+1
Yeah, THE iconic summer blockbuster. As a lifelong summer beach goer, it's also my number 2 beach horror being a little bit short of seeing a 100 foot tsunami looming on the horizon. Number 3 is sunburn and number 4 is the moment when everybody runs out of french fries. Hurricanes are easy because you have a several day warning.
Jaws hit all the right notes on this. Since there's no escaping the tsunami, there's no need for a movie. Sharks, however, are a sensible, primal fear and a big shark that can swallow you is more scary than a little one that just removes a foot.
Jaws also hit the right note in the random nature of the fear, like somebody is going to be eaten, it might be you or the people two umbrellas down the beach, or some teens in a late night tryst, as well as the worst parental nightmare, where it's a nice day on the beach, parents want to chill for a while and then all of a sudden, everybody screams, exits the water and one kid is missing. You have some time to know how that's going to turn out.
Jaws is slow, but so were most movies back then. I've never been quite clear on why we need movies to have non-stop action, like the one where 500 hundred sharks attack the beach in a coordinated action and you see 90 minutes of carnage. In Jaws, you have the time to appreciate what's happening, see the desperate woman looking for her kid and you know that this little drama won't have a happy ending. We also see some believable characters and know that the shark hunt is going to take a while.
I think it has stood the test of the decades.
Last edited by skizzerflake; 01-20-22 at 04:16 PM.