31 Days of Spooky Movies: Jaws

Day #22b

Jaws

(1975)

Greed and under-handed politics allow a rogue shark to cause the deaths of multiple people in a New England resort town.

Fright Factor:

1 / 5 Selfish Politicians

Gore Factor:
1.8 / 5 Aquatic Robo-Maulings

Should You Watch It?

The first thing you should know about Jaws is that it is was made over 40 years old.

The second thing you should know about Jaws is that is was originally going to be a more stereotypical horror movie, but later became a more character driven piece because they weren’t capable of making a decent enough shark.

So yeah, it’s not a very scary movie these days.

The film certainly tries to demonize sharks, but it’s all just so silly. If you know anything about sharks you’ll know that the movie is totally talking out of its ass most of the time.


But here’s the thing though: Jaws is kind of creepy, but not because of the shark. Jaws is creepy because of its accurate and biting portrayal of a different sort of alpha predators: Politicians.

Okay, so hear me out here as I describe the basic flow of the movie. [Spoiler alerts, I guess?]

So a young girl gets killed in a shark attack. It was a freak thing and it’s a tragedy. The chief of police is like, Fuck! We gotta deal with this before anyone else gets hurt. Let’s close the beaches until we deal with this problem.

The Mayor and his goon squad are like, No. No way! This is prime money season here. If we close the beaches people will be pissed at me and never re-elect me. We’re gonna do nothing, you’re especially gonna do nothing, and maybe the problem will just go away.

Okie dokie, says the dumbass police chief (Aka the hero(?) of the movie).

Well guess the fuck what?! The shark that they did NOTHING about? It kills enough people that the Mayor is finally forced to do something about it, so he puts a drunken shark-hating fisherman, shark-expert Richard Dreyfus, and the boot-licking pushover chief of police on a boat and sends them to go kill the shark.

All the while that mayor and his cronies are safe on dry land and they let the chief take the blame for not taking proper safety precautions.


And people watched this movie and somehow came away with, OMG sharks are like so totally scary!

What. The. Fuck.

If anything the takeaway from this movie should be that elected officials are selfish pricks who will gladly sell out the lives of everyday folks if it means making money / staying in power.

THAT’S the part of Jaws that’s scary.

So Jaws is not a movie to watch if you want to be freak yourself out and have an excuse to cuddle with a hottie.

That being said, Jaws is a pop-culture powerhouse. Even today this movie is referenced EVERYWHERE. So even if it’s not gonna freak you out, I still think it’s worth a watch if only so you can see the influence it’s had and the many references to it floating around out there.

Just know that politicians are far more scary than sharks will ever be.

“Where are we going?”

“Swimming.”