Jaws (1975)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Story: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb (based on Peter Benchley’s novel)
Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
Music: John Williams
Time: 124 minutes
Bottom-line: Jaws has the right amount of blood and violence to make a terrific horror- thriller

  Steven Spielberg’s classic horror thriller Jaws, though released more than 30 years ago, proves to be a classic in the horror genre, joining films like Jurassic Park etc. Despite several technical problems and high production costs, the brilliance of Spielberg managed to make this film a hit. What makes Jaws one of Spielberg’s best films? Read on.

The three hunters: Shaw (left), Scheider (center) and Dreyfuss (right)

The film begins with a girl going skinny dipping in a beach. She is mysteriously dragged underwater by some unknown object. The next day, the remains of her body is found on the beach by Chief Inspector Martin Brody (Scheider), who immediately plans on closing the beach, after the doctor says that the cause of death was a shark attack. However, the Mayor dismisses this request. Another attack attracts local shark hunter Quint (Shaw). Finally, another attack forces Brody to ask Quint to hunt down the shark. They are joined by marine biologist Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss). Brody, Hooper and Quint set sail on Quint’s boat, Orca. The rest of the film is about whether or not the three men hunt down the shark, before it hunts them.

The shark

Richard Dreyfuss said, and I quote, “We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark,” hinting at the film’s troubled production. Spielberg did not want to choose big stars as the lead actors, as he wanted to show the incidents as if they were happening to ordinary people. The main reason for a huge budget was the problems with the mechanical shark; this became so severe that people started calling the film ‘Flaws’(source Wikipedia).Yet, Spielberg decided to go on and today, we have a great film to watch.

One of the lesser known reasons for the film’s success is John Williams. Spielberg did not want to use a mechanical shark for many scenes because of the problems it caused. Instead, he asked Williams to compose the score to make people feel that something was approaching. So, Spielberg just creates an appearance as if a shark is coming. Williams has done a terrific job, and Spielberg also must receive credit, for thinking of such idea (though somewhat similar to Hitchcock’s Psycho, where the score adds to the thrill). The actual shark is shown only after about 70 minutes into the film, yet the horror starts before that.

The script is excellent. The story is overall fast-paced, but in a way, it is like a Hitchcock film. Plenty of time is given for building up the plot and creating suspense, which makes the film a wee bit slow. The suspense is good, and the tension is held at screaming point at few places. The camera work is top notch. All the scenes underwater are filmed well, and all the shark attacks, on both the people and especially on the boat, are excellent to watch.

Spielberg creates horror by showing some scenes with just blood in the beginning, but no actual corpses or something like half-eaten bodies. This film was released two years after the famous horror movie The Exorcist. Now that is definitely not a thriller. All the film does is scare the hell out of the viewers using a possessed girl, but here, the film does not use supernatural beings for horror: it uses something which we know exists, a tiger shark. I am giving a comparison between the two films, because AFI chose Jaws as the second best thriller of all time, and The Exorcist as the third. Yet, there are few sick scenes, and I do mean sick. The scene where Hooper cuts open the shark, and the scene where he goes underwater to find the tooth are disgusting to see, but of course, they all add to the horror.

Some good editing along with excellent camera work adds to the thrills. The sudden appearance of the shark, the attacks it makes and few other gruesome scenes all add to the horror. Yet, what is remarkable is how Spielberg has scared the wits out of many viewers, without even showing the shark for about 100 minutes out of 124 minutes.

The dialogues are good, with a few catchy ones. This one is somewhat similar to a famous dialogue in The Dark Knight: “You yell barracuda… people are like huh? What? You yell shark… then we have a panic on our hands.” All the three lead actors have acted well. Scheider displays fear at the shark, Hooper is somewhat calm, and Quint is ruthless about killing the shark. Yet, this unique mix of characters come together to capture a common enemy.

To conclude, Spielberg’s Jaws is a terrific horror thriller that is a sure entertainer. Excellent acting, camera work and horror/action sequences make this a classic. Along with E.T., Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan etc, this will also rank among this director’s best. After seeing this film, you will certainly refrain from going to the beach for a swim. What Psycho did to motels, Jaws does to beaches.

My Rating: 4.5/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 98%