THE HORROR JAR:  JAWS movies

By Michael Arruda

 

Welcome to another edition of THE HORROR JAR, that column where we feature lists of odds and ends about horror movies.  Today, since we’re smack dab in the middle of summer, we look at the JAWS series.

Now, I love JAWS just as much as the next guy.  In fact, JAWS (1975) is one of my all-time favorite movies.  But I think it’s sufficient to say that in spite of the film’s success, it’s a film that should have been a stand-alone movie.  All of its sequels are unnecessary.

Seriously, if you really wanted to continue the story of JAWS, you would have followed the surviving characters from the first movie, Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and any believable story worth its salt wouldn’t have featured a giant shark since what are the odds of that ever happening again?  And I don’t think people would have paid money to see Brody take on another island issue, or Hooper battling a giant eel for example.  JAWS was about a killer shark, and unless Brody and Hooper were going into business as “Shark-Busters” writers would be hard pressed to write a believable second story about these two tangling with a monster shark.

Now, I actually like JAWS 2 (1978) because it does feature Roy Scheider again as Chief Brody who does cross paths again with a monster shark, and JAWS 2 is a fun movie, but it’s certainly not very believable.  A second killer shark returns to the same beach a few years later?  And if you read between the lines it’s come back because it’s seeking vengeance for the first shark’s death?  Seriously?

The next two films in the series JAWS 3 (1983) and JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987) are flat out awful, and the idea that sharks have it in for the Brody family just never really works.

So, here they are, the JAWS movies:

 

JAWS (1975)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gotlieb, based on Benchley’s novel, Jaws.

Music by John Williams

Brody:  Roy Scheider

Quint:  Robert Shaw

Hooper:  Richard Dreyfuss

Ellen Brody:  Lorraine Gary

Mayor Vaughn:  Murray Hamilton

Running Time:  124 minutes

 

The perfect summer horror movie, JAWS has become one of the most iconic movies ever made, chock full of memorable characters and memorable lines.  You’re going to need a bigger boat.  It also has one very hungry shark.  Directed by a 25 year-old Steven Spielberg, this intense frightening film is that rare example of a movie being better than the book on which it is based.  I saw this at the movies when I was just 11 years old and it scared the stuffing out of me!  Excellent movie, one of the best sea adventure/horror movies ever made, and it remains just as powerful today as it first did in 1975.  Iconic music score by John Williams, probably his best ever.

 

 

JAWS 2 (1978)

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Screenplay by Carl Gotlieb and Howard Sackler

Music by John Williams

Brody:  Roy Scheider

Ellen Brody:  Lorraine Gary

Mayor Vaughn:  Murray Hamilton

Running Time:  116 minutes

 

Sequel has Chief Brody once again tangling with a killer shark on Amity Island, this time without help from Richard Dreyfuss’ Hooper and Robert Shaw’s Quint, and so this one is about  one third of the fun.  Shark scenes are still rather effective, but gone is Spielberg’s “less is more” style from the first movie.  We see an awful lot of the shark in this one, and that’s not always a good thing.  And the story about a monster shark returning to Amity a few years after the events of the first film, and to have the mayor still argue to keep the beaches open, is simply not very believable.

 

 

JAWS 3-D (1983)

Directed by Joe Alves

Screenplay by Richard Matheson and Carl Gotlieb

Music by Alan Parker

Mike Brody:  Dennis Quaid

Kay Morgan:  Bess Armstrong

Calvin Bouchard:  Louis Gossett, Jr.

Running Time: 99 minutes

 

The grown-up sons of Chief Brody take on a killer shark at a Sea World type theme park in Florida.  Skip this nonsense and watch REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (1955) instead.  The Creature film did a much better job with a similar plot.  This one features a ridiculous story— I still can’t believe that Richard Matheson co-wrote this!— awful characters, and some of the worst 3D effects ever seen in a movie.

 

 

JAWS:  THE REVENGE (1987)

Directed by Joseph Sargent

Screenplay by Michael De Guzman

Music by Michael Small

Ellen Brody:  Lorraine Gary

Hoagie:  Michael Caine

Michael Brody:  Lance Guest

Jake:  Mario Van Peebles

Running Time:  89 minutes

 

The worst of the series.  It’s hard to believe there could be a movie worse than JAWS 3-D, but this film is proof that there is.  Lorraine Gary returns as Ellen Brody and teams with Michael Caine playing a man named Hoagie— is he to become a shark sandwich?— as they try to save her sons from a— you guessed it, a monster shark— who has it in for the Brody family.  The sharks have taken note, I guess, that Chief Brody killed two of their own.  This one features the absolute worst ending of the series, one of the most abrupt and silly endings of any horror movie period.  The most memorable part of JAWS:  THE REVENGE is the true story that Michael Caine skipped the Oscars on the night he won Best Supporting Actor for Woody Allen’s HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) because he was filming JAWS:  THE REVENGE.  Life is cruel.

 

JAWS is one of the best movies ever made, so good you can watch it year after year and it still holds up.  It’s a four star movie.

But its sequels are not.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael