PopHorror Let's Get Scared
I’ve been a horror freak since I was a young lad. I’ve been intrigued with the genre for many reasons. I love things from gory slasher films (Friday the 13th), to torture porn (Hostel), to the boogeyman pics (Halloween), to zombie films (Dawn of the Dead), to sci-fi horror (Alien) to psychological horror (Psycho). There’s always been a huge demand for gore-galore in horror. Hell, even I’m a huge proponent for more blood and guts, but gore doesn’t necessarily scare me. What scares me is the psychological torment of the unknown factor. This is referencing the school of “less is more.” In short, I love a great scare. What movie scares me the most? That would be Jaws. So, lets delve into this deeper and destroy the psyche, shall we?
In 1975, there hadn’t been a lot films that disturbed people on a national scale. A few titles that evoked fear in the hearts of people up to this point were: Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist, among a few others. These films scared people to death. They gathered mainstream success, but nothing came close to the fear induced by Jaws after it was released on June 20, 1975 (ironically, the day before summer started), the one that created the title “Summer Blockbuster.” This film blew away the competition in the grandest fashion and it scared the hell out of people. The public at large had been aware of sharks and shark attacks, but nobody had ever captured the terror on film.
Jaws was directed by a somewhat unknown (at the time) director named Steven Spielberg. the film was adapted from Peter Benchley’s terrifying novel of the same name. Jaws has a cast of wonderfully skilled character actors such as Roy Scheider as Chief Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper, Robert Shaw as the wonderfully deranged shark hunter, Quint, and, of course, the killer Great White Shark (aptly named “Bruce” after Spielberg’s lawyer). I’ve always enjoyed good acting in the movies I watch. Unfortunately, good acting and horror don’t always go together. But this not the case with Jaws. Part of the terror in this film is in the fear reactions that the shark instills amongst the townspeople, not only about the brutal killings, but also the sharks mere presence, which, according to marine biologist Hooper, is unnatural in the area.
Another terrifying aspect in this film is the lack of seeing the actual shark until about halfway through the film. The legendary opening scene with Chrissie being killed when she goes for a midnight swim is still, to this day, one of the most terrifying scenes ever captured on film. When she gets pulled under briefly and then comes back up, you hear the pain and suffering in her cries and gurgles. She gets dragged back and forth in painstaking fashion until her demise. You don’t see the shark, which is brilliant because you have to use your imagination to paint a mental picture as to what this shark is doing to this poor girl. It is biting and tearing into flesh and bone while Chrissie is dying a violent, bloody death.
When foes like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees kill you, they usually deliver a death blow that, while horrendously painful, is still brief for the most part. When you have this shark from Jaws killing you, although it may just be a matter of seconds, to the viewer and, more importantly, to the victim, it feels like an eternity. There are a few similar kills in Jaws, and this goes back to my point of “less is more” in the scare factor.
