Shark Week: 24 Hours of the Best and Worst Sharks in Film
Shark Week is a special time of year for a lot of people, but this year it takes on a special significance. This year, Shark Week happens to coincide with our trying to get a blog off the ground. Seeing as What Sleeps Beneath is focused on horror films and Shark Week is focused on...well...sharks, I thought I’d make an event out of it and binge a few shark movies, documenting my journey along the way. And since I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew, I’ve whittled my list down to a breezy 36 flicks. It’s no secret that there is an extreme quality disparity between shark films so in an attempt to not go completely insane, I’ll be viewing these at varying playback speeds which I’ll record as I go in case you want to give this a go yourself (you don’t). Without further ado, let’s dive right in with the granddaddy of shark films and the indisputable heavyweight champion of the same:
#1 Jaws (1975) - Sp. 1x, Run - 2:10
dir. Steven Spielberg
Like anyone who’s summited Mt. Everest can attest (disclosure, I definitely have not), I’m feeling pretty good about my climb down here from base camp. Jaws is an untouchable classic and there isn’t much more I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. This is the anchor against which all others on this list will be compared and which assuredly, all others will fall short.
Amity is a quaint little beach town that lives and dies by its summer tourism industry. Chief of Police Martin Brody, the new guy in town, is looking to live the quiet life in a town in which he can make a difference. It doesn’t take long for the introduction of the first victim, and Spielberg uses these first few scenes as one of the best examples of what it means to “show, don't tell” ever put on film. Brody tries to navigate the station and town, his big city police instincts churning as he deals with the unexpected discovery of a dead body on the beach, but is incessantly bombarded with Fourth of July preparations, overzealous karate students, abandoned vehicles inconveniently parked, and his heading a police force entirely ill equipped at dealing with a beach closure. In a single scene, we are immediately blanketed in life on Amity Island, their sense of security and day-to-day priorities, even (in the case of the mayor) in the face of imminent danger.
The coroner’s report indicates a shark attack but Brody’s attempt at closing the beach is vetoed by the mayor and as the chief is bothered with more small-town minutiae, little Alex Kintner gets chomped. A town hall is convened and again, the mayor overrules Brody, agreeing only to close the beach for a lousy 24 hours. Even this is too much for the townsfolk, whose biggest concern is business. Never mind that two people are dead. At this point, if I were Brody, I would be prepared to throw this mayor under the bus so fast.
Part of the brilliance of Jaws is in the fine details. Every scene has so much going on, there’s not a wasted frame throughout. There is a constant struggle between Brody’s determination to do his job, and with his understaffed police force and lack of agency given him by the mayor. Never are we introduced to new characters like Quint and Matt Hooper in a vacuum; the introductions come as part of a bigger, more frantic scene that reinforces the conflict, not with the shark, but with Amity Island itself. More so than the shark, the true terror of Jaws exists between the lines, in the buildup of tension and Brody’s helplessness in the situation. I could talk for hours, going scene by scene, about what makes Jaws so great. But seeing as I’ve got a lot more sharks to go, I’ll end this discussion with my favorite scene and favorite line of the film, as Quint recounts his experience after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, “You know the thing about a shark, he’s got...lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”
#2 Jaws 2 (1978) - Sp. 1.5x, Run - 1:17
dir. Jeannot Szwarc
I’m not terribly ashamed to admit that as many times as I’ve seen Jaws, I have never actually seen any of its sequels. I knew they could never hold a candle to the original, so I just never bothered. What I didn’t expect was how fast the quality could plummet from one to the next.
Jaws 2 opens with Chief Brody wolf-whistling at a teenage girl. This probably played differently in 1978 but uh, it’s 2019 now. Not to be outdone, a full 20 minutes into the followup to one of the greatest films ever created, there is yet to be a scene that isn’t focused on sex one way or another. After getting most of our hormones on display, we’re treated to some watersports. This rather long sequence is, I think, meant to show us how the town has moved beyond the tragedy a few years back, but as we watch a guy parasailing, I can’t help but think that they’re fly-fishing for the shark. As lucky as that guy is for surviving though, I laughed out loud when the water-skier got sucked under the waves at 1.5x speed. I’m not upset about it. As I process what I just saw, a brutal battle takes place on the boat that just lost its tow and before I know what’s happening, the whole boat explodes. Like, I get that we exploded the shark at the climax of the first movie, but it’s a little early for callbacks, isn’t it? In any case, this shark survives.
For breakfast at the Brody’s, a shameless Cheerios product placement at the expense of Froot Loops, which I’m sure had the guys at Kellogg’s rolling, and then nothing of note really happens until we get a bunch of exposition telling us it’s time to pay attention. Seriously, we get the whole story explained to us. Honestly, while I was penning my love letter to the writing on Jaws above, I had no idea this is what I had in store for me, this early into the marathon. I think I may have gotten in over my head.
Next we finally get a firsthand look at Brody’s PTSD in the form of his discharging his revolver into the water with a child directly in his line of fire. What??? They could have chosen to do this in any number of ways and they all would have been better than this. What a strange writing decision. In any case, we can consider Brody’s credibility all but shot at this point. And yet, If Mayor Larry downplays this again, you’ve got to think they’d remove him as mayor, right? Right?
