Review: It’s remarkable that after almost forty years after Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws tore up box offices across the globe, a veritable slew of cheapo shark movies are still gnashing their way across screens in ever more ridiculous scenarios and hybrids. Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) is just one in a series of production line monster movies churned out by the prolific Nu Image...
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon – USA, 2002
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The Shark is Still Working – USA, 2009
The Shark is Still Working is a 2009 feature-length documentary film on the impact and legacy of the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster film Jaws. It features interviews with a range of cast and crew from the film. It is narrated by Roy Scheider and dedicated to Peter Benchley. The documentary was produced by Jaws fans over a seven-year period, building on Laurent Bouzereau’.
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Legend Horror Classics – magazine
Legend Horror Classics was a British magazine published by Legend Publishing and which ran for thirteen issues between 1974 and 1975. The magazine was very much a second fiddle imitation of Monster Mag, being a format that opened out to feature a large horror “pin-up” poster. Interestingly though, it arguably predicted Monster Mag follow-up House of Hammer, having a mix of comic strips...
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‘Pink Plasma’– Episode of The Pink Panther and Friends
‘Pink Plasma’ is a six minute 1975 animated episode of The Pink Panther and Friends directed by Art Leonardi from a story by John W. Dunn. It was produced by Mirisch Films and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. Plot teaser: On vacation in Transylvania, The Pink Panther stops to spend a night at what he believes to be a traveller’s lodge. However, it is in reality a vampire’.
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Jaws-inspired magazines
In the wake of the phenomenal box office success of Jaws and Jaws 2 a worldwide fascination with sharks developed rapidly. Whilst Universal Pictures lawyers’ made sure that many cinematic Jaws pretenders – such as Italian copy Great White – were soon legally dead in the water, they couldn’t prevent a plethora of media interest in sharks in general via newspaper articles...
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Jaws board game
‘If you want to stay alive, then ante up!’ Jaws is a new officially-licensed board game from Prospero Hall and Ravensburger for two to four players aged 12 and up. As in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster movie, the Jaws board game is divided into two major acts. Act 1: Amity Island: The first act involves the player that is controlling the shark to terrorise Amity Island by attacking...
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Jaws Funko Pop! vinyl and ReAction figures
‘Whatever you do, don’t go in the water!’ Funko has announced a new set of Pop! Vinyl figures at the New York Toy Fair. “Celebrate the 1975 classic film that continues to terrify beachgoers 44 years later with: Pop! Chief Brody Pop! consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper Pop! shark hunter Quint 6″ Pop! Jaws 6″ Pop! Jaws with a diving tank in his mouth.”.
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Jaws – USA, 1975 – reviews and 45th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD news
Jaws 45th-anniversary limited edition 4K Ultra HD release specs have been revealed by Universal, for a release dated on June 2nd 2020.
In addition to a Blu-ray and Digital copy, the package includes lenticular packaging and a 44-page booklet with introductions, rare photos, storyboards and more archival content. Order via Amazon.com
Special features from the previous Blu-ray are included:
- The Making of Jaws – 1995 feature-length documentary with cast and crew
- The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy of Jaws – 2007 feature-length documentary with cast and crew
- Jaws: The Restoration – 2012 featurette
- From the Set – Vintage featurette
- Deleted scenes and outtakes
- Theatrical trailer
- Storyboard gallery (Blu-ray only)
- Production photo gallery (Blu-ray only)
- Marketing Jaws gallery (Blu-ray only)
- Jaws Phenomenon gallery (Blu-ray only)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror thriller feature film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name. The prototypical summer, blockbuster its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history.
The film stars Roy Scheider (The Curse of the Living Corpse) as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw (A Reflection of Fear) as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody’s wife, Ellen. The screenplay is credited to both Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Plot:
giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter.
Shot mostly on location on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department’s mechanical sharks suffered many malfunctions, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the animal’s presence, employing an ominous, minimalistic theme created by composer John Williams to indicate the shark’s impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of classic thriller director Alfred Hitchcock.
Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.
Generally well-received by critics, Jaws became the highest-grossing film in history at the time. It won several awards for its soundtrack and editing, and it is often cited as one of the greatest films of all time. Along with 1977’s Star Wars, Jaws was pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which revolves around blockbuster action and adventure pictures with simple “high-concept” premises that are released in the summer at thousands of theaters and supported by heavy advertising. It was followed by three inferior sequels, none with the participation of Spielberg or Benchley, and many imitative thrillers.
Reviews [click links to read more]:
“The characterisation is precise and acutely observed (it’s one of the great guys-on-a-mission flicks), the dialogue is witty and wise, and the plot fits together like a finely crafted watch. The performances – not just leads, but the kids, townsfolk and the grief-stricken mother too – are impeccable. Best of all is Steven Spielberg’s direction…” Time Out
“Jaws is too gruesome for children and likely to turn the stomach of the impressionable at any age. … It is a coarse-grained and exploitative work which depends on excess for its impact. Ashore it is a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written.”Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1975
“Spielberg is blessed with a talent that is absurdly absent from most American filmmakers these days: this man actually knows how to tell a story on screen. … It speaks well of this director’s gifts that some of the most frightening sequences in Jaws are those where we don’t even see the shark.” New Times magazine
“Mr. Spielberg has so effectively spaced out the shocks that by the time we reach the spectacular final confrontation between the three men and the great white shark, we totally accept the makebelieve on its own foolishly entertaining terms.” New York Times, June 21, 1975
“The familiar musical theme by John Williams is not a shrieker, but low and insinuating. It’s often heard during point-of-view shots, at water level and below, that are another way Spielberg suggests the shark without showing it. The cinematography, by Bill Butler, is at pains to tell the story in the midst of middle-class America; if Spielberg’s favorite location would become the suburbs, “Jaws” shows suburbanites on vacation.” Roger Ebert,
” …despite genuinely suspenseful and frightening sequences, it is a slackly narrated and sometimes flatly handled thriller with an over-abundance of dialogue and, when it finally appears, a pretty unconvincing monster.” James Halliwell, Halliwell’s Film Guide
Offline reading:
Jaws – BFI Classics by Antonia Quirke, British Film Institute, UK, 2002 – available from Amazon.co.uk
The Jaws Log: Expanded Edition by Carl Gottlieb, 2012 – available from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
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Big Terror Movie Themes – UK, 1976
Big Terror Movie Themes is a 1976 British album by Geoff Love and His Orchestra, featuring a collection of ‘cover’ versions of horror, thriller and disaster film music. Love produced …
Continue reading Big Terror Movie Themes – UK, 1976 at MOVIES and MANIA.
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The Game of Jaws – board game, 1975
The Game of Jaws is a 1975 board game by Ideal. The game is based on the blockbuster film of the same name. Similar in many ways to the game Buckaroo, this was a …
Continue reading The Game of Jaws – board game, 1975 at MOVIES and MANIA.
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Sharksploitation! 136 films from Jaws to now
Ever since Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster was unleashed in June 1975 there have been minor waves of sharksploitation movies. Following a dribble of Jaws imitators in the 80s and 90s, including …
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SHARKSPLOITATION (2023) Reviews of Shudder documentary
‘A documentary that goes into the Jaws of Hollywood’ Sharksploitation is a 2023 American documentary that traces the legacy of Jaws and how an action horror subgenre has developed. Written …
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