- Directed by Steven Spielberg
- Written by Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
- Stars Roy Schieder, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 4 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pxkU9GVAoA
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
Afraid to go in the water? No? You might be after watching this thriller. It’s well made, well acted, and the practical special effects still hold up as realistic. Plus it has an iconic soundtrack.
Synopsis
Hippies on the beach at night. Chrissy wants to go swimming, but her boyfriend can’t keep up. She swims out to the buoy while he fights to get his shirt off and passes out. Something under the water grabs her and drags her around like a doll. She screams, but no one hears her. Then she disappears. All is quiet.
Chief of Police Martin Brody is fairly new in the town of Amity. It’s a resort island preparing for their 4th of July celebration. They soon find Chrissy’s body on the beach, half-eaten. He orders the beaches closed, which gets the mayor on his case right away. “Amity is a summer town; we need summer dollars,” he explains. He wants to cover it up.
Later in the day, it’s business as usual at the beach with swimmers everywhere. Brody is from New York, and he doesn’t like the ocean or sharks, so he starts seeing sharks everywhere. Brody watches as a kid on an inflatable raft erupts in blood and disappears. There’s no arguing about a shark now. The boy’s mother posts a large reward for the man who kills the shark.
There’s a town meeting, and an old fisherman named Quint says he’ll save the town and bring in that shark for a whole lot more money than they’re offering. The mayor says he’ll think about it. Soon, the town is swarming with fisherman and shark hunters. One of these is Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute, a shark expert.
The fishermen bring in a large shark. Everyone is thrilled. Happy ending! But Hooper thinks it’s way too small to be the one that attacked the girl. Hooper cuts it open, and there’s no body parts inside; it’s the wrong shark. They go out that night on Hooper’s boat and find another boat that’s been attacked by the big shark. The mayor, of course, is still in denial— and the tourists are arriving in droves.
It’s the Fourth of July, and the beaches are packed. At first, no one wants to go in the water, but the mayor convinces a few people to do it. Before long, they’re all in there splashing around. They all panic and stampede when a fin is spotted, but it’s just a couple of kids playing a practical joke.
The actual shark is on the other side of the beach in the pond. It eats a man, and we get the first glimpse of how big the shark really is. Brody talks the mayor into hiring Quint to kill it.
Quint wants to go alone, but Brody and Hooper insist on accompanying him. Quint laughs at Hooper’s array of equipment; he likes to kill sharks the old-fashioned way; the two clash right away. Quint is a colorful character, to say the least.
Before long, they find the beast. Brody spots it first, saying, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” They tag the shark with one barrel, but it gets away. That night they all sit around drinking and comparing scars and stories until the shark returns.
They do battle with the shark, and the shark pretty much wrecks the boat. Hooper sets up his shark cage and goes down to try and poison the shark. That goes badly when the shark eats the cage.
Next the shark jumps onto the boat, and Quint slides right down its throat. Brody’s all alone on the sinking boat now, but the shark wants him too. Brody throws an air tank at it, and it tries to eat that too. It makes a final charge at Brody, who shoots the air tank, blowing the big fish into a million bits.
Hooper surfaces; he had only been hiding on the ocean floor. The two men then paddle back to the beach.
Commentary
We hadn’t really given this one much thought as a “horror film,” it always seemed more of a summer blockbuster or action-thriller to me. Still, if we’re counting the number of nightmares and phobias caused by a film, this has to be up near the top of the list. It’s also got another one of those iconic soundtracks that even people who haven’t seen the film will recognize. The shark is so realistic that it’s hard to believe that it was a robotic puppet.
The action scenes are exciting, the suspense is excellent, and even the quiet, talky segments are fascinating. The characters and actors are perfect, and the casting couldn’t be any better. It’s just about the perfect movie, horror or otherwise.
Still, they shoulda got a bigger boat.