Mike does teenage things and sneaks out to go sailing with his friends and his kid brother Sean tags along. The shark sharks them and they are in a bad way. Mike gets injured pretty severely and with the one functioning boat, they take Mike to a doctor. But they leave his 10-year-old brother in the middle of the ocean on a capsized boat hull. Tension abounds while we see how many get themselves chomped but all is well when they’re spotted and rescued by the world’s only Amish helicopter pilot. Oh shoot! The shark chomps the chopper! Stay tuned, because aircraft will fall victim to these wily fish more often than you might think. Luckily, though, Brody eventually does come to the rescue and defeats the shark with his Chekhov’s gun in the form of an undersea power cable. And as the shark’s skin burns for the second time in the movie, a collective clucking can be heard from Amity Island as a power outage ruins another tourism season.
#3 Jaws 3-D (1981) - Sp. 2x, Run - 50 min
dir. Joe Alves
To call myself unprepared for Jaws 2 pales in comparison to my thoughts on the opening of Jaws 3. We open with an underwater scene that climaxes in a ghostly fish head that, due to the blue screen effects used for many of the 3D stunts, has got to be the worst CGI I’ve ever seen—editor’s note: we’ve only just begun. The title sequence itself is peak 1980s 3D fare, using zooming effects to convince the audience they got their money’s worth.
We’re starting to cruise now at 2x speed so for a lot of the dialogue, I’m going to need to rely on captions to have a chance at comprehending. Right off the bat, I swear the subtitles call this girl “Hottest Girl.” I won’t go back to confirm, I’m just running with it. Chief Brody has finally met his match, so it’s up to Mike to take up the mantle, as Lord knows we couldn’t be bothered to move on to a different family. How Mike doesn’t pack up his trauma and move to Kansas is beyond me, but here he is, working with marine life. I don’t foresee any problems coming from this particular career path. Meanwhile, under the sea, this diver is on SeaWorld sea-curity duty, locking up the SeaGate from the outside for unknown reasons and keeps swiveling his head like he can hear the shark’s footsteps creeping up on him. Can’t fault his instincts, though, because he was right, and we get the least climactic shark death ever, culminating in a floating limb that I hope to God looked better in 3D.
“People are getting chomped and trapped in underwater tunnels and a diver gets assaulted by a shark tongue while being swallowed whole.”
At least one member of the Brody family is sane because it looks like Sean went to Colorado (which is right next to Kansas so I’ll count that as a win for me). Fun fact: Joe Alves, the director, helped build Bruce, the mechanical shark from the original film. That effect was created under the direction of Bob Mattey, who also built the incredible giant squid scene in 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
If Bob and Joe stayed in touch after ’75, I sincerely hope Bob suckerpunched him after he saw what Joe did with this awful submarine that Mike cruises around in. What’s worse is that there was actually a practical vehicle they sat in anyway, so just put that guy on wires and give yourself some credit.
A pair of dolphins give the humans warning after warning—even the moray eel is going “get out of here, morons”—but Mike doesn’t get the hint until a battering-shark rams into the shipwreck and then backs straight up, as sharks do. Luckily the dolphins stick around and drag Mike and Kay to safety, where some quick action (especially at double speed) gives us another look at the battering-shark ramming the gate. SeaWorld is business as usual until a rotting corpse is spotted in a window, which is truly an amazing moment sped up. Highly recommended.
The third act is a blur. Mike goes nuts and starts screaming and almost runs a girl over as he runs his boat aground, Kelly’s bleeding, Sean’s having flashbacks, people are getting chomped and trapped in underwater tunnels and a diver gets assaulted by a shark tongue while being swallowed whole.
Then the control room happens. I can’t get the control room attack out of my mind. This scene makes me viscerally angry when I think about how they are using the franchise in this way. Had this movie been called anything other than Jaws, I might think it’s kinda fun. But as it stands, I hate it more than anyone has any right to hate a movie.
#4 Jaws: The Revenge (1987) - Sp. 2.5x, Run - 36 min
dir. Joseph Sargent
This is the second film in a row now that opens to a dead fish head. I pray that Joe Sargent wasn’t going for a sly reference here because trust me, Jaws 3 is not the movie you want people to be recalling right now. I’m still angry. We still haven’t moved past the Brody family and they are still interacting with the ocean. This time, Sean has decided to take his turn at the seaside police officer because with his family’s history, it’s just the smart thing to do. He gets chomped. In response, Ellen Brody goes to visit Michael in the Bahamas because what she really needs in this time of mourning is a vacation by the ocean.
Michael Caine spends his time seducing Mrs. Brody while Michael continues his marine biology work, undeterred by the fact that he’s a walking shark-magnet at this point. Unsurprisingly, the shark rears its ugly head and Mike’s response is: “Don’t tell my mom.” That backfires. This is how Michael indirectly serves his daughter up on a platter since no one knows what’s going on, and how there are now three full generations of Brodys who ought to be in therapy for the rest of their ocean-faring lives.
Ellen decides the only course of action is to take a boat out by herself and fight the shark mano-a-mano. Michael Caine swoops in from the sky in the nick of time in a not-sea plane and crash lands in shark-infested waters, killing them all. Except nuh-uh because nothing matters. They kill the shark and everyone lives, even Jake—despite his having a lengthy and elaborate death scene. Ugh.
Article Written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
Throughout the decades, slasher film villains have had their fair share of bizarre motivations for committing violence. In Jamie Langlands’s The R.I.P Man, killer Alden Pick gathers the teeth of his victims to put in his own toothless mouth in deference to an obscure medieval Italian clan of misfits.