FRIGHT FEST REVIEW: JAWS

"You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."

"This was no boat accident!"

"I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!"

"Beaches Closed - No Swimming. By the Order of the Amity PD".

"You're gonna need a bigger boat"


JAWS!!!!! Looking back it's not hard to imagine why it became the first ever summer blockbuster.

As directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws is the story of a rogue great White that stakes a claim off the shores of Amity Island during the summer tourist season. As people begin to disapear under bloody waves, the town of Amity panics and turns to Sherrif Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Salty Sea Dawrg Quint (Robert Shaw), and Marine Biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) in hopes that they can rid the once peaceful town of it's great white sized problem.

For most of the film the shark remains unseen due to an unreliable shark anamatronic (Speilberg dubbed it Bruce, after his Lawyer). This stroke of seemingly bad luck ended up benefiting the film in the long run, rendering the initial shark attacks all the more terrifying as we can only see what is happenning above water, leaving the carnage occurring underneath the waves to the viewers imagination.

Another benefit of Bruce's refusal to work properly was that the film had to rely on a solid soundtrack (done by the amazing John Williams) to let the audience know where the shark was at just about all times. To this day that iconic Dun-Dun score is just as unforgettable and recognizeable as ever.

Jaws also has superb performances all around. Murray Hamilton is great as the money-hungry mayor that willingly serves up the islanders as snack food, Roy Scheider is perfect as the concerned Sherrif of Amity that spends the first half of the film trying (unsuccessfully) to warn the town of the impending danger, Robert Shaw is also perfect as the salty shark hunter Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss does a wonderful performance as the nerdy shark enthusiast that is called on for some extra help.

Although it has been only 35 years since the film was released, it has not aged a bit. The terror created in the film is just as strong today as it was the day the film was released, probably because the fear of not knowing what is swimming with you when you step into the big blue is a universal one.

Aided by a great score, amazing performances, a pretty darned cool shark (when it was working), and some smart character development ( one example: Brody is terrified of water)... it isn't hard to see why JAWS has becoime the beloved classic it is known as today. And after all these years, it still carries the power to make you think twice before running carelessly into those waves.

5/5 Stars: BETTER THAN SEX