Like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue, something is coming for you

A Whole New Set of Jaws

We’ve all heard the theme (duh-nuh…duh-nuh). Maybe in a pool somewhere, a sibling teased you with a fake shark fin while his friend hummed the theme. Or maybe you’ve used it yourself for sneaking up on someone. It’s embedded in pop culture, used in many different ways since its first inception. But still, there’s something about that theme, the sound of the bow on those strings, which, even to this day, makes people uneasy. I am, of course, talking about the Jaws theme, composed by John Williams for Steven Spielberg’s shark attack tale, Jaws.

Like a lot of people, I’m sure, the first time I saw the movie I wasn’t exactly supposed to. It’s understandable; it’s a shark movie with a lot of violence, swearing and gore. But I was a kid, I liked sharks, and I liked movies, so of course I managed to see it without my parents knowing. I’m not going to lie, it was the music, sound, and anticipation of an attack that scared me more than the actual shark attack, which is what is supposed to happen in a thriller. The film really does a good job at creating suspense, not just through the theme. The shots from the shark’s point of view added on to the feeling and, what really got me, the lack of sound in some parts, just before the theme even started playing did as well. The shark wasn’t that scary, it was the suspense that really got you.

There is, however, no reason for suspense without good characters, otherwise we’d root for the shark. The acting of Roy Scheider as Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper and Robert Shaw as Quint made the film much more personable. Each played their part very well, and the three working together made their interactions, as characters, seem real and you emphasized with them: you wanted them to get the shark; you wanted them to succeed; you didn’t want the shark to kill anymore.

Way back in 1975, when the film first premiered, it was a box office hit. The movie began the age of the blockbuster and was based on the book by Peter Benchley. People thought it was scary and gruesome; some even thought it should have a harsher rating than PG. Nowadays, with all the things my generation has been shown, Jaws isn’t as scary as it had been made now. Despite the techniques I’m used to now–excessive gore, violence, etc.–Jaws is still a good thriller. I know I prefer to let my imagination do a lot of work, so I was happy to see that the shark was only shown a couple of times (although that was, in part, because of the look of the mechanical shark). That isn’t to say there isn’t any gore, because there definitely was (people are dying after all), but the movie doesn’t just rely on shock. It’s focused more on creating terror through suspense.

Jaws did well enough to spawn other sequels (including a 3D one), and even a ride at Universal Studios. People of the Jaws era, I’m sure, were scared to go into the water when they saw it, and I just want to let people of this era know that the film is definitely worth watching. Maybe it will scare you, maybe it won’t, but one thing’s for sure, you won’t know why they’re gonna need a bigger boat until you watch.