Hitchcock-style thriller that was filled with action, marine life, and an epic battle at sea. 

The summer resort community of Amity Island depends on their clear skies and their safe waters to draw in the tourists and the “summer business.” But the island’s promised “safe swimming” is blown clean out of the water when the authorities discover that a great white killer shark is lurking in the depths and is feeding on the swimmers. Bravely, the local chief of police, a shark expert, and the island’s local expert fisherman, embark upon an epic marine venture to rid the waters of this great eating machine once and for all. 

So what if the shark was made of rubber and named Bruce? The effect of Jaws was unlike any I’ve experienced in a film so far: it both held my attention and repulsed me. As I mentioned before, the film is rather Hitchcock-like as it uses the movement of the camera and the sinister music (score done by John Williams who won the Academy Award for it) to create the tension and primal fear. The great beast itself is nothing special, being a rubber and rather fake looking shark, but I think it was really spot-on of Spielberg to make us see as little of him as possible. Because the marriage of the music and the movement of the camera is enough to set your mind reeling and before you know it, you’re yelling “GET OUT OF THE WATER” at the TV. That part of the film kept me at the edge of my seat. 

The part that repulsed me and tied my stomach into knots was the death scenes. The mixture of the screaming, the gurgling, the gasping, the crunching of bones, and then finally, the silence freaked me out more than any horror film that I have seen so far (which, admittedly is not saying very much, but still). 

The other brilliant thing about the film was the central cast. Three very different characters that are stuck together in the middle of the sea, wondering if they’ll ever step on dry land again. Roy Scheider as the Amity cop who, even with a profound amount of evidence, can’t convince the mayor to close the beaches, Richard Dreyfuss as the shark expert providing much of the film’s comic relief, and Robert Shaw as the old sea-dog expert fisherman showing Dreyfuss how to be just as effective the old-fashioned way. All three turned in great performances and were very memorable. 

Starring Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Johnathan Filley, Ted Grossman, Chris Rebello, Jay Mello, Lee Fierro, Jeffrey Voorhees, and Craig Kingsbury, Jaws was a thrilling adventure at sea that was filled with action, death, marine life, heaps of blood, and the two most famous notes in music history. It was chilling, thrilling, shocking, and repulsive. It was bloody great!