31 MORE Days, 31 MORE Screams: Day 18 (Jaws)

What? Do I have something on my face?

Look, if I can put spooky comedies on here, I can put semi-spooky shark movies on here. I doubt anyone would contest putting Jaws onto a spooky marathon, though. Even before I'd seen Jaws, I knew things about it. My family was lucky enough to see it in a local theater at the time of its release, and occasionally shared stories about seeing it and being spooked by the guy's head in the boat. Then on the way home, in the dark, being spooked by the family dog. I think I would have caught this on TV sometime, but I couldn't pin down an exact year for you. It's a good one! We're going to do another surface-level dive into why. Pun unintended, but we'll roll with it. I live on an island myself, albeit one much larger than Amity Island. Still, the seaside is a constant companion and I do have a fondness for the ocean and its vistas. Sailing upon a coastal ferry in good weather is its own form of paradise. In that regard, a movie about the secret terror under the sea is especially affecting. Here, then, is Jaws.


It's 1975 and the sexy teens are at it again, drinkin' their beers and smokin' their smokes and going out to skinny dip in the cold ocean at dusk. I just adore the way the beach looks here at sunset; it's dark, but not dark enough that you can't see. It's here, right away, that we get our first glimpses of the terror lurking beneath. All the standard slasher trope stuff is here; the sexy teen, the POV shot of the killer stalking their prey, the terrible terrible death... but it's too early. We're only a year after Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger are dreams which have yet to form. Yet, here we are. This is not a slashing beast. This is a mere Beast, a great white shark stalking the shallow seas. As such, there's no condemnation or revenge angle or anything here. Hell, this girl is the only girl in the movie to die. 15 minutes from now, a goddamn ten year-old boy gets chewed up. A Beast kills indiscriminately, swimming and eating. The first hour of this movie is utterly superb in its horror. Every scene near the water has a tension to it, and you see very little of the shark itself. The glimpses you do catch are enough to horrify as well as tease. This sucker's huge. Despite this just being a Beast, the film gives it a sort of mythic quality. Chief Brody looking up sharks in his shark book is good shorthand for what these sharks can do, but it also makes the thing seem like some ancient beast only recorded in legend. Finally, the powers that be relent. This thing has got to be killed. The hunt is on.


Jaws becomes almost an entirely different movie at around the 70 minute mark, as Brody sets out to sea with Captain Quint and Matt Hooper to hunt down the shark. What we get is a tense sort of cat-and-mouse hunt with them vs. the Beast... and not long after that, we get our first good look at it. It works. Yes, I know what Marty McFly said in 2015. Who gives a good goddamn, this shark still looks good and works. This second movie still works, and its tension is masterful even if it's not a traditional horror film at this point. Quint's tale of the USS Indianapolis is quite well-delivered, utterly chilling, and sort of thematically relevant to that giant lizard movie I was watching a week ago. Things keep going wrong for our heroes, and our Beast is still stalking them with its own mindless determinism. By movie's end, the boat is sinking and Quint's dead, dying not slowly but not painlessly either. This shit looks like it's the goddamn pits. Of course, then the shark explodes. Goddamn. As far as shark explosions go, the thing blew up good. Jaws is quite a good movie, even if I admit to liking the first half a little more than the second. They're not that different, but there's something about that first half that appeals to me a little more. That really isn't a knock on the second half at all, because it's wonderful. This is easily worth a spin for October, even if swimming season is basically done unless you're waaay down south. They say it's a movie that made people afraid to go in the water, and I admire Jaws for being a horror film that's fairly realistic; no supernatural killers, no giant monsters. Just one big pissed-off shark. That's scary, no doubt about it.


Of course, if we go back to the land of make-believe, I can show you something really scary down under the sea...