Last month I watched Jaws with the same buddy Keith I mentioned watching this, this, and this with and he asked if I’d write a review for it. I said “If there’s a current monster movie about to come out that I wanna write about, sure!”

Considering there are three movies mentioned in the review for Midsommar, those were much more obvious choices to complement it with but I decided that, instead of pairing Jaws with another monster movie, I’d pair it with another horror movie focused on a summer celebration.

This was my third time watching Jaws and it gets better every time. While Midsommar is the type of horror movie that makes a profit off of its low budget and (if it’s lucky) gets a bunch of Spirit Awards nominations and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, Jaws is a bona fide summer blockbuster. In fact, it was the original summer blockbuster. It really blew away studios’ expectations of how much a movie could make, as it dominated the box office in a way nothing had since Gone With The Wind (and I’ve discussed why that can never be topped). It led to what we’ve had ever since, with studios trying to cram all the popcorn flicks they can into those warm months, hoping to get that lucrative blockbuster money. It also got a well-deserved Best Picture nomination, although not one for Best Director. The news cameras at Spielberg’s house to capture his reaction to his nomination instead got to capture the wunderkind saying “I got beat out by Fellini!”

The film still kick started Spielberg’s beyond legendary career though. 40+ years later, it has demonstrated its timelessness; its popularity will outlast Spielberg himself, not to mention all the rest of us.

Perhaps the biggest testament to its timelessness is that, even though the iconic John Williams theme has been used so much for parody, the scenes featuring it in Jaws remain terrifying. The cinematography certainly helps with that too!

The plot, for anyone who somehow doesn’t know, is that a shark is terrorizing a New England beach leading up to the 4^th of July weekend. Despite reasons for concern, the mayor wants any discussions of the shark silenced so as not to risk losing that holiday weekend tourism revenue that essentially funds the town all year.

The lead performances are all outstanding and it’s a shame and a disappointment that Oscar campaigns for all three were unsuccessful. Roy Scheider plays Brody, the police chief who wants more than anything to do his job right and protect the town but discovers that sometimes the path to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. Richard Dreyfuss plays Hooper, a scientist intrigued by the adventure who realizes he’s in way over his head. Robert Shaw plays Quint, a Irish bounty hunter proving to be a loose cannon.

They’re so different from each other – textbook examples of stoic, nerdy, and vicious – yet don’t ever feel like stereotypes. They don’t even ever feel like less than three-dimensional humans. In fact, their collective bromance on the ship is the film’s best part, as it does so much more to get us invested in their ordeal.

Of course, some would argue that the film’s real star is Bruce, the mechanical shark playing the title character. Famously, Bruce wouldn’t work for most of the movie so they had to hold off on actually showing him until the end. Some Spielberg haters (and when he’s this commercially successful of course he’ll have his share) have said he wound up with a great movie accidentally, as the difficulties with the robot forced Spielberg to build the tension by keeping him unseen.

Not buying that. Remember that this was Spielberg’s second horror thriller, the first being his exemplary debut, the TV movie Duel. In that movie’s scariest hook, the murderous cab driver is never seen. While it’s true we would have seen more of the shark but for the technical issues, I’m 100% certain Spielberg would have kept it concealed enough to provide us amazing tension. Let’s also remember he grew up idolizing Hitchcock, “The Master of Suspense”, so much so that as a youth he snuck onto the Universal lot in order to meet Hitchcock in the latter’s office.* Hitchcock is the one who famously said that if a bomb is underneath a table, the fear comes not from the bomb exploding but from waiting for it to explode.**

All of that said, I do agree it worked out for the best. The terror when we first see the monster in full is magnificent, especially when followed by Chief Brody’s iconic line “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” It was at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery I watched this with Keith and you should have heard the crowd’s reaction to that sentence!

I realized that, by directing an absolute classic of a horror movie, and then moving on as hacks directed three lambasted sequels, Spielberg with Jaws completely imitated his idol with Psycho.

Can’t blame Universal for milking the Jaws franchise for all it’s worth though, and I don’t just say that because they’re my former (and hopefully future) employer. In a world where Deep Blue Sea is getting 20^th anniversary screenings this year (if anyone goes to one I’m genuinely curious to know how it holds up!) and the Sharknado franchise has developed such a cult following, people clearly dig shark movies.

There will only ever be one Jaws though. Should be required summer viewing!

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.

Bottom line: Do you really need to be told to watch Jaws?!

*I learned that on a tour of the Universal lot during my time working there. During a different part of the tour, we got to be threatened by Jaws!

**Someone once sent that quote to Roger Ebert’s “Answer Man” column and asked if he could think of a movie where the bomb never fully went off. He couldn’t, but I can. John Carpenter’s The Thing!